Fanbo Meng, Yixuan Liu, Xiaofei Zhang and Libo Liu
Effectively engaging patients is critical for the sustainable development of online health communities (OHCs). Although physicians’ general knowledge-sharing, which is free to the…
Abstract
Purpose
Effectively engaging patients is critical for the sustainable development of online health communities (OHCs). Although physicians’ general knowledge-sharing, which is free to the public, represents essential resources of OHCs that have been shown to promote patient engagement, little is known about whether such knowledge-sharing can backfire when superfluous knowledge-sharing is perceived as overwhelming and anxiety-provoking. Thus, this study aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of the role of general knowledge-sharing in OHCs by exploring the spillover effects of the depth and breadth of general knowledge-sharing on patient engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
The research model is established based on a knowledge-based view and the literature on knowledge-sharing in OHCs. Then the authors test the research model and associated hypotheses with objective data from a leading OHC.
Findings
Although counterintuitive, the findings revealed an inverted U-shape relationship between general knowledge-sharing (depth and breadth of knowledge-sharing) and patient engagement that is positively associated with physicians’ number of patients. Specifically, the positive effects of depth and breadth of general knowledge-sharing increase and then decrease as the quantity of general knowledge-sharing grows. In addition, physicians’ offline and online professional status negatively moderated these curvilinear relationships.
Originality/value
This study further enriches the literature on knowledge-sharing and the operations of OHCs from a novel perspective while also offering significant specific implications for OHCs practitioners.
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Siqi Wang, Xiaofei Zhang and Fanbo Meng
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the convergence of linguistic features between physicians and patients with chronic diseases facilitates the effectiveness of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the convergence of linguistic features between physicians and patients with chronic diseases facilitates the effectiveness of physician–patient communication in online health communities (OHCs). Drawing on communication accommodation theory (CAT), the authors develop a research model that illustrates how the convergence of semantic features (language concreteness and emotional intensity) and stylistic features (language style) influence patient satisfaction and compliance. The model also incorporates the moderating effects of the physician's social status and the patients' complications.
Design/methodology/approach
The data, collected from a prominent online health platform in China, include 15,448 consultation records over five years. The logistic regression is leveraged to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The findings reveal that convergent semantic features, such as language concreteness and emotional intensity, along with stylistic features like language style, enhance patient satisfaction, which in turn leads to increased compliance. Additionally, the physician’s social status strengthens the effect of convergent emotional intensity but weakens the effect of convergent language concreteness. The physician’s social status has no significant impact on the link between convergent language style and satisfaction. Patients' complications weaken the effect of satisfaction on their compliance.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the CAT and OHC literature by enhancing the understanding of the role of linguistic convergence in the effectiveness of online physician–patient communication and provides managerial implications for physicians on how to accommodate their communicative styles toward chronic patients to improve patient satisfaction and compliance.
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Fanbo Meng, Xitong Guo, Zeyu Peng, Qiang Ye and Kee-Hung Lai
Mobile health (mHealth) services are considered an important means of relieving the problems of the aging population. The efficiency of mHealth services can be enhanced by…
Abstract
Purpose
Mobile health (mHealth) services are considered an important means of relieving the problems of the aging population. The efficiency of mHealth services can be enhanced by engaging more elderly users and guaranteeing their continued use. However, limited attention has been directed toward investigating elderly users' continuance intention regarding mHealth services. The purpose of this paper is to explain elderly users' continuance intention by investigating the contingent role of technology anxiety and health anxiety on affective trust and cognitive trust.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 232 elderly users to verify the research model and hypotheses based on structural equation modeling (SEM).
Findings
This study revealed that both affective and cognitive trust enhance elderly users' continuance intention regarding their use of mHealth services. Health anxiety strengthens the effect of cognitive trust but weakens the effect of affective trust with regard to continuance intention. Furthermore, technology anxiety strengthens the effect of affective trust but not the effect of cognitive trust with regard to continuance intention.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to examine elderly users' continuance intention regarding mHealth services use from the perspective of affective and cognitive trust, thus enriching the extant literature on the use of mHealth services. Additionally, this study sheds light on the contingent effects of technology anxiety and health anxiety on affective and cognitive trust, which have been neglected by previous research.
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Shengsheng Wang, Bangxi Li and Shan Gu
Different from Marx's analysis of the dialectical relationship between the production and realization of surplus value, the Okishio theorem only shows one aspect of the…
Abstract
Purpose
Different from Marx's analysis of the dialectical relationship between the production and realization of surplus value, the Okishio theorem only shows one aspect of the contradictory movement of the total social capital, that is, the reverse effect of the realization of surplus value on the production of surplus value.
Design/methodology/approach
The production of surplus value and the realization of surplus value are simplified into one process. This simplification eliminates the contradiction between the production and realization of surplus value, and the antagonistic contradiction between accumulation and consumption and the antagonistic production-distribution relationship in capitalist society are naturally covered up.
Findings
Therefore, it cannot explain the actual expansion way of the falling general rate of profit as the historical development law of capitalism. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the Okishio theorem places the analysis of the general rate of profit back into the social reproduction model with department equilibrium, which points out the significance of wage income to the realization of surplus value and outlines the macro mechanism of the realization of surplus value reacting to the production of surplus value. It also strongly promotes the research progress of the law that the profit rate tends to decline.
Originality/value
The mistake of the Okishio theorem is that the exchange process in the labor market forms the real wage rate. It determines the production price of wage goods, which thereby determines that the production price of capital goods and general rate of profit, the production of surplus value and realization of surplus value are simplified into the same process, and only the value that can be realized is the real value.