Insufficient patient disclosure and persistent stigma undermine effective mental health care; a challenge magnified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth offers a promising avenue to reduce access barriers and improve equity, yet its effectiveness depends on patients' willingness to disclose sensitive information online. This study develops a middle-range, contextually adapted version of the disclosure processes model (DPM) to explain and predict how stigma and technological features shape online self-disclosure in mental health settings. We conducted a randomized web-based experiment with 309 participants who viewed a video vignette depicting a consultation between a patient and a psychiatrist. The vignette manipulated diagnosis (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] vs. schizophrenia) and consultation mode (in-person vs. virtual). Results show that willingness to disclose increases with greater trust in technology, higher perceived social presence, and richer communication media. Initial disclosure goals align with differing levels of technological trust and self-disclosure. However, perceived stigma weakens these positive relationships, reducing patients' readiness to share sensitive information. The research advances theory by extending the DPM into a context-specific, middle-range information systems framework that integrates stigma and media characteristics in online mental health care. Practically, the findings identify key communication features-such as social presence, richness, and trust in telehealth platforms-that can be calibrated to foster disclosure of stigmatized information. These insights inform the design and implementation of telehealth services that promote open communication and improve treatment engagement in mental health and other stigma-laden domains.

Patients are increasingly faced with balancing the efficacy of their care against the privacy of their protected health information (PHI). Research has established that healthcare data breaches erode patients’ willingness to share new health information, yet withholding PHI results in poorer medical outcomes. This study integrates construal level theory and privacy calculus to introduce a construals privacy calculus perspective of PHI sharing post-data breach. This perspective argues that contextual differences in breach characteristics affect patients’ perceived PHI risks and disclosure decisions. Results of a mixed-methods research design indicate that psychologically distant breaches are significantly less disruptive to disclosure intentions than psychologically closer data breaches. Perceived PHI sensitivity also serves as a model moderator based on qualitative interview data and a meta-inference post hoc analysis of our quantitative study. Overall, this study contributes to understanding PHI disclosure amidst increasing incidents of healthcare data breaches, where PHI disclosures and healthcare privacy are context- and situation-specific phenomena.

How security messages can be used to motivate information technology (IT) users' security behaviour has been of keen interest to IS research. To that end, studies have focused on the content of security messages; however, few studies have examined the influence of message senders. In this article, we build on social influence theory and integrate it with the concept of inferences of manipulative intent (IMI) to develop a model that examines how perceptions of sender characteristics-cybersecurity expertise, coercive power, and similarity-can yield positive and negative influence on message outcomes, captured in recipients' message compliance intentions. We test our model in four different studies using field and scenario experiments across three target populations: the general public, students, and employees. Perceived expertise, power, and similarity had similar effects among the general public and students: Perceived expertise was positively associated with message outcomes, but perceived power and similarity were negatively associated. In contrast, employees reacted differently from the general public and students in that they responded positively to perceived power, with perceived expertise and similarity having negligible effects. Across these three target populations, we found that participants reacted to senders high in perceived power and similarity with IMI, which reduced their message compliance intentions. Our results suggest that senders must be chosen carefully, depending on the target population, because selecting the wrong sender can increase the likelihood of a message being rejected.

In the rapidly evolving digital marketplace, understanding consumer behavior in response to negative reviews is of considerable practical and academic importance. Negative reviews influence consumer decision-making, but not all are accurate or helpful. Moreover, the interplay between emotional arousal and the perceived utility of negative reviews, particularly for high-risk purchases and costly products, remains largely unexplored. Addressing this gap, our study leverages attribution theory to scrutinize the curvilinear relationship between emotional arousal and the usefulness of negative reviews in high-risk purchases. We employed a robust mixed-methods design comprising three different studies aimed to triangulate further and understand these phenomena: Study 1 involved an objective content analysis of 6,147 negative reviews from prominent Chinese e-commerce platforms; Study 2 was a controlled scenario-based experiment with 99 consumers, aimed to test the underlying causal relationships; finally, Study 3 involved in-depth qualitative interviews and coding with 60 consumers. Our findings demonstrate an inverted U-shaped relationship between emotional arousal and the perceived utility of negative reviews in high-risk purchase scenarios. This relationship is mediated by prosocial motives, emphasizing that emotionally aroused consumers will likely find negative reviews helpful only up to a certain point, after which the utility diminishes. Notably, positive merchant responses serve as a crucial moderating variable in the emotional arousal-negative review usefulness relationship and the connection between prosocial motives and review usefulness. Our study advances the online review literature by offering nuanced insights into the complex relationship between emotional arousal and the utility of negative reviews in high-risk purchase scenarios. Our results have immediate implications for e-commerce platforms, enabling them to convert the challenge posed by negative reviews into actionable opportunities through informed response strategies.

