Importance of the Paper
The past few decades have witnessed tremendous progress in the development of the concept of interactivity. From the process and functional view (1980s – 1990s) to the contemporary perception view (2000s to present), the concept has increasingly received considerable scholarly attention across different academic disciplines. For instance, the vast majority of interactivity literature resides in the field of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), Electronic Commerce (EC), Information Technology (IT) and Web-based Education (e.g., distance learning).
Whilst a plethora of literature on testifying the significance of the term ‘interactivity’, no consensus has been reached on probing the nature or content of its dimensions (Lee, 2005). Scholars propose different views which attribute to certain characteristics, from an experimental to a conceptual manner (Levinson, 2010; Karimova, 2011). Owing to the complexities and popularity of the concept, an explicit investigation of the dimensionality of interactivity construct has yet to be successfully addressed.
According to Jiang et al. (2010), interactivity has been studied as an essential feature of social networking platforms wherein visitors’ attitudes and behaviours can be enticed and driven. Thus, interactivity can be one of the key functions on a corporate travel weblog site to build a positive virtual relationship between travel companies and weblog users (Pan et al., 2007; Levinson, 2010). Nevertheless, extant researchers in corporate weblog marketing have yet to comprehensively study the significance of interactivity functions in weblogging environment. Furthermore, in viewing previous research little attention has been devoted to understanding constructs of interactivity in a corporate weblogging context.
Given these gaps in our knowledge, it is critical to realise the multidimensional nature of interactivity particularly their relative effectiveness within a corporate weblogging setting. In brief, it is important for both academicians and practitioners to fully understand how people use interactive functions on corporate travel weblogs and how interactivity may influence attitudes towards a corporate travel weblog and towards prospective behavioural intentions.