Information cascades in online reading: an empirical investigation of panel data

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine information cascades in the context of users' ebook reading behavior and differentiate it from alternative factors that lead to herd behavior, such as network externalities and word-of-mouth effects. Design/methodology/approach -This paper constructed panel data using information concerning 226 e-books in 30 consecutive days from Sina.com's reading channel (of the same year in China. A multinomial logit market-share model was employed.Findings -E-books' ranking has a significant impact on their market share, as predicted by informational cascades theory. Higher ranking e-books' clicks will see a greater increase as a result of an increase in clicks ranking. Due to the information cascades effect, review volume had no impact on the market share of popular e-books. Total votes had a powerful impact on the market share of e-books, showing that once information cascade occurred, it could be enhanced by the increase in total votes. The total clicks of e-books had a significant impact on their market share, suggesting that online reading behavior would be influenced by network externalities. Practical implications -As important information, the ranking or popularity of e-books should be carefully considered by online reading web sites, publishers, and authors. It is not enough for the authors and publishers of e-books to simply pay attention to the content. They should design their marketing strategies to allow network externalities and informational cascades to work for them, not against them. Online reading web sites should also focus on eliminating certain behavior, such as "brush clicks" and "brush votes," in order to prevent an undesirable information cascade due to false information. Originality/value -To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to examine information cascades in the context of users' e-book reading behavior. Moreover, this study can help other researchers by utilizing a large sample of daily data from one of the earliest online reading platforms in China.

Exploring Consumers’ Buying Behavior in a Large Online Promotion Activity: The Role of Psychological Distance and Involvement

“…On the one hand, we ignore the effect of online WOM on consumers' purchase decision when analyzing the impact of promotional information from different sources (different social distance). In fact, a vast number of studies have confirmed the important impact of online WOM on online purchase behaviors [16], [27], [40], [41], [42]. On the other hand, Chinese consumers like to share promotion information and talk about their shopping decisions in the Double 11 promotion [59].…”

Mobile SNS Addiction and User Continuance: An Empirical Investigation of WeChat

“…That is, the loyalty was more likely to have formed [35]. However, information technology is constantly innovating, and the incidence of users switching from an information technology to its competitors is rapidly increasing [37][38][39]. Users will be able to switch between different IT products freely, e.g., operating systems, web browsers, office productivity software, and social networking services software.…”

An Empirical Study on Factors Affecting Continuance Intention of Using Yu’e Bao

“…The behavioural aspect is defined as intention to make repeated purchases, while the attitudinal one refers to continuous preference or favourable attitude toward certain services or a certain product or firm. In spite of situational influences, marketing efforts, and short-term changes in the performance of the product or service, loyalty is relatively stable, that is why loyalty should be an important construct in the study of IT continuance [15][16][17][18][19]. That affective loyalty serves as a significant and consistent predictor of individuals' repurchasing and continuance decisions has been strongly supported by empirical studies [20].…”