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PurposeThis paper investigates if the existing degree of students' acceptance and use of mobile or m-learning may face the online shift determined by SARS-CoV-2. Based on the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2), a new comprehensive model, SD-UTAUT (social distancing-UTAUT), is developed to better understand relationships between the original constructs, plus personal innovativeness (PI) and information quality (IQ). It identifies the key factors affecting behavioral intention (BI) and use by examining the influence of revaluated hedonic motivation (HM) and learning value (LV) importance as mediators.Design/methodology/approachThe paper opted for an exploratory study involving 311 learners, using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsSD-UTAUT can be a new m-learning model in higher education. It has high predictive power and confirmed 15 out of 16 hypotheses. The most powerful relationship is between performance expectancy (PE) and HM. IQ affected LV the most, since HM the behavioral use (BU). HM impacts the use behavior (UB) more than LV, but habit (HT) affects it the most.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of the pandemic context, output may lack generalizability and reproducibility.Practical implicationsTo improve usage, staff must provide better support, course creators emphasize the objectives and competencies and developers integrate innovation. The joy and pleasure of m-learning use may stimulate the LV through interesting and interactive content, like incorporating gamification.Originality/valueThe model set-up and circumstances are previously unseen. SD-UTAUT confirms ten new hypotheses and introduces the student's grade point average (GPA) as a moderator.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0017

Personalization systems based upon the analysis of users' surfing behavior imply three phases: data collection, pattern discovery and recommendation. Due to the dimension of log files and high processing time, the first two phases are achieved offline, in a batch process. In this article, we propose Wise Recommender System (WRS), an architecture for adaptive web applications. Within this framework, usage data is implicitly obtained by the data collection submodule. This allows for the extraction of usage data, online and in real time, by using a proactive approach. For the pattern discovery, we efficiently used association rule mining among both frequent and infrequent items. This is due to the fact that the pattern discovery module transactionally processes users' sessions and uses incremental storage of rules. Finally, we will show that WRS can be easily implemented within any web application, thanks to the efficient integration of the three phases into an online transactional process.

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PurposeEven though social media (SM) has been explored in-depth, its role remains unclear regarding short- and long-term preventive attitudes in global health emergencies. To fill this gap, the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework aims to clarify the social media exposure mission in acknowledging risk perception and triggering preventive attitudes and behaviors toward COVID-19 and general vaccination.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted an explanatory-predictive study on 480 Romanian students, using partial least squares structural equation modeling, and performed model evaluation, multi-group, model selection, and importance-performance map analyses.FindingsThe study provides insights in understanding significant relationships and drivers explaining and predicting attitudes towards vaccines. The main relationships are between fear and risk perception; risk and preventive attitudes and behaviors; and vaccination degree and attitudes to vaccines. The most important factor is the vaccination degree and media exposure is the most performant.Practical implicationsDeveloping and applying regulations and communication strategies for quality mass information may positively increase attitudes toward vaccines by indirectly enforcing the main drivers.Social implicationsOrganizations, authorities, and opinion leaders must have a coherent supportive presence in media.Originality/valueThis study filled the literature gap by building a generic theoretical and empirical proven framework that investigates the mediated effect towards vaccines of all media types by COVID-19 experience and vaccination degree.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0621

The sudden COVID-19-induced transition from a physical university life to a virtual one was a painful one for many students. Social distancing measures mean more than a simple change from face-to-face to online education. This study investigates how different social aspects, such as the students’ psychological sense of community, social capital, and use of social media, facilitated the perceived social support during the transition to the COVID-19 lockdown. Our results not only underline social media’s role, but also indicate that the perceived social support, as well as the bonding and bridging social capital, were particularly relevant during the transition process. Our findings are aimed at organizational management by recommending actionable ways in which they could improve social support by organizing computer-supported social networks, social support predictors, and specialized interventions for students with less perceived social support. As such, the study provides unique insights into the COVID-19-induced lockdown situation among students, while offering a transition model that also generalizes to other settings.

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Selecting online the most suitable product or service can be a draining process, and the broad diversity of products on retailers’ websites is overwhelming. Following this, there has been a high interest in examining buyers’ motivations and recognizing the determinant factors that affect the decision-making process in the case of online shopping. Hence, in this article, we carried out an empirical study and we analyzed to what extent certain factors such as product features, confidence in the online shop, product reviews, product price, consumer evaluations, the trust of the sources, usability of the online shop, convictions and commitment to the brand, product notoriety, consumer loyalty programs, WOM, and eWOM influence the purchasing decision. The findings reveal that the most significant variables determining the acquisition decision are product features, confidence in the online shop, reviews of the product, product price, and evaluations of customers from trusted sources. The most relevant information resources are trustworthy websites that offer specialized product reviews and reliable websites that offer customer product reviews.