IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/proeco/v267y2024ics0925527323002967.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How did online misinformation impact stockouts in the e-commerce supply chain during COVID-19 – A mixed methods study

Author

Listed:
  • Sarraf, Shagun
  • Kushwaha, Amit Kumar
  • Kar, Arpan Kumar
  • Dwivedi, Yogesh K.
  • Giannakis, Mihalis

Abstract

The proliferation of fake news across the internet has become a significant area of concern globally. The COVID-19 pandemic highlights that the propagation of fake news can jeopardize public health and heighten irrational behavior amongst consumers, like panic buying. However, the existing literature has not explored its impact on the supply chain. This study uses reactance and cognitive load theories to examine a model for fake news propagation causing supply chain disruption. Our research employed a computationally intensive big data-driven method across three studies to demonstrate misinformation's impact on supply chain disruption, identify the factors creating this impact, and validate an inferential analysis model to explain this phenomenon. Results highlight the relationship between unverified information sharing (UIS) and perceived threat, perceived scarcity, fear appeal, and information overload with panic buying. The paper dwells more profoundly on fake news disrupting the supply chain.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarraf, Shagun & Kushwaha, Amit Kumar & Kar, Arpan Kumar & Dwivedi, Yogesh K. & Giannakis, Mihalis, 2024. "How did online misinformation impact stockouts in the e-commerce supply chain during COVID-19 – A mixed methods study," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:267:y:2024:i:c:s0925527323002967
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2023.109064
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527323002967
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijpe.2023.109064?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scarpin, Marcia Regina Santiago & Scarpin, Jorge Eduardo & Krespi Musial, Nayane Thais & Nakamura, Wilson Toshiro, 2022. "The implications of COVID-19: Bullwhip and ripple effects in global supply chains," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    2. Julie Sneath & Russell Lacey & Pamela Kennett-Hensel, 2009. "Coping with a natural disaster: Losses, emotions, and impulsive and compulsive buying," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 45-60, March.
    3. Fitzsimons, Gavan J, 2000. "Consumer Response to Stockouts," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 27(2), pages 249-266, September.
    4. Prentice, Catherine & Chen, Jinyan & Stantic, Bela, 2020. "Timed intervention in COVID-19 and panic buying," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    5. Bermes, Alena, 2021. "Information overload and fake news sharing: A transactional stress perspective exploring the mitigating role of consumers’ resilience during COVID-19," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    6. Young Kwark & Gene Moo Lee & Paul A. Pavlou & Liangfei Qiu, 2021. "On the Spillover Effects of Online Product Reviews on Purchases: Evidence from Clickstream Data," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 32(3), pages 895-913, September.
    7. Samuli Laato & A. K. M. Najmul Islam & Muhammad Nazrul Islam & Eoin Whelan, 2020. "What drives unverified information sharing and cyberchondria during the COVID-19 pandemic?," European Journal of Information Systems, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 288-305, May.
    8. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," NBER Working Papers 23089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Margherita, Alessandro & Heikkilä, Marikka, 2021. "Business continuity in the COVID-19 emergency: A framework of actions undertaken by world-leading companies," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 683-695.
    10. Yogesh K. Dwivedi & Gerald Kelly & Marijn Janssen & Nripendra P. Rana & Emma L. Slade & Marc Clement, 2018. "Social Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 419-423, June.
    11. Bianco, Débora & Bueno, Adauto & Godinho Filho, Moacir & Latan, Hengky & Miller Devós Ganga, Gilberto & Frank, Alejandro G. & Chiappetta Jabbour, Charbel Jose, 2023. "The role of Industry 4.0 in developing resilience for manufacturing companies during COVID-19," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    12. Nagurney, Anna, 2021. "Optimization of supply chain networks with inclusion of labor: Applications to COVID-19 pandemic disruptions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    13. T. S. Raghu & Wonseok Woo & S. B. Mohan & H. Raghav Rao, 2008. "Market reaction to patent infringement litigations in the information technology industry," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 61-75, March.
    14. Wang, Xuerong & Leng, Mingming & Song, Jingpu & Luo, Chunlin & Hui, Sunyuen, 2019. "Managing a supply chain under the impact of customer reviews: A two-period game analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(2), pages 454-468.
    15. Parker, Jeffrey R. & Lehmann, Donald R., 2011. "When Shelf-Based Scarcity Impacts Consumer Preferences," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 142-155.
    16. Yuen, Kum Fai & Tan, Lydia Sonia & Wong, Yiik Diew & Wang, Xueqin, 2022. "Social determinants of panic buying behaviour amidst COVID-19 pandemic: The role of perceived scarcity and anticipated regret," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    17. Laato, Samuli & Islam, A.K.M. Najmul & Farooq, Ali & Dhir, Amandeep, 2020. "Unusual purchasing behavior during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: The stimulus-organism-response approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    18. Alexandre Dolgui & Dmitry Ivanov & Maxim Rozhkov, 2020. "Does the ripple effect influence the bullwhip effect? An integrated analysis of structural and operational dynamics in the supply chain," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(5), pages 1285-1301, March.
