Chapter Preview
TopEvolution Of The Online Consumer Behavior Model (Ocb)
Several aspects related to website use from a customer perspective have been successfully modeled (e.g. Laroche 2010; Laroche et al. 2005; Laroche et al. 2013; Mazaheri, Richard, & Laroche 2010; 2011; Mazaheri et al. 2014; Richard 2005; Shobeiri, Mazaheri, & Laroche 2014a; 2014b). Figure 1 integrates the findings into one model to provide a big picture. This model is based on a widely accepted theory from environmental psychology (Mehrabian & Russell 1974) and adapted to study perceptual design elements of websites. The implications of this model are impactful for both companies and public organizations (e.g., education institutions, and hospitals).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Involvement: A motivational state influenced by perceptions of the object’s relevance based on inherent needs, values and interests.
Five-Factor Model: Divides personality into a series of five dimensional traits: extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
Experience-Based Services: Can be evaluated only after the service experience.
Interactivity: Degree several communication parties act on each other, the communication medium, and the messages and their synchronization.
Arousal: Feelings of being stimulated, excited and aroused.
Product involvement: Degree of interest in a product on an ongoing basis.
Enduring involvement: Degree of interest in a product on an ongoing basis.
Utilitarian Values: Values related to the perception of task-specific and functional aspects of a website.
Skills: Capacity for action during the online navigation process.
Product: A generic term including goods, services and experiences.
Relational hypothesis: A theory whereby females are described as relational processors and males as males are item-specific processors. It relates to the style of processing.
Credence-Based Services: Cannot be assessed even after the service experience.
Site involvement: Degree of interest in a specific website.
Structure: The layout of a site such as a tree, a tree with a return-to-home page button, a tree with some horizontal links and an extensive network.
Product attitude: Predisposition to answer favorably or not to a product in a consistent manner.
Search-Based Services: Service element that can be evaluated before purchase decision.
Pleasure: Feelings of happiness, satisfaction or contentment.
Peripheral cues: Peripheral processes use simple decision rules, conditioning processes, mere-exposure processes, and others not involving scrutiny of central merits of the object.
Situational involvement: Degree of interest in a specific situation or occasion.
Dominance: Feelings of being in control, important and autonomous.
Hedonic Values: Values related to one’s evaluation of the experiential aspects of a website such as pleasure or entertainment.
Flow: State occurring during internet navigation which is intrinsically enjoyable, accompanied by loss of self-consciousness, self-reinforcing and leads to a sense of playfulness.
Effectiveness of information content: Currency of the information content of a website and degree that the information is convenient, accurate, up-to-date, complete and relevant.
Dual mediation model: Process of process of attitude formation via the central route; thinking about the brand motivates efforts for processing information, and is influenced by evaluation of the website.
Challenge: Opportunities for action on the Internet.
Informativeness: Amount and richness of the information contained in a website.
Optimum stimulation level (OSL): Amount of stimulation people prefer in life.
Exploratory behavior: Behavior with the sole function of changing the stimulus field.
Millennials and Younger Cohorts: Digital natives exposed to interactive technology and mobile access at an early age and integrate the use of social media into many aspects of their daily lives and online communication technologies.
Entertainment: Ability to attract attention by being fun, exciting, pleasurable, enjoyable, or entertaining.
Selectivity hypothesis: A theory whereby females are described as comprehensive processors and males as heuristic processors. It relates to the depth of processing.
Site quality: Represented by ease of use, provision of helpful graphics, usefulness of search engines, and completeness of information.
Site attitude: Predisposition to answer favorably or not to a particular website in a consistent manner.
Need for cognition (NFC): Stable individual difference in people’s tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity.
Navigation: The process of self-directed movement through a computer-mediated environment.
Web atmospherics: Conscious development of website environment to induce a positive response.