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PurposeOnline charitable giving is prevalent, and how to attract individuals' attention to donate is essential for charities. Little is known about the interaction effect of empathy (donor) and vulnerability (receiver) on donate intention. To bridge this gap, this study aims to investigate whether the influence of empathy on charitable giving would be moderated by receivers' vulnerability, and if yes, what is the mechanism.Design/methodology/approachFive experiments were conducted in the context of charitable giving with 1,303 participants to test our hypotheses.FindingsWhen empathetic individuals confronted high vulnerable receivers, they were less likely to donate; otherwise, they were more likely to donate when they confronted low vulnerable receivers, and this interaction effect was mediated by concern about self.Originality/valueThe present research identifies a novel moderator of the effect of empathy on charitable giving and elucidates the underlying mechanism of concern about self. Based on these findings, the authors provide actionable implications for charities by demonstrating the interaction effect of empathy and vulnerability on donate intention.

Purpose This paper aims to solve the problem of information overload and reduce search costs. It proposes a social e-commerce online reputation formation model and community state-introduced model. A system dynamics trend simulation has been run to capture the relationship among the sellers, buyers, social e-commerce platforms and external environment to obtain an online reputation. Design/methodology/approach Empirical research relating to social e-commerce reputation has been used to confirm the influencing factors in social e-commerce, and a conceptual framework is developed for social e-commerce reputation formation. Thereafter, a trend simulation is generated to classify the relationship among the factors based on system dynamics. Also, the improved algorithm for community detection and a state-introduced model based on a Markov network are proposed to achieve better network partition for better online reputation management. Findings The empirical model captures the interaction effect of social e-commerce reputation and the state-introduced model to guide community public opinion and improve the efficiency of social e-commerce reputation formation. This helps minimize searching cost thereby improving social e-commerce reputation construction and management. Research limitations/implications There is no appropriate online reputation system to be constructed to test the relationship proposed in the study for a field experiment. Also, deeper investigation for the nodes’ attributes in social networks should be made in future research. Besides, researchers are advised to explore measurement for the reputation of a given seller by using social media data as from Twitter or micro blogs. Originality/value Investigations that study online reputation in the social e-commerce are limited. The empirical research figured out the factors which can influence the formation of online reputation in social e-commerce. An SD model was proposed to explain the factors interaction and trend simulation was run. Also, a state-introduced model was proposed to highlight the effect of nodes’ attributes on communities’ detection to give a deeper investigation for the online reputation management.

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