Not all qualities are equal: Moderating role of online shopper conscientiousness in quality evaluation

Xu et al. (2013) developed the 3Q model comprising three major quality dimensions, namely, system quality (SysQ), information quality (IQ), and service quality (SQ), which contain a total of 13 quality subdimensions. This wide array of quality subdimensions means that e-commerce managers encounter uncertainty around which resources to enhance. Hence, our research objective is to examine how user conscientiousness, i.e., an individual's tendency to be efficient and systematic, moderates the relations between the 13 quality subdimensions and SQ, SysQ, and IQ in an e-commerce context. We used a survey to collect responses from 1750 online shoppers, and we conducted covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) to analyze the data. Our results indicate that highly conscientious shoppers emphasize empathy and service reliability for SQ, timeliness and accessibility for SysQ, and accuracy for IQ. Our results have implications for e-commerce managers concerning the design of resource-allocation strategies for the 13 quality subdimensions.