Bias effects, synergistic effects, and information contingency effects: developing and testing an extended information adoption model in social Q&A

To advance the theoretical understanding on information adoption, this study tries to extend the information adoption model (IAM) in three ways. First, this study considers the relationship between source credibility and argument quality and the relationship between herding factors and information usefulness (i.e., bias effects). Second, this study proposes the interaction effects of source credibility and argument quality and the interaction effects of herding factors and information usefulness (i.e., synergistic effects). Third, this study explores the moderating role of an information characteristic – search versus experience information (i.e., information contingency effects). The proposed extended information adoption model (EIAM) is empirically tested through a 2 by 2 by 2 experiment in the social Q&A context, and the results confirm most of the hypotheses. Finally, theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.