Consumer Information Search in Live-Streaming: Product Involvement and the Moderating Role of Scarcity Promotion and Impulsiveness

Abstract

While the literature acknowledges the impact of product involvement on consumer information search, little work discerns the boundary conditions of product involvement on information searching. Product involvement reflects an individual’s interest in an object because of its inherent values, necessity, and interest. This study investigates the combined moderating role of limited-quantity scarcity and personal impulsiveness in the relationship between product involvement and information search behavior. A survey experiment with 402 participants was conducted to test this hypotheses. The experiment in this study used a 2 (cognitive involvement: high vs. low) × 2 (affective involvement: high vs. low) × 2 (limited-quantity scarcity: high vs. low) between-subjects design. The results provided strong evidence that (1) cognitive involvement is positively associated with online information search, whereas affective involvement is not associated with online information search; (2) limited-quantity scarcity significantly weakens the impact of cognitive involvement on online information search, but it does not have an interaction effect with affective involvement on online information search; and (3) the three-way interaction among product involvement (i.e., cognitive involvement and affective involvement), limited-quantity scarcity, and impulsiveness on consumer information search is significant. This study extends the current information searching studies by uncovering personal impulsiveness and limited-quantity scarcity as boundary conditions that influence the effects of cognitive involvement and affective involvement on consumer information search. The findings can help stakeholders promote the sustainability of e-commerce live-streaming in practice.