Gamification is driving widespread application adoption, with a $70.4 billion projected market by 2030. However, the consequences of gamification on sustained use beyond initial adoption remain largely unclear. This study explores how the game layer may induce psychological fatigue and hinder continued use, particularly in learning systems. Drawing on self-determination theory and cognitive load theory, we analyzed the perceptions of 307 Duolingo users. The results reveal mixed impacts of the game layer on postadoption usage, influenced by gaming motivation and perceived learning complexity. This research underscores the nuanced effects of gamification and offers insights for improving gamified learning system design.

The Metaverse represents a transformative frontier, blending physical and virtual realities into immersive, persistent digital environments. This article explores the foundational components, emerging markets, and critical challenges shaping the Metaverse's evolution. Although initial industry enthusiasm has been tempered by financial setbacks and shifting priorities toward generative artificial intelligence (AI), the Metaverse remains nascent, following a familiar hype cycle with other disruptive technologies. Drawing parallels with historical technological breakthroughs, we argue that continued hardware, software, and telecommunications advancements will unlock the Metaverse's potential for profound societal and economic impact. We explore the potential for business approaches and collaborative efforts across various market sectors, including consumer goods and commercial services, as well as healthcare and industrial realms. To do so, we explain how technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and extended reality (XR) increase user participation through consuming content that creates a sense of presence while at the same time outlining Metaverse challenges, risks, technological difficulties, and sociotechnical factors. By dissecting specific use cases and proposing strategies for managing challenges like data privacy, security, and inclusivity, we chart a path for researchers and practitioners to foster innovation. The article concludes with a call to action for researchers to lead visionary efforts, urging them to anticipate and shape the future possibilities of the Metaverse beyond current technological and market constraints. By breaking down the Metaverse into targeted applications, this work provides a roadmap for advancing theory, design, and practice to unlock the Metaverse's full disruptive potential. We challenge the notion that the Metaverse is "dead," instead framing it as an enduring societal and economic transformation catalyst.

Leveraging the conservation of resources theory, this study investigates the influence of non-hedonic social media (SM) uses, namely broad socialization, deep communication, information retrieval, and information sharing, on forming knowledge-working professionals’ depression through SM overload and strain. The analysis of a two-wave data collection with 440 participants suggests that broad socialization and information sharing have both positive and negative effects indirectly on depression. In contrast, deep communication and information retrieval are beneficial in reducing depression. Our study contributes to the existing literature by exploring the distinct effects of the four non-hedonic social media use on depression.

This study examines factors influencing continuous intention to use (CITU) e-learning systems in universities and professional organizations through a systematic literature review (SLR) of studies from 2004 to 2022. Using a novel graphical synthesis method, we reconstruct the nomological network to map key constructs, revealing a predominant focus on utilitarian motivations like satisfaction and perceived usefulness. Key gaps include limited research on CITU outcomes, system characteristics, and intrinsic motivations. Most studies assume voluntary use, despite non-voluntary contexts in education and training. Additionally, longitudinal and mixed-methods studies remain scarce, with geographic coverage heavily skewed toward Asia. Our contributions include a novel graphical synthesis for visualizing research gaps and actionable recommendations for advancing CITU research in e-learning.

This study aims to investigate how to leverage knowledge sharing (KS) to boost team creativity among information technology (IT) professionals. We examine the effects of intrinsic and intangible extrinsic rewards on in-role and extra-role KS, which increases team creativity. We use data collected from 322 employees in 80 teams from organizations in the IT industry to test the research model and confirm the important roles of KS and motivational rewards. The two types of KS show different patterns in terms of their antecedents and outcomes. Specifically, in-role KS does not affect team creativity directly, while extra-role KS does. Intrinsic rewards significantly affect both in-role and extra-role KS, and the effect on the latter is greater. Image rewards have a greater effect on in-role KS than on extra-role KS. In addition, the two forms of intangible extrinsic rewards exhibit internalization. The study pioneers in addressing a pressing research gap by investigating and comparing the effects of the two types of KS—in-role and extra-role KS—on team creativity.

