在线协同购物的媒介选择研究

A Research on Media Choice in Collaborative Online Shopping

近年来在线购物出现了向社会化协同购物发展的趋势,已有关于计算机支持的协同工作和大量群体决策的研究表明,同步性是影响群体协作绩效的一个重要因素。协同购物作为一个以计算机为媒介的群体协作活动,媒介同步性必然起到重要的作用。以计算机支持的协同工作和以计算机为媒介的交流为视角,基于媒介同步性理论和技术灵魂理论,考察在线协同购物环境下用户对媒介的选择问题,探讨媒介同步性、产品类型和购物阶段3个变量之间的交互作用如何影响用户对媒介的选择偏好。进一步,设计一个实验室实验收集用户行为数据,并通过重复度量方差分析验证上述关系。实验结果表明,如果可以自由选择,用户会更偏好使用同步媒介而不是异步媒介。当协同购物的对象是搜索品时,媒介同步性和购物阶段之间不存在交互作用;当协同购物的对象是体验品时,媒介同步性与购物阶段存在显著的交互作用,即与初选阶段相比,细选阶段的用户更偏好使用同步媒介。关注媒介同步性这一在线协同购物的全新研究视角,拓展媒介同步性理论的适用范围,为应用技术灵魂理论研究信息技术的使用行为提供一个范例;通过引入技术灵魂理论,说明为什么即时通信工具和E-mail在能力差别不大的情况下仍然可以被划分为同步性截然不同的两种媒介;将协同购物分为初选阶段和细选阶段进行研究,打开了购物过程的黑盒子,进一步深化了对协同购物过程的理解;将媒介同步性、产品类型和购物阶段放在同一个模型中,探讨在线协同购物环境下用户对媒介的选择行为,并着重关注它们之间的三向交互作用。研究结果对协同购物网站的设计者和运营者有重要意义。

Online shopping has recently been evolving toward collaborative online social shopping. Previous findings from computer supported cooperative work and group decision making suggest that media synchronicity is an important variable that may have significant impacts on group performances. As a computer mediated group collaboration activity, the outcome of collaborative online shopping should be heavily influenced by media synchronicity. Therefore we investigate the user＇s media choice behavior in the COS context from the computer supported cooperative work （CSCW） and computer mediated communication （CMC） perspective based on the media synchronicity theory and apparatgeist theory in this study. More specifically, we exam how the 3-way interaction among media synchronicity, product type and shopping stage will affect user preference for different medias. A lab experiment was conducted to collect user behavior data and a repeated measure ANOVA test was carried out to test the proposed research model. The results indicate that the user will choose the synchronous media but not the asynchronous media as long as they have a free choice. When collaborative shopping for a search product, the interaction between media synchronicity and shopping stage is not significant. However, when collaborative shopping for an experience product, the interaction between media synchronicity and shopping stage is significant, which indicates that the user in final choice stage will have higher preference for the synchronous media compared with an initial screening stage. This study makes the following contributions to the literature. First, we conduct for collaborative online shopping from a new angel of media synchronicity, and expand the range of application of media synchronicity theory. Second, we provide a paradigm for applying apparatgeist theory in applied information systems research to explain why instance messenger and E-mail can be regarded as high or low synchronicity media respectively, although their channel capacities are very similar. Third, we identify two shopping stages as the initial screening stage and the final choice stage, which opens the black box of online shopping process. Our results confirm that users in different shopping stages have different preferences for communication media. Fourth, we investigate the impact of media synchronicity, product type and shopping stage on users＇ media choice behavior in collaborative online shopping context simultaneously, and specifically focus on their three-way interactions. This study is also significant for collaborative online shopping website designers and operators. First, the website operators should encourage synchronous communication for whatever product or whatever shopping stage, since it provides better shopping experiences and more shopping fun. Second, the website designers should still provide both synchronous and asynchronous communication channels because sometimes it＇s not an easy job for the partners to keep online simultaneously. Third, the website operators should understand when the synchronous media can be replaced by the asynchronous media. Our results show that when shopping for search product or in the initial screening stage, the effect of asynchronous media is very close to that of the synchronous media.