The Influence of a Website’s Virtual Hospitality on Well-being and Behavioral Intentions Towards Sustainable Transportation: An Abstract

Abstract

Transportation contributes to 15% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, 60% of which comes from light vehicles. From a public policy perspective, it is increasingly acknowledged that people have to be encouraged to switch to more sustainable travel modes. To that effect, online communication is widely used nowadays. This research focuses on the effects of the design of a website, beyond its content in information. We draw on the concept of virtual hospitality, a form of online social and economic exchange fostered by the warm, friendly, welcoming, courteous, open, generous behavior of a host creating a hospitable social environment online. We show that four dimensions structure the concept of virtual hospitality: spaciality, which encompasses navigability, sociality, reciprocity, and recreation. We focus on the first two to hypothesize that navigability and sociality positively influence behavioral intentions (to share the information read on the website and to follow the recommendations related to the content of this information) both directly, and through the mediation of processing fluency, self-efficacy, and well-being. A 2 × 2 plus control group online experimentation manipulating navigability and sociality led to developing five different websites, to which our respondents were randomly assigned. Based on a sample of 187 people, our results confirm the direct effects of virtual hospitality on behavioral intentions. In contrast, mediation effects have to be nuanced. Processing fluency does mediate the effects of navigability but not the effects of sociality. More precisely, we show that processing fluency is a full mediator of the relationship between navigability and self-efficacy, but only a partial mediator when well-being replaces self-efficacy. We also show that well-being mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and behavioral intentions, and that self-efficacy mediates the relationship between processing fluency and well-being. This research contributes to the literature in several ways. We first confirm the positive effect of navigability. We then bring evidence that sociality should also be a dimension to consider when developing a website. We also provide additional empirical evidence of the existence of the relationship between processing fluency and self-efficacy in a new context, compared to extant literature. Finally, we also document the relationships between self-efficacy, well-being, and behavioral intentions in the digital field. To our knowledge, this research is one of the first attempt to introduce, at least partly, a processing fluency and a self-determination perspective in a context where a planned behavior framework is generally considered. From a practical perspective, we suggest that public actors give at least as much importance to form as to substance when delivering online information on sustainable modes of transport. Finally, this study does not take into account potential moderators, such as lack of perceived facilities, habits, or environmental concern, which opens as many research avenues.