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The Influence of Online Product Recommendations on Consumer Choice-Making Confidence, Effort, and Satisfaction
Get PDFThe number of products and services available online is growing at a tremendous pace. Consumers increasingly desire the ability to filter through the noise and quickly discover the products that are most relevant to their needs. Many businesses are implementing product recommender systems to provide this ability to consumers, and the result is often increased sales and more satisfied customers. However, recommender systems can also have negative consequences for consumers. For example, a recommender system can bias consumers to purchase more expensive products. Additionally, theories of consumer choice-making suggest that recommender systems can sometimes make purchase choices more difficult, resulting in outcomes that are contrary to the intended purposes of the system, such as customers expending greater shopping effort and feeling less satisfied as a result of receiving too many suggestions. The purpose of this dissertation is to further explore when recommender systems can negatively affect consumers’ online shopping experiences. I investigate three research questions: 1) When do product recommendations increase, rather than decrease, shopping effort? 2) When do product recommendations decrease, rather than increase, shopping satisfaction? And 3) When do recommender systems decrease, rather than increase, consumers’ choice-making confidence? I propose to study these questions by conducting an experiment using a fictitious retail website and online survey
Improving Sleep and Learning Motivation, and Decreasing Psychological Distress Through Different Modalities of Written Expression: Controlling for Resilience and Hardiness
Get PDFCollege is a time of increased risk for developing psychological distress, poor sleep, and poor academic motivation. Additionally, many students who need mental health services fail to engage in treatment due to perceived barriers. As a result, it is important to find creative ways to reach this group. Research has shown that emotional expression, as well as engaging in written and verbal expression, can be associated with physical, emotional, and cognitive benefits. Specifically, years of research indicate that emotional expression through journaling is highly effective with the college population. Additionally, most college students own a cell phone, typically spending an average of 8 to 10 hours a day using them, and one of the most common activities performed is communication via short message service (SMS), or text messaging. Research also indicates that hand-written and typed writing formats of expression are comparable. However, it appears that prior research has not examined the effects of journaling using the modality of SMS among college students. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to determine whether SMS text-based journaling would benefit college students’ psychological distress, sleep, and learning motivation, above and beyond the effects of traditional journaling, and whether resilience or hardiness would act as control variables in the relationship between the intervention and the outcome variables. Data were collected from 126 college students attending a public university in the South. Participants were randomly assigned to four conditions: a traditional journal entry group, a daily SMS text-based journal entry group, a bi-weekly SMS text-based journal entry group, and a control condition. Prior to engaging in the intervention, participants were instructed to complete a baseline survey, which included informed consent; a demographic questionnaire; and measures of psychological distress, sleep quality, learning motivation, resilience, and hardiness. Participants in experimental groups reflected on positive experiences in varying written modalities, while participants in the control group were informed that they would not actively participate in the intervention. Participants engaged in one of these interventions for four weeks. After the four-week intervention, all participants completed a survey immediately and six weeks later, which included the same baseline measures along with some questions concerning the specific intervention assigned. The results of a repeated measures multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated there were only significant differences between pre-intervention and post-intervention psychological distress and learning motivation, with no significant group differences for psychological distress and significant group differences between the traditional journal group and the bi-weekly SMS text-based group for learning motivation. Additionally, results of the repeated measures multiple analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) indicated that participants in the traditional journaling group scored significantly higher than the bi-weekly SMS textbased journaling group on learning motivation over time when controlling for resilience, and when controlling for hardiness
Perkins Drug Store- Corner N. Vienna and E. Miss.
No full textBlack and white photograph, Ruston, Louisiana, ca. 1900.https://digitalcommons.latech.edu/ruston-photograph-collection/1038/thumbnail.jp
Ruston Hardware and Supply Co. 1910 -112 N. Trenton
No full textBlack and white photograph of Ruston, Louisiana, ca. 1900.https://digitalcommons.latech.edu/ruston-photograph-collection/1040/thumbnail.jp
Old Hardware Building Corner of Monroe and W. Miss.
No full textBlack and white photograph of Ruston, Louisiana, ca. 1900.https://digitalcommons.latech.edu/ruston-photograph-collection/1042/thumbnail.jp
Keeping Social Media Influencers Influential: Preserving Perceptions of Authenticity While Brand Dropping
Get PDFMarketers’ use of social media influencers (SMIs)—individuals who use various social media channels to discuss a particular topic (e.g., fashion, health) or offer entertainment (e.g., comedy) and, in doing so, attract followers—to promote products, known as “influencer marketing,” is a widely employed and effective strategic tool (Linqia 2018). In fact, SMIs, who can be conceptualized as human brands (Thompson 2006), have a greater audience reach and dialogue generation compared to that of celebrities (Crimson Hexagon 2015). Further, consumers perceive SMIs’ content as trustworthy (Scott 2015), which is likely due to them being perceived as highly authentic. According to Audrezet, de Kerviler and Moulard (2018) SMIs use strategies to remain passionately authentic and transparently authentic.
