Purpose: This paper investigates if the existing degree of students' acceptance and use of mobile or m-learning may face the online shift determined by SARS-CoV-2. Based on the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2), a new comprehensive model, SD-UTAUT (social distancing-UTAUT), is developed to better understand relationships between the original constructs, plus personal innovativeness (PI) and information quality (IQ). It identifies the key factors affecting behavioral intention (BI) and use by examining the influence of revaluated hedonic motivation (HM) and learning value (LV) importance as mediators.Design/methodology/approach: The paper opted for an exploratory study involving 311 learners, using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).Findings: SD-UTAUT can be a new m-learning model in higher education. It has high predictive power and confirmed 15 out of 16 hypotheses. The most powerful relationship is between performance expectancy (PE) and HM. IQ affected LV the most, since HM the behavioral use (BU). HM impacts the use behavior (UB) more than LV, but habit (HT) affects it the most.Research limitations/implications: Because of the pandemic context, output may lack generalizability and reproducibility.Practical implications: To improve usage, staff must provide better support, course creators emphasize the objectives and competencies and developers integrate innovation. The joy and pleasure of m-learning use may stimulate the LV through interesting and interactive content, like incorporating gamification.Originality/value: The model set-up and circumstances are previously unseen. SD-UTAUT confirms ten new hypotheses and introduces the student's grade point average (GPA) as a moderator.Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0017

Purpose: Even though social media (SM) has been explored in-depth, its role remains unclear regarding short- and long-term preventive attitudes in global health emergencies. To fill this gap, the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework aims to clarify the social media exposure mission in acknowledging risk perception and triggering preventive attitudes and behaviors toward COVID-19 and general vaccination.Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted an explanatory-predictive study on 480 Romanian students, using partial least squares structural equation modeling, and performed model evaluation, multi-group, model selection, and importance-performance map analyses.Findings: The study provides insights in understanding significant relationships and drivers explaining and predicting attitudes towards vaccines. The main relationships are between fear and risk perception; risk and preventive attitudes and behaviors; and vaccination degree and attitudes to vaccines. The most important factor is the vaccination degree and media exposure is the most performant.Practical implications: Developing and applying regulations and communication strategies for quality mass information may positively increase attitudes toward vaccines by indirectly enforcing the main drivers.Social implications: Organizations, authorities, and opinion leaders must have a coherent supportive presence in media.Originality/value: This study filled the literature gap by building a generic theoretical and empirical proven framework that investigates the mediated effect towards vaccines of all media types by COVID-19 experience and vaccination degree.Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0621

Selecting online the most suitable product or service can be a draining process, and the broad diversity of products on retailers’ websites is overwhelming. Following this, there has been a high interest in examining buyers’ motivations and recognizing the determinant factors that affect the decision-making process in the case of online shopping. Hence, in this article, we carried out an empirical study and we analyzed to what extent certain factors such as product features, confidence in the online shop, product reviews, product price, consumer evaluations, the trust of the sources, usability of the online shop, convictions and commitment to the brand, product notoriety, consumer loyalty programs, WOM, and eWOM influence the purchasing decision. The findings reveal that the most significant variables determining the acquisition decision are product features, confidence in the online shop, reviews of the product, product price, and evaluations of customers from trusted sources. The most relevant information resources are trustworthy websites that offer specialized product reviews and reliable websites that offer customer product reviews.