Purpose: Mobile fitness apps (MFAs) are increasingly popular for people to promote physical activity (PA) and further enhance health status via behavioral change techniques (BCTs), but the phenomenon of users abandoning MFAs is still common. For improving users' PA and decreasing dropout rates of MFAs, this study intends to gain insights into the effects of major BCTs-based incentive factors on users' PA under MFAs context and the gender differences in their effects.Design/methodology/approach: Based on self-determination theory, three major incentive factors were chosen from the perspective of self-peer-platform incentives, i.e. self-monitoring (SM), social support (SS) and platform rewards (PR). A dataset of 4,530 users from a popular mobile fitness app was collected and was analyzed using fixed effects models.Findings: The results show that all three types of incentive factors are positively associated with users' PA. The estimated effect sizes can be ordered as: SM > PR > SS. Moreover, social support has a stronger positive impact on PA of females than males, whereas platform rewards have a weaker positive effect on PA of females than males. In addition, the results also indicate there are no significant gender differences in the effect of self-monitoring.Originality/value: There is insufficient research on systematically examining the effects of different types of incentive factors of MFAs on users' PA in one study. This study extends the current understanding of incentive factors by simultaneously examining different incentive factors and the role of gender. The findings can also provide insightful guidance for the design of MFAs.

Background: Little research has studied the peer effect of physicians and patients in online health communities (OHCs) simultaneously. The study investigates the impact of the focal physician’s peers (F-peers) on the focal physician (F-physician), and the impact of patients of the focal physician’s peers (F-P-patients) on the focal physician’s patients (F-patients). Moreover, based on brand extension and accessible–diagnosable theories, this study explores the moderating effects of the intensity of F-peers’ knowledge sharing behavior and department reputation. Methods: This study collects data of 3297 physicians and related patients from Haodf.com platform between January 2019 and December 2019. Both two-way fixed effect and panel negative binomial regression are adopted to quantify the effects. Results: Results show that the behavior of F-peers positively affects the behavior of the F-physician, while the behavior of F-P-patients positively affects the behavior of F-patients. Moreover, both the intensity of F-peers’ knowledge sharing behavior and department reputation have a compound moderating effect. Conclusions: This study contributes to the literature of peer effects by constructing the conceptual framework of different types of individual participation behaviors in OHCs. The findings offer practical guides for establishing an incentive mechanism and formulating peer incentives or competition strategies in OHCs.

Purpose: This study explores the key platform affordances that online social platform providers need to offer digital creators to strengthen the creator ecosystem, one of the leading accelerators for platform growth. Specifically, it aims to investigate how these affordances make the dynamic combinations for high platform quality across diverse platform types and demographic characteristics of digital creators.Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a multi-method approach. Drawing upon the affordance theory, Study 1 aims to identify the key affordances of online social platforms based on relevant literature and the qualitative interview data collected from 22 digital creators, thereby constructing a conceptual framework of key platform affordances for digital creators. Building on the findings of Study 1, Study 2 explores the dynamic combinations of these platform affordances that contribute to platform quality using a configurational approach. Data from online surveys of 185 digital creators were analyzed using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).Findings: The results of Study 1 identified key online social platform affordances for digital creators, including Storytelling, Socialization, Design, Development, Promotion, and Protection affordance. Study 2 showed that the combinations of these platform affordances for digital creators are diverse according to the types of platforms, creators’ gender, and their professionality.Research limitations/implications: Like many studies, this research also has several limitations. One limitation of the research is the potential constraint of the extent of how well the data samples represent the group of creators who are actively producing digital content. Despite the addition of screening questions and meticulous data filtering, it is possible that we did not secure sufficient data from creators who are actively engaged in creative activities. In future research, it is worth contemplating the acquisition of data from actual groups of creators, such as creator communities. Future researchers anticipate obtaining more in-depth and accurate data by directly involving and collaborating with creators.Practical implications: This study highlights the need for online social platforms to enhance features for storytelling, socializing, design, development, promotion, and protection, fostering a robust digital creator ecosystem. It emphasizes clear communication of these affordances, ensuring creators can effectively utilize them. Importantly, platforms should adapt these features to accommodate diverse creator profiles, considering differences in gender and expertise levels, especially in emerging spaces like the Metaverse. This approach ensures an equitable and enriching experience for all users and creators, underlining the importance of dynamic interaction and inclusivity in platform development and creator support strategies.Social implications: This study underscores the social implications of evolving digital creator ecosystems on online platforms. Identifying six key affordances essential for digital creators highlights the need for platforms to enhance storytelling, socializing, design, development, promotion, and product protection. Crucially, it emphasizes inclusivity, urging platforms to consider diverse creator profiles, including gender and expertise differences, particularly in transitioning from traditional social media to the Metaverse. This approach nurtures a more robust creator ecosystem and fosters an equitable and enriching experience for all users. It signals a shift towards more dynamic, adaptive online environments catering to diverse creators and audiences.Originality/value: For academics, this study builds the conceptual framework of online social platform affordances for digital creators. Using the configurational approach, this study identified various interdependent relationships among the affordances, which are nuanced by specific contexts, and suggested novel insights for future studies. For practices, the findings specified by creators and platform types are expected to guide platform providers in developing strategies to support digital creators and contribute to platform growth.

Purpose: This study examines how users' multidimensional representational fidelity factors affect sociability and cyberself engagement in the Metaverse platform; that is, how they interact with newly defined self-images as their personas in the environments. It investigates how representational fidelity serves platform users to perform social roles and increase their sociability by establishing a new cyberself, thus influencing continuous platform use. Design/methodology/approach: This study surveyed 314 users of the Metaverse platform Horizon, where users can create a virtual agent avatar, meet people in the same online environment in real time, and interact with a sense of three-dimensional immersion. Data were analyzed using partial least squares regression models. Findings: User socialization significantly influenced the intention to use the Metaverse platform. Representational fidelity was a crucial variable for sociability, and activity representational fidelity was the most influential aspect among the four other elements. Platforms should consider how to enable users to create and use activities that faithfully represent their personas. Originality/value: The novelty of this study is that it introduces representational fidelity based on representation theory into the context of virtual persona in the Metaverse platform. This study extended representational fidelity to the socialization perspective by utilizing the integrated model of user satisfaction and the technology acceptance model. Through the results, this study emphasized that users' sociability significantly influences their intention to use the Metaverse platform. Finally, this study provides a feasible guideline on how practitioners could design and strengthen their platforms so that users can represent their cyberselves faithfully.