CSITM to host webinar uncovering how ‘David vs Goliath’ signals drive online user engagement
Session on 23 December to be delivered by Dr. Ayushi Tandon, Trinity College Dublin
10 December, 2025, Bengaluru: The Centre for Software and IT Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore will host a webinar under its series, ‘Top IS Publications from India,’ featuring Dr. Ayushi Tandon, Assistant Professor at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. The session focuses on her publication titled ‘Does David Make a Goliath?” Impact of Rival’s Expertise Signals on Online User Engagement’, scheduled from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm IST on 23rd December 2025.
The webinar aims to bring together researchers, scholars, and practitioners interested in the dynamics of digital platforms, user engagement, and behavioral responses to competitive cues. Dr. Tandon’s study bridges an important theoretical gap by examining how users interpret status (relative expertise) and past performance (absolute expertise) signals from rivals in competitive online environments.
For webinar participation, register here: https://iim-b.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SrDZr53fRZ-8RAh4x4g6MQ#/registration
Note:- Participants who register will receive the Zoom link for the webinar in their email. For any further queries, please write to: csitm@iimb.ac.in
Abstract:
In digital competitive spaces, such as online gaming and peer-comparison platforms, users often rely on signals of a rival’s expertise when deciding whether to compete or disengage. This research investigates how three forms of expertise cues, current performance, status, and past performance, shape user behaviour. Based on a field experiment using a modified multi-round two-player mobile gaming interface, the study finds that users are generally less likely to continue playing against rivals with higher current performance. However, this effect intensifies when the rival has high status or when their past performance is ambiguous. These findings reveal that users do not weigh relative and absolute expertise signals uniformly, and intrinsic motivation to compete partially mediates these decisions.
For full article: https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.0282
Speaker Profile:
Dr. Ayushi Tandon is an Assistant Professor at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. Her research explores user engagement with digital platforms and examines the economic and societal implications of technology use. She was recognized among the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2022 and is a contributing author to the open-access MIS textbook Foundations of Information Systems (OpenStax). Dr. Tandon holds a PhD in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and previously worked as a software engineer at Qualcomm, contributing to key product lines such as Snapdragon.
CSITM to host webinar uncovering how ‘David vs Goliath’ signals drive online user engagement
Session on 23 December to be delivered by Dr. Ayushi Tandon, Trinity College Dublin
10 December, 2025, Bengaluru: The Centre for Software and IT Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore will host a webinar under its series, ‘Top IS Publications from India,’ featuring Dr. Ayushi Tandon, Assistant Professor at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. The session focuses on her publication titled ‘Does David Make a Goliath?” Impact of Rival’s Expertise Signals on Online User Engagement’, scheduled from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm IST on 23rd December 2025.
The webinar aims to bring together researchers, scholars, and practitioners interested in the dynamics of digital platforms, user engagement, and behavioral responses to competitive cues. Dr. Tandon’s study bridges an important theoretical gap by examining how users interpret status (relative expertise) and past performance (absolute expertise) signals from rivals in competitive online environments.
For webinar participation, register here: https://iim-b.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SrDZr53fRZ-8RAh4x4g6MQ#/registration
Note:- Participants who register will receive the Zoom link for the webinar in their email. For any further queries, please write to: csitm@iimb.ac.in
Abstract:
In digital competitive spaces, such as online gaming and peer-comparison platforms, users often rely on signals of a rival’s expertise when deciding whether to compete or disengage. This research investigates how three forms of expertise cues, current performance, status, and past performance, shape user behaviour. Based on a field experiment using a modified multi-round two-player mobile gaming interface, the study finds that users are generally less likely to continue playing against rivals with higher current performance. However, this effect intensifies when the rival has high status or when their past performance is ambiguous. These findings reveal that users do not weigh relative and absolute expertise signals uniformly, and intrinsic motivation to compete partially mediates these decisions.
For full article: https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.0282
Speaker Profile:
Dr. Ayushi Tandon is an Assistant Professor at Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin. Her research explores user engagement with digital platforms and examines the economic and societal implications of technology use. She was recognized among the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2022 and is a contributing author to the open-access MIS textbook Foundations of Information Systems (OpenStax). Dr. Tandon holds a PhD in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and previously worked as a software engineer at Qualcomm, contributing to key product lines such as Snapdragon.