ABSTRACT
The electric commerce (e-commerce) platform in Malaysia has been growing exponentially since the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Many local businesses were badly affected when the first phase of Movement Control Order (MCO) was implemented for several weeks. The increasing number of social media platform users stems from wide internet accessibility and smartphone ownership. As such, this study investigated online purchasing behaviour in Malaysia by linking webrooming and user generated content (UGC) with brand experience and brand engagement. Essentially, this study unravelled consumer purchasing behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study explored the effects of UGC and webrooming on brand experience and brand engagement among Malaysian online consumers who purchased beauty product. As a result, UGC and webrooming displayed positive correlation with brand experience. However, brand experience was insignificant for brand engagement. Additionally, brand experience was unsuitable to function as a mediator. Thus, the impact of social influencers and shoppertainment on brand engagement should be assessed. Future studies may look into webrooming from the light of Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) Theory. Lastly, fake reviews, fake accounts, and bots that influence online purchasing behaviour among Malaysians should be investigated as well. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The excitement of travelling from hometown to a university, well dressed along with carrying notes and laptop, attending classes physically with friends has become a myth in year 2020 and perhaps until the end of the year 2021. COVID-19 has robbed the lifestyle of being a university student and transformed the learning system into online. However, from the perspective of digitalization, it’s an achievement but a sudden change has stirred many conflicts on the mental health of students in terms of accepting drastic movement taken by the university due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Academic performance of students is in limbo as they tend to avoiding registered for subjects due to lack of absorbance of changes in the mode of learning with limited facilities to support them along the way. In response, it gives monumental pressure to grasp the subjects via online where it can affect the academic performance of students. This study investigated the state of mind of students who are undergoing classes via online. As such, mental state, physical and ergonomic factors associating with academic background among students will be the focus of this study. Data had been collected from a private university in Malaysia by using online platform. We used non-parametric clustering technique K-medoids based on unsupervised approach and Davies-Bouldin Index to measure cluster quality. Though in the past a few researchers have investigated similar studies, there is no research work reported using the clustering technique to study the aforementioned factors. A total of 8 distinct clusters were obtained. The patterns in the clusters indicated that high mental stress, poor ergonomic settings, alongside high potential risk of injuries were present in students in the clusters regardless of academic background. In particular, the two groups of clusters namely C4, C5, C6, C7 and C1, C2 need immediate attention in respect of mental, health and pedagogy support. As of result, the management of university, family members and university stakeholders should play their part by providing students with psychological support, comfortable study workspace, appropriate pedagogy support. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Corona virus or most popularly known as the Covid-19 has paralyzed the people movement as well as various sectors that includes the education sector. Henceforth, it gave a breakthrough for academia to venture themselves into work from home with the aid of information technology. It is known as online teaching and learning (OTL). Frequent and continuous usage of OTL to conduct lessons for learners from home may take a toll on the health aspect of academicians. Demographic factors associating with the factors related to ergonomic settings among academicians will be the focus of this study. Data was collected from private universities in Malaysia by using online platform. Association rules technique based on unsupervised approach had been used to find interesting patterns between demographics and ergonomic settings. With association rules, finding co-occurrences of demographics factors leading to the factors of ergonomic settings is the main strength of the technique. Despite many researchers in the past has done ergonomics studies in various areas/fields, only simple and descriptive statistical techniques were used. At present, there is no research work reported using the association rules technique in the educational field in the context of ergonomics. Association rules algorithms FP-Growth and Apriori were used and the evaluation metrics used in this study were support, confidence and lift. The results from this study indicated that the academic group with demographic factors (Married, Male) particularly vulnerable to the risk of mental health while the academic group (Married, Female, Years of experience is less than 10 years) did not have adequate ergonomics facilities at home and lacked a better sense of interpretation of the information provided to them by the management in the process of executing OTL. The results could facilitate further improvements to establish good working conditions for academicians to use OTL from home. The management could undertake the necessary initiatives targeting specific academic groups to address the issues facing them. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.