Impact of a physician's prosocial behavior on the patient's choice: an empirical investigation in online health community
Information Technology & People
ISSN: 0959-3845
Article publication date: 26 July 2022
Issue publication date: 4 May 2023
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of a physician’s prosocial behavior on a patient's choices in the online health community (OHC) context. Moreover, the authors explore how such effects differ across different online word-of-mouth (WOM) and professional titles.
Design/methodology/approach
Guided by the motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) framework, this paper develops hypotheses and an econometric model. Then this paper used spline regression to test hypotheses on 6,204 physicians at The Good Doctor (www.Haodf.com), which is one of the largest Chinese OHCs. The authors conducted the propensity score matching and difference-in-difference method (PSM-DID) to address the concern about the bias caused by possible endogeneity concerns.
Findings
The authors’ results show that a physician’s prosocial behavior improves a patient's choice only when the strength of a physician’s prosocial behavior is below the tipping point. In addition, the influence of a physician’s prosocial behavior is heterogeneous for physicians with different online WOM and professional titles. For physicians with higher online WOM, the effect of a physician's prosocial behaviors on a patient's choice is positive, while for physicians with lower online WOM, a physician’s prosocial behavior has no impact on a patient’s choice. For physicians with higher professional titles, the quantity of a physician’s prosocial behavior has a positive impact on a patient’s choice, while for physicians with lower professional titles the quality of a physician’s prosocial behavior has a positive impact on a patient’s choice.
Originality/value
This study contributes new knowledge and provides new perspectives to study a patient's choice by addressing the importance of physician's prosocial behavior. With the effort of explicitly explaining the complex mechanisms, this study encourages physicians' engagement in a physician’s prosocial behavior and gives some implications on how to perform the behaviors strategically.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Senior Editor, Professor Xin Li, for his precious time, the Associate Editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.
Funding: The study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71903020]; Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation [19YJC790174] and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [DUT19RW212].
Citation
Wang, J.-J., Liu, H., Cui, X., Ye, J. and Chen, H. (2023), "Impact of a physician's prosocial behavior on the patient's choice: an empirical investigation in online health community", Information Technology & People, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 1703-1725. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-12-2020-0878
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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