Digging deeper into responsibility: an investigation of responses to online help-request marketing campaigns in social networking groups

Zhongtao Hu
{"title":"Digging deeper into responsibility: an investigation of responses to online help-request marketing campaigns in social networking groups","authors":"Zhongtao Hu","doi":"10.1108/itp-03-2022-0170","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThere is a growing trend among online merchants to conduct help-request marketing campaigns (HMCs), which refers to a kind of marketing campaign that leverages participants' help-request to encourage the subsequent engagement of participants' online friends. The paper aims to investigate how individuals respond to online HMCs in social networking groups (SNGs). Integrating the norm activation model and regulatory focus theory, this paper examines the mediation effects of the two facets of responsibility perception, i.e. perceived causality and perceived answerability.Design/methodology/approachA field experiment was conducted by organizing a real HMC on WeChat. To manipulate request individuation, experimental confederates were engaged to serve as requesters in the HMC. The actual responses provided by the recipients (subjects) were captured via the HMC pages. The multiple-group analysis was used for data analysis.FindingsEmpirical results reveal that request individuation strengthens the effect of relationship closeness on perceived causality but reverses the effect of relationship closeness on perceived answerability from being positive to negative. Except for the negligible impact of perceived answerability on inaction, both perceived causality and perceived answerability affect recipients' reactions to HMCs as expected.Practical implicationsFirst, social media platforms should promote other-oriented prosocial values when designing features or launching campaigns. Second, the designers of HMCs should introduce a “tagging” feature in HMCs and provide additional bonuses for requesters who perform tagging. Third, HMC requesters should prudently select tagging targets when making a request.Originality/valueFirst, this paper contributes to the literature on social media engagement by identifying responsibility as an other-oriented motivation for individuals' social media engagement. Second, this paper also extends our understanding of responsibility by dividing it into perceived causality and answerability as well as measuring them with self-developed instruments. Third, this study contributes to the research on WOM by demonstrating that individuals' response behaviors toward help-requests embedded in HMCs can take the form of proactive helping, reactive helping or inaction.","PeriodicalId":168000,"journal":{"name":"Information Technology & People","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information Technology & People","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1108/itp-03-2022-0170","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

PurposeThere is a growing trend among online merchants to conduct help-request marketing campaigns (HMCs), which refers to a kind of marketing campaign that leverages participants' help-request to encourage the subsequent engagement of participants' online friends. The paper aims to investigate how individuals respond to online HMCs in social networking groups (SNGs). Integrating the norm activation model and regulatory focus theory, this paper examines the mediation effects of the two facets of responsibility perception, i.e. perceived causality and perceived answerability.Design/methodology/approachA field experiment was conducted by organizing a real HMC on WeChat. To manipulate request individuation, experimental confederates were engaged to serve as requesters in the HMC. The actual responses provided by the recipients (subjects) were captured via the HMC pages. The multiple-group analysis was used for data analysis.FindingsEmpirical results reveal that request individuation strengthens the effect of relationship closeness on perceived causality but reverses the effect of relationship closeness on perceived answerability from being positive to negative. Except for the negligible impact of perceived answerability on inaction, both perceived causality and perceived answerability affect recipients' reactions to HMCs as expected.Practical implicationsFirst, social media platforms should promote other-oriented prosocial values when designing features or launching campaigns. Second, the designers of HMCs should introduce a “tagging” feature in HMCs and provide additional bonuses for requesters who perform tagging. Third, HMC requesters should prudently select tagging targets when making a request.Originality/valueFirst, this paper contributes to the literature on social media engagement by identifying responsibility as an other-oriented motivation for individuals' social media engagement. Second, this paper also extends our understanding of responsibility by dividing it into perceived causality and answerability as well as measuring them with self-developed instruments. Third, this study contributes to the research on WOM by demonstrating that individuals' response behaviors toward help-requests embedded in HMCs can take the form of proactive helping, reactive helping or inaction.
更深入地挖掘责任:对社交网络群体中在线求助营销活动的反应进行调查
网络商家越来越多地开展求助营销活动(hmc),这是一种利用参与者的求助来鼓励参与者的在线朋友随后参与的营销活动。本研究旨在探讨个人在社交网络群体(sng)中对在线hmc的反应。本文结合规范激活模型和调节焦点理论,考察了责任知觉的两个方面,即知觉因果关系和知觉可答性的中介作用。设计/方法/方法通过在b微信上组织一次真实的HMC进行了现场试验。为了操纵请求个性化,实验同盟者在HMC中充当请求者。通过HMC页面捕获收件人(主题)提供的实际响应。资料分析采用多组分析。结果表明,请求个性化强化了关系亲密度对感知因果关系的影响,但使关系亲密度对感知可答性的影响由正向负。除了感知可答性对不作为的影响可以忽略不计外,感知因果关系和感知可答性都像预期的那样影响接受者对医疗保健服务的反应。首先,社交媒体平台在设计功能或发起活动时应促进他人导向的亲社会价值观。其次,hmc的设计者应该在hmc中引入“标记”功能,并为执行标记的请求者提供额外的奖励。第三,HMC请求者在发出请求时应该谨慎地选择标记目标。原创性/价值首先,本文通过将责任确定为个人社交媒体参与的其他导向动机,为社交媒体参与的文献做出了贡献。其次,本文还扩展了我们对责任的理解,将其分为感知因果关系和可回答性,并使用自行开发的工具进行测量。第三,本研究通过证明个体对hmc中嵌入的帮助请求的响应行为可以采取主动帮助、被动帮助或不作为的形式,为WOM的研究做出了贡献。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信