    19. Kogan, Konstantin & Herbon, Avi, 2022. "Retailing under panic buying and consumer stockpiling: Can governmental intervention make a difference?," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    20. Chowdhury, Priyabrata & Paul, Sanjoy Kumar & Kaisar, Shahriar & Moktadir, Md. Abdul, 2021. "COVID-19 pandemic related supply chain studies: A systematic review," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    21. Mike Thelwall & Kevan Buckley & Georgios Paltoglou & Di Cai & Arvid Kappas, 2010. "Sentiment strength detection in short informal text," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(12), pages 2544-2558, December.
    22. Zheng, Rui & Shou, Biying & Yang, Jun, 2021. "Supply disruption management under consumer panic buying and social learning effects," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    23. Arpan Kumar Kar, 2021. "What Affects Usage Satisfaction in Mobile Payments? Modelling User Generated Content to Develop the “Digital Service Usage Satisfaction Model”," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 1341-1361, September.
    24. Nicholas Berente & Stefan Seidel & Hani Safadi, 2019. "Research Commentary—Data-Driven Computationally Intensive Theory Development," Service Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 50-64, March.
    25. Dwivedi, Yogesh K. & Hughes, D. Laurie & Coombs, Crispin & Constantiou, Ioanna & Duan, Yanqing & Edwards, John S. & Gupta, Babita & Lal, Banita & Misra, Santosh & Prashant, Prakhar & Raman, Ramakrishn, 2020. "Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management research and practice: Transforming education, work and life," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    26. Mohammad Alamgir Hossain & Md. Maruf Hossan Chowdhury & Ilias O. Pappas & Bhimaraya Metri & Laurie Hughes & Yogesh K. Dwivedi, 2023. "Fake news on Facebook and their impact on supply chain disruption during COVID-19," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 327(2), pages 683-711, August.
    27. Arun Vishwanath, 2015. "Diffusion of deception in social media: Social contagion effects and its antecedents," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 17(6), pages 1353-1367, December.
    28. Kassarjian, Harold H, 1977. "Content Analysis in Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 4(1), pages 8-18, June.
    29. Mike Thelwall & Kevan Buckley & Georgios Paltoglou & Di Cai & Arvid Kappas, 2010. "Sentiment strength detection in short informal text," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(12), pages 2544-2558, December.
    30. Talwar, Shalini & Dhir, Amandeep & Singh, Dilraj & Virk, Gurnam Singh & Salo, Jari, 2020. "Sharing of fake news on social media: Application of the honeycomb framework and the third-person effect hypothesis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    31. Monic Sun, 2012. "How Does the Variance of Product Ratings Matter?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 696-707, April.
    32. Hong, Ilyoo B. & Cha, Hoon S., 2013. "The mediating role of consumer trust in an online merchant in predicting purchase intention," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 927-939.
    33. Islam, A.K.M. Najmul & Laato, Samuli & Talukder, Shamim & Sutinen, Erkki, 2020. "Misinformation sharing and social media fatigue during COVID-19: An affordance and cognitive load perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    34. Anuragini Shirish & Shirish C. Srivastava & Shalini Chandra, 2021. "Impact of mobile connectivity and freedom on fake news propensity during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-country empirical examination," European Journal of Information Systems, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 322-341, May.
    35. Islam, Tahir & Pitafi, Abdul Hameed & Arya, Vikas & Wang, Ying & Akhtar, Naeem & Mubarik, Shujaat & Xiaobei, Liang, 2021. "Panic buying in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-country examination," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    36. Talwar, Shalini & Dhir, Amandeep & Kaur, Puneet & Zafar, Nida & Alrasheedy, Melfi, 2019. "Why do people share fake news? Associations between the dark side of social media use and fake news sharing behavior," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 72-82.
    37. Queiroz, Maciel M. & Fosso Wamba, Samuel & Chiappetta Jabbour, Charbel Jose & Machado, Marcio C., 2022. "Supply chain resilience in the UK during the coronavirus pandemic: A resource orchestration perspective," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    38. Katarzyna Samson & Patrycjusz Kostyszyn, 2015. "Effects of Cognitive Load on Trusting Behavior – An Experiment Using the Trust Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-10, May.
    39. Ashish K. Rathore & Arpan K. Kar & P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan, 2017. "Social Media Analytics: Literature Review and Directions for Future Research," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 229-249, December.
    40. Omar, Nor Asiah & Nazri, Muhamad Azrin & Ali, Mohd Helmi & Alam, Syed Shah, 2021. "The panic buying behavior of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining the influences of uncertainty, perceptions of severity, perceptions of scarcity, and anxiety," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    41. Kum Fai Yuen & Xueqin Wang & Fei Ma & Kevin X. Li, 2020. "The Psychological Causes of Panic Buying Following a Health Crisis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-14, May.