The Signalgate incident of March 2025, wherein senior US national security officials inadvertently disclosed sensitive military operational details via the encrypted messaging platform Signal, highlights critical vulnerabilities in organizational security arising from human error, governance gaps, and the misuse of technology. Although smaller in scale when compared to historical breaches involving billions of records, Signalgate illustrates critical systemic issues often overshadowed by a focus on external cyber threats. Employing a case-study approach and systematic review grounded in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, we analyze the incident to identify patterns of human-centric vulnerabilities and governance challenges common to organizational security failures. Findings emphasize three critical points. (1) Organizational security depends heavily on human behavior, with internal actors often serving as the weakest link despite advanced technical defenses; (2) Leadership tone strongly influences organizational security culture and efficacy, and (3) widespread reliance on technical solutions without sufficient investments in human and organizational factors leads to ineffective practices and wasted resources. From these observations, we propose actionable recommendations for enhancing organizational and national security, including strong leadership engagement, comprehensive adoption of zero-trust architectures, clearer accountability structures, incentivized security behaviors, and rigorous oversight. Particularly during periods of organizational transition, such as mergers or large-scale personnel changes, additional measures become particularly important. Signalgate underscores the need for leaders and policymakers to reorient cybersecurity strategies toward addressing governance, cultural, and behavioral risks.

Despite technological advances aimed at preventing them, cybersecurity breaches have grown more numerous and costly over time. Current training programs and policies, for their part, have been largely ineffective in reducing cyberthreats, as human actions continue to be the weakest link. This article urges organizations to make greater efforts to warn employees about cybersecurity dangers and help employees improve their confidence in their ability to defend against such dangers.(1,2)

In this study, we investigate information system (IS) failures by leveraging a novel construct- dissonant relational multiplexity (RM)-to develop a unique perspective of these failures. Dissonant RM exists when two organizational stakeholders have multiple types of relationships that are in conflict. To investigate the salience of dissonant RM in IS failures, we use a case study combined with the analysis procedures of the grounded theory methodology (GTM) to examine a major failure in enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. Our analysis and theorization highlight that RM became increasingly dissonant in the relationships between key organizational stakeholders because of a shift in technological frames that represent cognitive perceptions about technology. Further, a key insight from our findings is that the move to dissonant RM occurred through a process that we term relational unbalancing. . In addition, we also found evidence of an opposing relational balancing process that was used by stakeholders to address dissonant RM. Such stakeholder efforts were often undermined by inherent constraints in the implemented technology. The relational balancing efforts were not productive, and the dissonant RM continued to exist, ultimately contributing to the failure of the ERP implementation. Our study shows that IS failures are characterized by elements of both determinism and indeterminism, are undoubtedly sociotechnical in nature, and are shaped by technological constraints and stakeholder perceptions of those constraints. From a practical standpoint, our study highlights the importance of managing multiplex stakeholder relationships in an IS implementation process, especially when the multiplexity is shaped by the technology.

Purpose Researchers continue to address the concept of self-disclosure because it is foundational for helping social networking sites (SNS) function and thrive. Nevertheless, the authors' literature review indicates that uncertainty remains around the underlying mechanisms and factors involved in the self-disclosure process. The purpose of this research is to better understand the self-disclosure process from the lens of dual-process theory (DPT). The authors consider both the controlled factors (i.e. self-presentation and reciprocity) and an automatic factor (i.e. social influence to use an SNS) involved in self-disclosure and broaden The authors proposed a model to include the interactive facets of enjoyment. Design/methodology/approach The proposed model was empirically validated by conducting a survey among users of WeChat Moments in China. Findings As hypothesized, this research confirms that enjoyment and automatic processing (i.e. social influence to use an SNS) are complementary in the SNS self-disclosure process and enjoyment negatively moderates the positive relationship between controlled factor (i.e. self-presentation) and self-disclosure. Originality/value Theoretically, this study offers a new perspective on explaining SNS self-disclosure by adopting DPT. Specifically, this study contributes to the extant SNS research by applying DPT to examine how the controlled factors and the automatic factor shape self-disclosure processes and how enjoyment influences vary across these processes – enriching knowledge about SNS self-disclosure behaviors. Practically, the authors provide important design guidelines to practitioners concerning devising mechanisms to foster more automatic-enjoyable value-added functions to improve SNS users' participation and engagement.

