torsdag 21 november 2013

Theme 3: Research and Theory

Journal Description:

The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC) was established in 1995. It is an online peer-reviewed scholarly journal and is published quarterly. It focuses on social science research on computer-mediated communication via internet and wireless technologies. It has a general view and publishes material from a range of science disciplines; such as communication, media studies, information science, and sociology.  In the spirit of the topic, the founders wanted it to be an open-access, online journal with high quality standards. It is widely read and cited among CMC scholars around the world.

Impact Factor: 1.778 (2013)
Five Year Impact Factor: 4.748 (2013)


Research paper:  

Wells, Valacich, Hess (2011):  “What Signals Are You Sending? How Website Quality Influences Perceptions of Product Quality and Purchase Intentions”, published in MIS Quarterly.

The focus of this research article is on eCommerce websites, and how its quality and signals affect the consumers’ perception of the product quality. It has an explanatory purpose and uses applied research.

The main concept as described by the authors Wells, Valacich, Hess (2011): “Signaling theory provides a framework for understanding how extrinsic cues— signals—can be used by sellers to convey product quality information to consumers, reducing uncertainty and facilitating a purchase or exchange.”

They refer to signal theory, as described in previous studies, where the signal is a cue that a seller can use “to convey information credibly about unobservable product quality to the buyer”. I liked that the authors managed to keep their voice heard throughout the article and explained the background of the underlying theories in their own words, only with short and relevant references to previous studies. 

The authors defined four testable hypotheses, and set up six case-study scenarios in order to study the different effects on the potential buyer. The data studied was of qualitative nature (perception of the website and its products), and the subjects had to share their experiences in a pre-defined questionnaire.  

The aim of the paper was to provide a guideline on how signals and cues affect the customers’ view of the perceived product quality, as an online customer cannot get a feel of the product before the purchase. The findings clearly support that a high quality website helps improve the perceived product quality, especially when the information about the product is low, and they were able to show what signals are beneficial to the customer and when.     

I chose this article, not because I want to open an online shop, but I was hoping that this information on what signals are important in order to appear as a high quality website could be used in other disciplines as well, i.e. providing trustworthy information, news or advertising. The results are definitely worth considering even for other types of online services.   


What is theory?
Charles Darwin formulated the theory of “evolution by natural selection”. He proposed that the diversity on earth was caused by mutation and natural selection in order to adapt to the surrounding environment. 


Isaac Newton formulated another famous theory, “theory of motion”: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.


A theory is a fact-based framework, a description of phenomena. It is built on hypothesis or constructs, and is formulated in such a way that it is possible to specify the relationships between the hypotheses. Moreover, it must be possible to verify the hypotheses and/or their relationships by tests.

A theory is not the same as a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a proposed explanation, which needs to be empirically tested.  Anything that is not verified and which cannot be linked together by strong set of convincing arguments cannot be called a theory; in other words, data, diagrams, references to other scientific research papers etc. are not theory. 


Major theory in my selected paper:
The major theory formulated by Wells, Valacich, Hess (2011), is that signaling theory does provide a useful theoretical foundation for understanding the value of website characteristics. The theory was backed up by four testable hypotheses which provided both a prediction and a causal explanation, therefore I draw the conclusion that their theory can be classified as a type 4 theory (Explanation and Prediction), according to Gregor (2006).

The benefit for using a theory type providing both explanation and prediction is that they have done empirical tests on their causal explanations and predictions and are able to provide a more solid base of understanding for the eCommerce provider to use this information as a means to improve their platform. 

The limitations to this study, is that the bases of investigations was done on one single type of shop and product, which might not necessarily be transferrable to other products.  More expensive products might require stronger signals. Future studies are needed in order to be able to provide a design solution theory.       
  

Sources:


Upplagd av kl.

2 kommentarer:

  1. Zahra A25 november 2013 kl. 06:37

    Hello Jenny!
    That was a really interesting study you've chosen. I do think it's true that the quality of a website and the signals it gives you can affect you greatly. As you mentioned too, I agree that this study can not only be applied on ecommerce websites but also on pretty much any website. I think that any website need to be of somewhat high quality to be taken seriously by a visitor, or at least by more experienced visitors?
    I'm also thinking whether high quality and the signals really are the same thing. As I understood it from your text, it seems that both are used synonymously. I think that it is possible for a website to be able to cue positive signals to the visitor without necessarily being very high quality.. it might require some great skills though. I mean, as long as it doesn't look like it came from the 90's. It can give off the signals of being trustworthy and buy-able. What do you think?

    SvaraRadera
  2. Unknown26 november 2013 kl. 13:11

    The high quality of the website is not the same as the signals and cues. An example of signals by the authors: the website can have a system for customers to give feedback on the products, and generally the customers will regard this as very positive, since the owner would likely not be willing to take the risk of getting bad feedback if he wasn't sure about the good quality of his products. The author talks about extrinsic and intrinsic cues, where extrinsic cues are information that does not refer to the quality of the product itself, such as price. The intrinsic cues could be the hardware of the computer they are selling. What the authors managed to prove was that when there were low amounts of cues and signals, the more important the quality of the website.

    I think you are absolutely right, that a high quality website always help selling whatever product.

    SvaraRadera

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