    42. Naeem, Muhammad, 2021. "Do social media platforms develop consumer panic buying during the fear of Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    43. Gil Appel & Lauren Grewal & Rhonda Hadi & Andrew T. Stephen, 2020. "The future of social media in marketing," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 79-95, January.
    44. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-236, Spring.
    45. Saura, Jose Ramon & Ribeiro-Soriano, Domingo & Zegarra Saldaña, Pablo, 2022. "Exploring the challenges of remote work on Twitter users' sentiments: From digital technology development to a post-pandemic era," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 242-254.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarkar, Biswajit & Kar, Sumi & Pal, Anita, 2024. "Does the bullwhip effect really help a dual-channel retailing with a conditional home delivery policy?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bermes, Alena, 2021. "Information overload and fake news sharing: A transactional stress perspective exploring the mitigating role of consumers’ resilience during COVID-19," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    2. Sharma, Manu & Kaushal, Deepak & Joshi, Sudhanshu, 2023. "Adverse effect of social media on generation Z user's behavior: Government information support as a moderating variable," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Meng, Jie & Chen, Kai, 2024. "Rethinking preemptive consumption: Building mechanisms of reciprocity, contextuality, and risk hedging across scenarios," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Lin, Yuanfang & Pazgal, Amit, 2024. "Effects of information quantity and diversity on consumers under complex uncertainty," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Liu, Yanfeng & Li, Xue & Yuen, Kum Fai, 2023. "Revenge buying: The role of negative emotions caused by lockdowns," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Ashutosh Sarkar & Debadyuti Das & Arindam Debroy, 2024. "Panic Buying, Product Substitution and Channel-Shifting Behaviour During Pandemic," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 13(1), pages 25-43, January.
    7. Abu Elnasr E. Sobaih & Fatheya Moustafa, 2022. "Panic Food Purchasing amid COVID-19 Pandemic: Does the Impact of Perceived Severity, Anxiety and Self-Isolation Really Matter?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-16, November.
    8. Soltanzadeh, Shima & Rafiee, Majid & Weber, Gerhard-Wilhelm, 2024. "Disruption, panic buying, and pricing: A comprehensive game-theoretic exploration," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    9. Chen, Tinggui & Jin, Yumei & Yang, Jianjun & Cong, Guodong, 2022. "Identifying emergence process of group panic buying behavior under the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    10. Shan, Haiyan & Pi, Wenjie, 2023. "Mitigating panic buying behavior in the epidemic: An evolutionary game perspective," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. Hsin‐Hui Lin & Ching‐Feng Chen & Chih‐Lun Wu, 2023. "The effects of news authenticity and social media tie strength on consumer dissemination behavior," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(4), pages 2292-2313, June.
    12. Arpan Kumar Kar & Shalini Nath Tripathi & Nishtha Malik & Shivam Gupta & Uthayasankar Sivarajah, 2023. "How Does Misinformation and Capricious Opinions Impact the Supply Chain - A Study on the Impacts During the Pandemic," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 327(2), pages 713-734, August.
    13. Jiang, Yi & Wang, Xueqin & Yuen, Kum Fai, 2021. "Augmented reality shopping application usage: The influence of attitude, value, and characteristics of innovation," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    14. Park, Inyoung & Lee, Jieon & Lee, Daeho & Lee, Changjun & Chung, Won Young, 2022. "Changes in consumption patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic: Analyzing the revenge spending motivations of different emotional groups," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    15. Yuen, Kum Fai & Tan, Lydia Sonia & Wong, Yiik Diew & Wang, Xueqin, 2022. "Social determinants of panic buying behaviour amidst COVID-19 pandemic: The role of perceived scarcity and anticipated regret," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    16. Liu, Hongfei & Liu, Wentong & Yoganathan, Vignesh & Osburg, Victoria-Sophie, 2021. "COVID-19 information overload and generation Z's social media discontinuance intention during the pandemic lockdown," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    17. Ali, Maged & Gomes, Lucas Moreira & Azab, Nahed & de Moraes Souza, João Gabriel & Sorour, M. Karim & Kimura, Herbert, 2023. "Panic buying and fake news in urban vs. rural England: A case study of twitter during COVID-19," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    18. Omar, Nor Asiah & Nazri, Muhamad Azrin & Ali, Mohd Helmi & Alam, Syed Shah, 2021. "The panic buying behavior of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining the influences of uncertainty, perceptions of severity, perceptions of scarcity, and anxiety," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    19. Pang, Hua & Ruan, Yang, 2023. "Determining influences of information irrelevance, information overload and communication overload on WeChat discontinuance intention: The moderating role of exhaustion," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    20. Xu, Qingyun & He, Yi & Shao, Zhen, 2023. "Retailer's ordering decisions with consumer panic buying under unexpected events," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:267:y:2024:i:c:s0925527323002967. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.