IT governance (ITG) is crucial in achieving IT strategic alignment, but many organizations find this to be an elusive goal. We thus expand ITG into two components: ITG mechanisms and ITG principles. We propose that beyond the mere option of ITG mechanisms, organizations must fully embrace the broader "spirit" of ITG, which occurs when an organization is committed to ITG principles coupled with top leadership support. To test our theorization, we first developed and validated two new measures. We used the ITG framework of COBIT to create a measure of commitment to COBIT principles (CCP), and we found that CCP fully mediates ITG mechanisms' relationship with strategic alignment. We thus illuminate a missing link between adopting ITG mechanisms and achieving strategic alignment by demonstrating the need to focus on ITG principles. We show that top leadership support for IT, including support at the board level, not only enhances CCP but also directly contributes to improved strategic alignment. Our study establishes that adopting ITG mechanisms is necessary but insufficient for achieving strategic alignment. Effective organizations go beyond implementing isolated ITG mechanisms; they fully embrace integrated COBIT-based principles, guided by a strong infusion of top leadership support, including board-level support.

Organisational information security (ISec) protection is undergoing a turbulent shift in the workplace environment. In an environment of ever‐increasing risks of insider threats and external cyberattacks, individual employees are often expected to take the initiative to solve organisational security problems. This study therefore focuses on employees' proactive information security behaviours (ISBs)—behaviours that are self‐initiated, change‐oriented, and future‐focused—and the motivations that compel employees to protect organisational assets. We ground our study in Parker et al. (2010) proactive motivation theory (ProMT) and develop an integrated multilevel model to examine the respective effects of proactive motivational states, that is, can‐do , reason‐to , and energised‐to motivations, on employees' proactive ISBs. We also explore the roles of individual differences and contextual factors—namely, proactive personality and supervisory ISec support—and their influences on proactive motivational states. Data were collected from 210 employees situated in 55 departments distributed among multiple organisations located in China. The results show that supervisory ISec support positively influences employees' proactive motivational states and thereby boosts employees' proactive ISBs. Proactive personality negatively moderates the effect of supervisory ISec support on flexible security role orientation (reason‐to motivation). By identifying the antecedents of employees' proactive ISBs, we make key theoretical contributions to ISec research and valuable practical contributions to organisational ISec management.

Purpose Despite the major information technology investments made by public institutions, the reuse of e-government services remains an issue as citizens hesitate to use e-government websites regularly. The purpose of this study is to investigate the cross-country determinants of e-government reuse intention by proposing a theoretical model that integrates constructs from (1) the Delone and McLean IS success model (i.e. system quality, service quality, information quality, perceived value and user satisfaction); (2) the trust and risk models (i.e. citizen trust, overall risk, time risk, privacy risk and psychological risks); and (3) Hofstede's cultural model (i.e. uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism and cross-cultural trust and risk). Design/methodology/approach Based on data from interviews with 81 Kuwaiti citizens and surveys of 1,829 Kuwaiti and Polish citizens, this study conducted comprehensive, cross-cultural and comparative analyses of e-government reuse intention in a cross-country setting. Findings The results show that trust is positively associated with citizens' intention to reuse e-government services, whereas risk is negatively associated with citizens' perceived value. This study also found that masculinity–femininity and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with the intention to reuse e-government services and that individualism–collectivism has no significant relationship with reuse intention. This study's findings have important implications for researchers and practitioners seeking to understand and improve e-government success in cross-country settings. Originality/value This study developed a parsimonious model of quality, trust, risk, culture and technology reuse that captures country-specific cultural contexts and enables us to conduct a comprehensive, cross-cultural and comparative analysis of e-government reuse intention in the cross-country setting of Kuwait and Poland.