Search results

Consumers may enjoy the information sharing and social support made available when a social media platform is used for pre-purchase research; however, do consumers reevaluate the privacy and security of the platform differently when ordering and payment capabilities are added? As social media systems have evolved into social commerce platforms (SCPs), individuals are often faced with whether to complete a purchase they have been researching or switch to a traditional e-commerce platform to complete the transaction. This research examines consumer trust formation in the SCP channel and how consumer interest and engagement in the channel are maintained and influence consumer decisions to purchase via the SCP.

Based on trust and involvement literature, a research model was conceptualized to capture consumer beliefs about SCP privacy and security and whether the SCP can be trusted, using these inputs into subsequent consumer interest, engagement and decisions on whether to use the SCP for purchasing. The research model was empirically tested using the panel data's structural equation modeling (AMOS) (n = 405). The data showed acceptable reliability and convergent validity, while the original research model provides predictive validity and theory-confirming insights.

Results confirm that consumer perceptions of privacy and security play a crucial role as decision criteria, informing their judgments of whether a new social commerce channel can be trusted enough to conduct purchases. Further, consumer trust supports their interest in the SCP, resulting in enduring and enhanced behavioral use and, to a lesser extent, purchase intent. Still, a majority of this sample declined to purchase using the SCP and rather preferred to transact on tried and trusted traditional e-commerce sites.

This study is among the first to examine trust formation in new SCPs, where consumers are deciding to expand their engagement level from social and informational to commercial.

This study aims to identify the groups of value cocreators in the context of social media in the retail banking industry and resources that predict customer membership among different groups of value cocreators.

This study reviewed the literature and developed measurement instruments for the constructs of interest. Data were collected from 406 customers in an emerging market in 2019 and analyzed using latent profile analysis.

This study identified three profiles of value cocreators on social media based on the actual practices of resource integration that enliven value cocreation. Second, this study explains the differences in the performance of resource integration practices to cocreate by the types of resources that customers integrate into social media. Third, this study fills the need for knowledge of value cocreation in different contexts and industries (e.g. banks).

This study analytically relates a set of resources to the variety and intensity of the value cocreation practices adopted by bank customers in interactive environments. The emphasis on how value cocreation practices in online environments combined with customer resources (e.g., a person-centered approach) allows to identify unique profiles of value cocreators on social media. The findings inform managers of the profiles of cocreators, which customers are more attractive as value cocreators on social media, and which resources managers should help customers develop to increase cocreation on social media.

Microblogs are communication platforms for companies and consumers that challenge companies' brand marketing strategies. This paper provides a theoretical basis for expanding microblog applications and a practical basis for improving the effectiveness of brand marketing.

The authors use factor analysis to extract the factors of microblog user influence and construct a structural equation model to reveal the interaction mechanism of the influencing factors. Additionally, the authors clarify the promotion and enhancement effects of these factors.

Microblog user influence can be converted into richness, interaction and value factors. The richness factor significantly affects the latter two, whereas the interaction factor does not affect the value factor.

First, the sample used is limited to media industry practitioners. To increase generalizability, diverse groups should be included in future studies. Second, this model's theoretical explanatory ability can be further developed by adding other meaningful factors beyond the existing ones.

This study analyzes the factors of microblog user influence in China and validates the relevant elements. As a result, it improves the influence research on social media users and benefits the practice of information recommendation and microblog marketing.

Building upon uses and gratifications (UG) theory and social exchange theory, the current study establishes a theoretical model to examine the underlying relationship between customer motivations, active participation and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) and purchase intentions on WeChat.

The data were gathered in a web-based survey of 301 WeChat users in mainland China. To empirically verify the proposed hypotheses, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed using online data.

Path analysis outcomes demonstrate that functional, hedonic and social motivations positively affect WeChat users' active participation. In addition, active participation significantly influences e-WOM intention while showing no correlation with purchase intention.

Theoretically, this article can enrich the extant system of relevant theories and offer a fresh perspective for further research on the generation of consumers' e-WOM intention and purchase intention in the WeChat context. Practically, the research outcomes provide insight for companies on how to motivate customers to participate in online activities, which subsequently improve WeChat users' willingness in conducting e-WOM communication and making purchase decisions.

Although mobile social media could serve as an influential marketing vehicle for individuals' engagement in social and commercial activities in today's mobile-matured environment, the substantial impact of active engagement on the relationship between customer motivation and purchase intention remains insufficiently explored. The outcomes not only contribute to the current body of knowledge, but also offer several managerial guidance for companies that pay attention to mobile social media marketing in a contemporary mobile media-saturated society.

With the proliferation of ideas submitted by users in firm-built online user innovation communities, community managers are faced with the problem of user idea overload. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influencing factors on the idea adoption to identify high quality ideas, and then propose a method to quickly filter high value ideas.

The authors collected more than 110,000 data submitted by Xiaomi community users and analyzed the factors affecting idea adoption using a multinomial logistic regression model. In addition, the authors also used BP neural network to predict the idea adoption process.

The empirical results show that idea semantics, number of likes, number of comments, number of related posts, the existence of pictures and self-presentation have positive impact on idea adoption, while idea length and idea timeliness had negative impact on idea adoption. In addition, this paper calculates the idea evaluation value through the idea adoption process predicted by neural network and the mean value of idea term frequency inverse document frequency (TF-IDF).