Despite their popularity and perceived trustworthiness, SMIs face a challenge when they mention, recommend, or endorse brands within their digital content. Doing so may lead to perceptions that the influencer is passionately inauthentic, as consumers may presume these acts to be commercially driven. Thus, by incorporating influencer marketing, SMIs may compromise their perceived passionate authenticity.
When SMIs mention brands within their digital content, they sometimes choose to infer whether or not they have a business relationship with the brand via a disclosure. SMIs’ means of, or choice of wording for disclosures varies. Therefore, consumers will likely perceive SMIs as more transparently authentic when SMIs disclose unambiguously, since doing so implies complete forthrightness.
SMIs are now required to disclose, or explicitly mention when they were paid to promote a brand (Johnson 2017). However, the FTC’s rules are somewhat ambiguous and perhaps unfair. Therefore, SMIs may or may not be explicitly disclosing their true relationship with brands they post about due to the sheer uncertainty and/or unfairness inherent in the FTC’s endorsement guidance (FTC 2015).
SMIs who explicitly disclose are presumably perceived as possessing high transparent authenticity; however, such explicit disclosures presumably result in consumer perceptions of low passionate authenticity. This brings about a challenge to SMIs who partner with brands. This dissertation will answer the following question: How can social media influencers manage consumers’ perceptions of their human brand authenticity while engaging in influencer marketing
Nanoengineered Core-Shell Structures Using Tubile Halloysite Clay
Get PDFHalloysite nanotubes are a versatile nanomaterial that can be used in a wide variety of applications. They have a unique structure which could be described as a flat material that consists of silica on one side and alumina on the other; this structure is rolled up in a way naturally forming an internal 10-15 nm lumen and interlayer spacing. This could lead to many potential applications for example incorporating halloysite as a template material or as a support structure. They are an inexpensive clay material that is available in large quantities (thousands of tons), so they may be practically used in industrial applications. In this work, they were used as a support structure for catalysts, gas sensors, as well as lithium sulfur batteries.
In catalysis it is essential to minimize aggregation of catalytic nanoparticles as aggregation leads to a reduction of surface area used for conducting chemical reactions. Support structures are used to minimize this aggregation. Halloysite nanotubes were used as a support structure to chemically attach two different catalytic metal nanoparticles: cobalt and ruthenium. There are a variety of techniques to synthesize catalytic nanoparticles onto/inside halloysite. To enhance inner-wall and lumen metal cluster formation for ruthenium, we intercalated the tube with furfuraldehyde and then converted it to tetradentate ligands which have shown specific binding to Ru3+ ions from ethanol solution at elevated temperatures. One of the purposes of the ligands is to increase the amount of ruthenium loaded inside the halloysite. The other purpose is to firmly hold the ruthenium inside the halloysite to prevent leakage of Ru. Metal particles of 2-5 nm diameters were formed both in the central lumen and in the interlayer spaces of the tube walls. This core-shell engineered catalyst was tested in hydrogenation of aromatics. Maximum turnover frequency (TOF) achieved was 17282 h-1 in terms of hydrogen uptake per surface area of Ru-atoms. For halloysite-based ruthenium catalysts some metal leaching was observed after the 1st reaction cycle, which may be attributed to poorly retained nanoparticles located outside of the nanotubes, but these Ru-core-shell nanocatalysts were recycled up to ten times without loss of catalytic activity.
Halloysite was also used to load cobalt for catalytic purposes. Active cobalt mesocatalysts were prepared using four main methods: Wet impregnation of cobalt chloride into halloysite, adsorption of cobalt (II, III) oxide onto halloysite, and cobalt chloride linkage onto/into halloysite using azines as well as APTES. It turned out that the most efficient catalyst was the halloysite loaded with cobalt chloride using the azine acetone as a ligand with an R value (L/min x g(cat)) of three, which is higher than other previously made cobalt mesocatalysts which typically range from 0.9-2.9.
In addition to supporting metal catalytic nanoparticles, halloysite was used to load zirconia nanoparticles for gas sensor applications. We synthesized Y2O3-ZrO2 on halloysite clay nanotubes, an example of an external metal oxide – internal ceramic coreshell system. This produced 5-10 nm diameter particles on the nanotubes. This system should limit the particle agglomeration at working temperatures of 500 ºC.
Halloysite nanotubes were also used as a nanoconfinement structure to load sulfur particles for increasing lithium-sulfur battery efficiency. The available nanoscale space in the lumen of halloysites nanotubes and between assembled halloysites clusters help suppress the dissolution and migration of polysulfides in liquid electrolyte solution. The halloysite-sulfur cathode composite was incorporated into coin batteries, and the halloysite/sulfur composites successfully improve the cycling stability, retaining ~84% of the starting capacity for over 250 cycles
