【Speaker】Chee-Wee Tan, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School

【Topic】The Art of Online Foraging: Adaptive Search in Consumer-Generated Content Environments

【Time】Wednesday, Dec.28, 14:00-16:00

【Venue】Room 385, Weilun Building, Tsinghua SEM

【Language】English/Chinese

【Organizer】Department of Management Science and Engineering

【Abstract】

Inefficiencies associated with online information search are becoming increasingly prevalent in digital environments due to a surge in Consumer Generated Content (CGC). Despite growing scholarly interest in investigating users’ information search behavior in CGC environments, there is a paucity of studies that explores the phenomenon from a theory-guided angle. Drawing on Information Foraging Theory (IFT), we re-conceptualize online information search as a form of adaptive user behavior in response to system design constraints. Through this theoretical lens, we advanced separate taxonomies for online information search tactics and strategies, both of which constitute essential building blocks of the search process. Furthermore, we construct a research framework that bridges the gap between online information search tactics and strategies by articulating how technology-enabled search tactics contribute to the fulfillment of strategic search goals. Subsequently, our research framework was validated via an online experiment in which Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) participants were recruited and tasked to perform searches on custom-made online review websites, which are modeled after their actual counterpart and populated with real review data of restaurants. Empirical findings reveal that the provision of different search features engenders distinct search tactics, thereby exposing users to varying levels of search determination control and search manipulation control. In turn, both types of search controls affects users’ result anticipation and search costs, which when combined, determine the efficiency of goal-oriented search strategy and the utility of exploratory search strategy.

CV