Discovering the juxtaposed affordances in digitally transformed live streaming e-commerce: A mixed-methods study from a vicarious learning perspective

ABSTRACT

Live streaming technologies transform the information processing of customers by changing the way they interact with and acquire information. However, this emerging technological artefact may induce both positive and negative consequences for customer decision making. It is yet unknown what constitutes the dimensions of the juxtaposed IT affordances and how they affect customer behaviours in this new social phenomenon. This paper contributes to IS research by uncovering the specific bright and dark sides of IT affordances in live streaming e-commerce and by explaining the cognitive mechanisms underpinning customer purchase and brand citizenship behaviours. We employed a sequential mixed-methods design to embrace and contextualise the theory of affordance, vicarious learning, and cognitive load to rigorously develop a theoretical framework of the juxtaposed IT affordance in live streaming e-commerce. The results indicate that positive affordances (e.g., interactivity, visibility, and entertainment) have stronger effects on both economic and non-economic value. However, the potential dark side (e.g., broadcasting and source diversity) has more negative effects on purchase intention than brand citizenship behaviour, underscoring the importance of involving customers in co-creating brand-related value in live streaming e-commerce. Our findings contribute considerably to the emerging literature on live streaming e-commerce and provide actionable recommendations for practitioners.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital transformation
• live streaming e-commerce
• affordance
• vicarious learning

Acknowledgment

We want to thank research sponsorship received by the Key Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China (21AJL013), Distinguished Young Scholar Project of UIBE (20JQ09), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72132007), and the support by the 111 Project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ying Hua

Ying Hua is a Professor of information systems and an Associate Dean in the School of Information Technology and Management at the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China. Her research interests include E-Business, new media marketing, and business innovation. She has published research papers in journals such as Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Business Research, Information Technology for Development, Economics Letters, etc.

Dongyi Wang

Dongyi Wang is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Information Technology and Management at the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, China. She is a visiting doctoral student at the Anderson School of Management of the University of New Mexico, USA. Her research focuses on social commerce, e-commerce, and innovative technologies for strategic decision-making. She has published in Decision Support Systems and Journal of Business Research.

Xin (Robert) Luo

Xin (Robert) Luois a Special Assistant to the Dean for Research Advancement, an Endowed Dean’s Professor of Research Excellence, and a Full Professor of Management Information Systems and Information Assurance at the Anderson School of Management of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA. He received his Ph.D. in Information Systems from Mississippi State University, USA. His research has been published in leading IS/ business journals, including the Information Systems Research, Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He has served as an ad hoc Associate Editor for MIS Quarterly and an Associate Editor for the European Journal of Information Systems, and currently serves as a Guest AE for the Journal of Management Information Systems and an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Decision Sciences, Information & Management, Electronic Commerce Research, and the Journal of Electronic Commerce Research. He also sits on the Editorial Review Board of Information Systems Research. His research interests center around behavioral information systems security management and privacy protection, innovative technologies for strategic decision-making, and cross-cultural IT management. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Accounting and Information Management.

Fang-Kai Chang

Fang-Kai Chang is an Associate Professor of Information Systems at Feng Chia University, Taiwan, Republic of China. He received his Ph.D. in Information Systems from National Chengchi University, Taiwan, ROC. He has published in Journal of Global Information Management, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, Internet Research, etc.

Yitian Xie

Yitian Xie is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University, China. She received her Ph.D. from the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research focuses on behavioral information systems security management and innovative technologies for strategic decision-making. She has published in Information & Management.