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Abstract
During an online session, a user may visit a number of websites, often following hyperlinks from one website to the next or using a search results page to find and visit pages of interest. In doing so, the user can lose track of which sites were visited and which were helpful in meeting the objective. Thus, sites that may have provided value to the user may not receive expected positive effects such as loyalty and intention to return. It is thus crucial to understand if and how an individual website is perceived by users within the context of multi-website online sessions—particularly in predicting desired outcomes, such as user loyalty, trust, brand image, and revisit intentions. To address this problem, we conceptualize the Web as a geography traversed by users who cross digital borders as they move from one website location to another. We introduce the concept of border strength, or the degree to which digital media artifacts mark a transition to a website, and propose a positive effect of border strength on users’ recognition of their locations. We then consider users’ attribution of credit for assistance in successfully completing an online task to those websites and their owners that supported the task. This attribution is a function of border strength and location recognition. We test these hypotheses using experimental data, which show that, indeed, some websites go unrecognized and that stronger borders increase users’ recognition of having visited a website and users’ credit attribution for their experience to the site. Our findings demonstrate the usefulness of the geography metaphor, suggest the need to further study dynamics regarding individual sites within the context of multi-site sessions and show the usefulness of erecting stronger borders to mark the entry into digital locations.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Brian Kimball Dunn
Brian Kimball Dunn ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University. Following a 10-year career in industry in e-commerce and online marketing roles, he received his Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Pittsburgh. His research interests include the effects of human-computer interaction on brand-related outcomes and user behavior within digital content platforms. His work has been published in Information Systems Research, European Journal of Information Systems, AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction (THCI), and other venues.
Narayan Ramasubbu
Narayan Ramasubbu ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Michigan. His research interests include software product development and services delivery; design, implementation, use, and governance of enterprise information systems; information technology-driven innovation; and user behavior within digital platforms. Dr. Ramasubbu serves on the editorial review board of the Journal of AIS and is an associate editor at Management Science and MIS Quarterly.
Dennis F. Galletta
Dennis F. Galletta ([email protected]) is an AIS Fellow, a LEO lifetime achievement awardee, and Ben L. Fryrear Faculty Fellow and Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where he serves as Doctoral Director for the Business School. He has published 51 articles, with 17 in the Financial Times FT50-listed journals (Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and Management Science). He has also published 55 refereed conference papers and four books. Dr. Galletta is an Editorial Board member at JMIS, an MISQ Senior Editor, and has been on several other boards. He served as AIS President, ICIS Treasurer, AIS Council Member, and Editor-in-Chief of AISWorld. He was a founding co-Editor-in-Chief of AIS THCI and established the concept of Special Interest Groups in AIS.
Paul Benjamin Lowry
Paul Benjamin Lowry ([email protected]) is the Suzanne Parker Thornhill Chair Professor in Business Information Technology at the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. He received his Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona. His research interests include organizational and behavioral security and privacy; online deviance, online harassment, and computer ethics; human-computer interaction, social media, and gamification; and business analytics, decision sciences, innovation, and supply chains. He has published over 115 papers in Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of the AIS (JAIS), Information System Journal (ISJ), and others. Dr. Lowry is an Editorial Board member at JMIS, a senior editor at JAIS and ISJ, and an associate editor at other journals. In 2019, he was recognized as the most productive scholar in the world for the top-6 IS journals in the last 5 years.