http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/773 2013-05-31T06:12:04Z http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/6122 Title: What are buyers looking at : an empirical study of antecedents of online trust in consumer-to-consumer market Authors: Liu, Jiayuan (劉佳媛) Abstract: While the consumer-to-consumer electronic commerce has been flourishing these years, the number of online buyers who complain and retreat has also been growing. Increasingly, buyers concern about being cheated and suffering loss due to the transaction. Thus, this study aims to investigate the antecedents for buyer’s online trust during the initial buyer-seller interaction process in C2C market. Facing the vagueness in literature, online trust in C2C context in this study is clearly defined as being held towards the online seller rather than the online auction platform. With this definition, the research model is developed. Platform characteristics are identified to have effect on buyer’s perception of system capability; while seller characteristics are introduced to affect perception of seller capability. The two perceptions further make impact on online trust, both moderated by buyer’s propensity to trust. Based on this model, a set of hypotheses are proposed and empirically tested with collected data. Results show a general support of the hypotheses. Finally, the implications and limitations of this study are discussed. Notes: CityU Call Number: HF5548.32 .L584 2010; iv, 79 leaves : ill. 30 cm.; Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2010.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-76) 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/6121 Title: Identity-based information processing : the role of social identity activation and identity salience on product evaluation Authors: Huang, Li (黃莉) Abstract: This thesis calls attention to a new lens within the social identity perspective on marketing research. Specifically, marketers indicate their great interest in effective ways to persuade target consumers, including methods to influence their judgment and decisions, affect their responses to specific marketing stimuli, and so forth. In addition, as online communities bloom during this information technology era, various parties (e.g., community operators, marketers, media) become more and more anxious to target larger and larger potential consumer groups. The power of new, emerging, online consumer markets also inspires marketing scholars to explore a new perspective for targeting research. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of social identity effects on consumer behavior by studying the activation process of social identity salience and the consequent effects on identity-relevant marketing stimulus judgment and consumers’ recognition memory. This study hypothesizes that both direct identity primes and comparative distinctiveness can increase social identity salience (i.e., the activation of a social identity within a person’s social self-schema), and the strength of this identification moderates the responses to those identity primes and comparative distinctiveness traits. Across two studies, respondents exposed to an identity prime and who are comparatively distinctive express higher evaluations of advertisements that target them than do those not exposed to an identity prime and those not in comparatively distinctive situation. The data also reveal that the strength of identification moderates comparative distinctiveness but not identity prime effects. Moreover, when their social identity has been primed, people evoke identity salience and thus recall more brands and recognize more brands that feature some aspect of that identity. However, no interaction effect of strength of identification emerges. Similarly, participants in a comparative distinctive condition recall more brands and recognize more brands that feature their identity than do those in comparatively not distinctive conditions. This effect is more likely when person possess a strong social identity. This thesis concludes with some implications of these findings for social identity theory, social cognition research, and both offline and online marketing practice. Notes: CityU Call Number: HF5415.32 .H83 2009; vii, 118 leaves : ill. (some col.) 30 cm.; Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2009.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-111) 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/5457 Title: The myth of formal control and trust : a context-based analysis Authors: Zhou, Chen (周晨) Abstract: Formal control and trust are two typical governance mechanisms that safeguard business transactions from both economic and social perspectives. As to the joint effects of these two control mechanisms, the extant literature demonstrates parallel conclusions. Indeed, a portion of relevant literature proves that formal control and trust could be applied simultaneously to secure transactions, whereas other research argues that these two control mechanisms can actually be substituted for each other. According to social embeddedness theory, firms’ governance strategies are influenced by their relational quality within a particular relationship; hence differentiating inter-firm relationships based on relational tie strength that firms bear within a particular relationship helps determine appropriate control strategies that the firms may pursue. The current study applies social embeddedness theory and differentiates the strong tie relationship from the weak tie relationship; it also describes two scenarios in which formal control and trust are employed differently. It is found that distinctive formal control/trust joint effects in different relational ties lead to consequential transactional differences. On the basis of empirical tests, it is concluded that the joint effects of formal control and trust on governing transactions depends on the relational tie that the focal partners share. Specifically, formal control and trust complement each other in weak tie relations, while they are substituted for one another in strong tie relations. This study not only discovers situations leading to parallel conclusions about the relationship between formal control and trust, but also provides a novel perspective in judging inter-firm governance issues. Key words: Trust, Formal control, Opportunism, Governance mechanism Notes: CityU Call Number: HD2741 .Z57 2008; vi, 69 leaves 30 cm.; Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2008.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-67) 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/5044 Title: An investigation of factors influencing employee service performance from a multi-dimension perspective : a study of Chinese service industries Authors: Li, Jin (李津) Abstract: Scholars in the field of performance have investigated factors influencing employee performance only from individual perspective or from organizational perspective or both of them. In today’s changing organizational structure, the importance of the role of group dynamic in supporting the behavior of employee and organizational goals is increasingly acknowledged, especially in Chinese service settings. As thus, the current work highlights salient points regarding factors that influencing employee service performance from a multi-dimension perspective (individual-dimension, group-dimension, organizational-dimension perspective). The main purpose of this study is to empirically investigate factors that influence employee service performance from a multi-dimension perspective. A conceptual model of employee service performance that incorporates the group-dimension perspective has been proposed. The theoretical framework for this study was constructed by developing links between literatures on employee performance, workers personality, job satisfaction, group cohesiveness and human resource practices. The current study is carried out under literature based findings and theoretically developed assumption that: (a) Workers’ personalities and their job satisfactions can positively impact employee service performance from individual-dimension perspective. (b) Group cohesiveness would be proposed to link with employee service performance positively from group-dimension perspective. (c) From organizational-dimension perspective, positive relationship between HRM practices and employee service performance will be expected. In a survey-based study using information from approximately 230 service companies in China to empirically test the proposed model. A Likert-style questionnaire containing 41 items is identified in the areas of personality, job satisfaction, group cohesiveness, employee involvement, training, performance incentives and employee service performance. This multi-dimension perspective approach will shed some lights on identifying critical factors that impact employee service performance in the dynamic Chinese competitive environment. Results of the current study indicate that the appropriate personality traits (Agreeableness and Conscientiousness) and good employee job satisfaction are related to the employee service performance positively. Additionally, positive relationship between interpersonal cohesiveness and employee service performance has been found. Conversely, task cohesiveness is negatively related to employee service performance that is not consistent with the expectation. Finally, a positive relationship has been found between training and employee service performance. This study makes a substantial contribution to both theory and practice. On theory side, for example, it advances a three dimension perspective model to explain employee service performance. Researchers can study employee service performance more comprehensively and effectually using this three dimension model. On practical side, this study delivers an important message to practitioners. Service practitioners can manage employee performance from a whole new perspective. The implications of the results and recommendations for the future investigations are also discussed. Notes: CityU Call Number: HF5549.2.C6 L525 2007; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-134); Thesis (M.Phil.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2007; ix, 146 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z