Research Paper Summary
The paper introduces the issue of border strength or the level at which the digital media artifacts mark a move from one website to another, and then proposes a positive impact of the border strength on the user’s recognition of their locations. The paper argues that during an online session, a user may decide to go through different websites, usually following hyperlinks from one site to another or by use of a search result page to find and explore different pages. Therefore, sites that may have offered value to the user may not get the anticipated positive impacts like the need to revisit and loyalty. It is therefore important to know whether and how a certain website is seen by users from the perspective of multi-website online sessions especially in forecasting the needed results, like user loyalty, the image of the brand, trust and need to visit the site later. The paper addresses this issue by hypothesizing the web as an environment navigated by users who cross digital borders as they move from one website location to another.
The paper considers the ascription of the user for support of credit to help in the successful completion of an online task to such locations and their owners that sustain the task. This attribution is considered as a function of border strength and recognition of location. The hypothesis is tested by the use of experimental data, which indicates that some websites go unnoticed and that secure borders help in user’s recognition of having used a certain website and the credit attribution of a user for their experience to the site. The findings in this paper show that geography metaphor is useful, and propose a reason for more research concerning specific sites in the context of multi-site sessions. The paper shows the need for building secure borders to mark the entry into digital sites.
References
Dunn, B. K., Ramasubbu, N., Galletta, F. D., & Lowry, P. B. (2019). Digital Borders, Location Recognition, and Experience Attribution within a Digital Geography. Journal of Management Information Systems, 36(2), 418-449.