Impact of IT identity on consumer negatively-valenced engagement in mobile medical consultation: from consumer experience perspective

Abstract

PurposeThe mobile medical consultation (MMC) service is growing rapidly, but not all consumers are always willing to actively engage with it. To address this issue, based on IT identity theory, this study explores the underlying mechanism of how two types of platform-related consumer experience influence MMC platform identity, in turn, result in consumer negatively-valenced engagement in MMC.Design/methodology/approachThe data was collected from 400 consumers with the experience of MMC and analyzed by the partial least square (PLS) method.FindingsThe findings unfold that these two distinct consumer experience, servicescape experience (i.e. perceived telepresence and perceived platform surveillance) and service search experience (i.e. perceived diagnosticity and perceived serendipity), are associated with MMC platform identity and consumer negatively valenced engagement with MMC.Originality/valueResearch on consumer negatively-valenced engagement in the field of MMC is still in a nascent stage. The study identifies consumer experience in accordance with the unique context of the MMC platform and fills the research gap on the role of IT identity in consumer negatively valenced engagement.