Ubiquitous decision support systems and their impact on users’ online decision-making

Citation

Chang Lee, K. (2013), "Ubiquitous decision support systems and their impact on users’ online decision-making", Online Information Review, Vol. 37 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2013.26437aaa.002

Ubiquitous decision support systems and their impact on users’ online decision-making

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Online Information Review, Volume 37, Issue 1

It is no surprise that all kinds of cutting-edge online devices are reshaping our daily lives, from personal communication and job activities to business-to-business commerce. As Mark Weiser (who coined the term “ubiquitous computing” in 1988) anticipated decades ago, a true sense of the ubiquitous computing era has arrived and now moulds our lives. What matters most in this age of ubiquitous computing is that online devices allow users to access the internet, whenever necessary, in the process of decision making. This simple fact, which looks quite natural from the ubiquitous perspective, holds crucial implications as to how we try to resolve our decision-making tasks, and how we cope with various forms of Ubiquitous Decision Support Systems (UDSS). Since UDSS is very good at allowing users to obtain more reliable and timely information, specified as location-based and context-aware recommendations, context-prediction and so forth, users increasingly rely on the online information provided by UDSS to make better decisions. Smart phones, for instance, are second nature among those who want to remain connected online with their friends and colleagues, regardless of time and location.

However, users’ online behaviour in using UDSS is still relatively unexplored, including how users react when a UDSS provides them with context-prediction information, recommendations about candidate products/services, location-based information, etc. From the online information perspective, how to design the UDSS in order to provide more timely online information for users is a vitally important research topic. Therefore, this issue of Online Information Review deals with several UDSS topics from the perspective of online information-driven decision-making.

From a large number of submissions seven papers were eventually accepted following three rounds of review and revision. I am happy to say that these seven papers advance our understanding of how users can make decisions online by taking advantage of various types of ubiquitous decision support mechanisms. A brief overview of these papers is provided next.

“The impact of ubiquitous decision support systems on decision quality through individual absorptive capacity and perceived usefulness” by Young Wook Seo, Kun Chang Lee and Dae Sung Lee examines the mobile delivery system as a working UDSS and determines whether it might improve the quality of a user’s decisions. Using ubiquitous mobility and context awareness as the two core functions of the UDSS, this paper investigates the influence of individual absorptive capacity and perceived usefulness, and how these might be related to decision quality. Through the construction of the mobile delivery system as a working UDSS, the authors convincingly argue that individual absorptive capacity and perceived usefulness are positively influenced by ubiquitous mobility and context awareness. In addition, individual absorptive capacity and perceived usefulness have positive effects on decision quality.

In “Unleashing the power of mobile word-of-mouth: an empirical study of system and information characteristics in ubiquitous decision making” Xiao-Liang Shen, Yongqiang Sun, Nan Wang and Li Xiang deal with mobile word-of-mouth and the effects of system and information characteristics on developing users’ perceptions of UDSS. They have found that system characteristics of wireless networks, mobile devices and mobile applications significantly predict system quality, which in turn determines system usefulness. In compelling fashion the authors demonstrate empirically that localisation, immediacy and customisation of mobile word-of-mouth are major predictors of information quality and aid in determining information usefulness, consequently presenting significant implications for mobile advertising studies.

In “Social networking site loyalty: evaluating the roles of attitude, perceived risk and satisfaction”, Rafael Curras Perez, Carla Ruiz-Mafe and Silvia Sanz-Blas highlight the importance of the determinants of social networking site loyalty, paying close attention to the roles of user attitude, perceived risk and satisfaction. Using structural equation modelling techniques, the authors tested the impact of use and gratification of social networking sites, attitude, perceived risks and satisfaction on social networking site loyalty. Their unique findings identify sociability, entertainment gratification and perceived risks (psychological, time loss, and social) as the main drivers of user attitude in social networking sites. Such practical lessons in social networking site content can instruct social networking managers to both provide fun and foster user interactions in order to improve users’ attitudes.

As illustrated in “Internet addiction as a manageable resource: a focus on social network services”, Inwon Kang, Matthew Shin and Chanuk Park believe that addiction to social network services (SNSs) needs to be reinterpreted, not from the traditional clinical perspective as a disorder, but from a management perspective as consumer behaviour, in order to examine its possibility as a manageable resource. By using a survey of heavy users of SNSs they have suggested a new SNS addiction concept: the “addictive consumption trait” (ACT). With its underlying dimensions of salience, euphoria, immersion, compulsion and association, the proposed ACT of SNSs provides rich implications for practitioners about why users are addicted to SNSs when each dimension of the ACT is investigated empirically. For example, once firms understand the influences of each attribute of the ACT as a manageable resource, they can re-strategise their resource allocation for maximising consumers’ ACT of SNSs.

In “Factors affecting the intensity of emotional expressions in mobile communications” Ohbyung Kwon, Choong-Ryuhn Kim and Gimum Kim describe how emotional expressions in mobile communications can affect user perceptions. For additionally rigorous analysis of the empirical results, they framed their experiments by using the emotional positivity of messages and receivers’ characteristics through such qualities as authoritarianism, gender and formalisation. The application of regression analysis to the survey data suggest that, primarily, emotional intensity has a closer relationship to user acceptance than expected. In addition the use of exclamation marks and emotional messages are far less acceptable in negative messages. When people belong to a high formalisation group, they tend to have more positive emotional intensity in their basic expression. However, those highly formalised people are also more positive about sending and receiving both basic and positive expressions; similarly, they are reluctant to give and receive negative emotional expressions or other types of emotional expressions. Finally, the high authoritarianism group had more positive emotional intensity for a basic expression; that is, authoritarian people are more reluctant to send or receive emotional expressions. In conclusion, this paper determines that emotional expressions significantly affect receivers’ emotional intensity and hence the acceptance of the message, a promising direction for developing more sophisticated social networking services.

In “Exploring the effect of the human brand on consumers’ decision quality in online shopping: An eye-tracking approach” Seong Wook Chae and Kun Chang Lee propose a novel and innovative method in the field of online information systems research to investigate how human brands affect consumers’ decision quality in an online shopping environment. The eye-tracking method is rare within analysis of online information systems data, which makes this paper particularly valuable. Fundamentally, the eye-tracking approach is effective in exploring the effect of human brands on consumers’ perceived decision quality in an online shopping environment. Primary findings include the suggestion that employing human brands in an online shop influences consumers’ perceived decision quality, and the product type likewise influences consumers’ perceived trust of the product. Accordingly, the practical implications are that employing human brands can improve consumers’ decision-making processes and enhance the quality of their decisions by reducing cognitive effort and by appealing to consumers emotionally through heuristic choices. In addition, it can increase trust in products and, furthermore, lead consumers to think positively about the quality of the decisions they make.

Perhaps the first attempt to examine how product symbols affect online users’ information processing and evaluations, “The effect of symbols signaling product status on online users’ information processing” by Raquel Gurrea, Carlos Orus and Carlos Flavian analyses the influence of the presence and type of product symbols on online users’ information search behaviour. With a sample of 174 individuals and dual information-processing theories, this paper provides empirical evidence that the presence of a product symbol positively influences users’ cognitive elaboration and perceptions of information “diagnosticity”. However, the authors also detected significant differences of situational and individual characteristics related to the type of symbol and the users’ motivation in processing information. In this respect, given their potential to improve the quality of consumers’ thoughts and “diagnosticity” perceptions, web sites should be designed to display product symbols in online product presentations.

Kun Chang LeeGuest editor