This empirical study expands the theoretical perspective of idea adoption research by using dual-process theory and enriches the research methods in the field of idea adoption research through the multinomial logistic regression method. Based on our findings, firms can quickly identify valuable ideas and effectively alleviate the information overload problem of online user innovation communities.

Social commerce (s-commerce) offers community-based platforms that facilitate customer-to-customer interactions and the development of customers' social shopping-based experience. While prior research has addressed the role of customer engagement (CE) in boosting s-commerce-based sales and performance, insight into the effect of s-commerce attributes on CE remains tenuous. Addressing this gap, this study examines the role of specific s-commerce attributes (i.e. community, collaboration, interactivity and social dynamics) on CE, which is, in turn, proposed to impact customers' repurchase- and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) intention.

A web-based survey was deployed to target users of a popular s-commerce platform, Etsy.com. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was, then, used to analyze the survey data collected from 390 users.

The results reveal that the four examined attributes positively affect CE. The findings also demonstrate CE's positive effect on customers' repurchase- and eWOM intention.

Though CE has been identified as a key s-commerce performance indicator, little remains known about the role of specific s-commerce attributes in driving CE, as, therefore, explored in this research. Specifically, the authors examine the role of s-commerce-based community, collaboration, interactivity and social dynamics on CE. Their analyses also corroborate that CE, in turn, drives customers' post-purchase (i.e. repurchase/eWOM) intention. Managerially, our findings can be used to develop more engaging s-commerce platforms.

Consumers’ digital engagement can bring various benefits to both brands and consumers. Besides, few studies investigated the outcomes of engagement with restaurant brands on Instagram. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of consumer engagement (CE) with restaurant brands on consumer-related factors (namely, consumer’s brand knowledge, perceived enjoyment and consumer social interaction) and brand-related factors (namely, e-WOM and brand reputation), as well as the mediating role of consumer-related factors.

The sample consisted of 394 Instagram followers of restaurant/coffee shop brands, and covariance-based structural equation modeling and bootstrapping were used to assess the hypothesized relationships.

The results show that CE with restaurant brands on Instagram enhances brand-related outcomes as well as consumer-related outcomes. Moreover, consumer-related factors partially mediate these relationships.

The findings of this study provide insights for restaurant managers and digital marketers to stimulate consumer-brand engagement.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first that examines the effect of CE with restaurant brands on consumer- and brand-related outcomes on Instagram. The context of the study is Iran, which adds to the literature on CE that mainly focuses on developed countries.

This study aims to investigate the relative impact of firm-created (FC) and user-generated (UG) social media marketing communication on fashionwear customers' purchase intention (CPI) in Sri Lanka. The primary objective is to identify the influence of social media marketing on the purchasing intention (PI) of customers in the fashionwear industry in Sri Lanka.

A standardized online survey was conducted, generating 312 datasets for analysis.

The empirical findings reveal that both firm-produced and UG social media fashionwear marketing communication has a significant influence on CPI. However, firm-produced social media fashionwear brands demonstrate a higher impact on CPI.

This study highlights the importance of social media marketing communication in shaping customers’ PI in the fashionwear industry in Sri Lanka. Both FC and UG content on social media platforms play a crucial role in influencing customers' intention to purchase fashionwear products. However, firm-produced social media fashionwear brands exert a stronger impact on CPI. These findings emphasize the need for marketers to incorporate effective social media strategies, including both FC and UG content, to enhance customer engagement and drive purchase decisions in the fashion-wear industry.

This study is based on the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) to dynamically examine the effect of review variance on sales and the boundary conditions that mitigate this effect.

Based on the theoretical domain of HSM, a conceptual model is proposed that analyzes the nonlinear relationship between review variance and sales and the interaction and motivation factors that moderate these relationships. Review data from websites targeting the film industry in the USA and South Korea (Korea) were collected to empirically analyze the authors' hypothesis, and panel regression analysis was used for confirmation.

Moderated by interactive and motivational factors, review variance exhibits an inverse-U-shaped relationship with review variance. Specifically, as an interaction factor, review valence and owned social media (OSM) resulted in positive interaction effects, and as a motivation factor, the number of alternatives exhibited a positive interaction effect with review variance. The effect of review variance was less pronounced in the USA than in Korea.

The study outcomes reveal a nonlinear relationship between review variance and sales, thus supporting the contradictory findings of previous studies. This study contributes to the literature by using the HSM as a theoretical framework to verify various HSM mechanisms using online review data. This exploratory study also contributes to the international marketing literature by showing that the effects of review variance vary across cultures.

From a consumer–brand relationship (CBR) perspective, this study proposes a serial multiple mediation model to explore the pathways (e.g. cognitive, affective and hybrid) to increase online celebrity brand equity (OCBE) and follower's hotel booking intentions (FBI).

Paper-based and online surveys were used to collect data from 443 respondents who had been using TikTok and had followed at least one online celebrity on TikTok, while that online celebrity had reviewed one or more types of accommodation. A serial multiple mediation model was evaluated through covariance-based structural equation modeling.

The results confirmed the hybrid cognitive–affective and cognitive–affective–conative pathways among antecedents and components of OCBE and FBI.

From a CBR perspective, this study provides a serial multiple mediation model to increase OCBE via hybrid cognitive–affective pathways and to drive FBI via cognitive–affective–conative pathways. These sequential relationships contribute to the human branding literature by defining a mechanism of how online celebrities can efficiently attract followers, thus driving online celebrity brand loyalty and hotel booking intentions.

The results should be validated in other cultural contexts to generalize findings and broaden the range of target respondents to include international followers and those within other nations.