Search results

The purpose of this paper develops a conceptual model of social influence for Internet banking adoption (IBA) using social networking platforms (SNPs). It identifies the antecedents of social influence that can positively and negative influence the IBA among a targeted population of conventional and Islamic banks. Moreover, this paper contributes various factors to social influence theory with the purpose of enhancing its implication in the context of Internet banking uptake in developed and developing countries.

This study uses a social constructivism approach to understand customer experiences, thoughts, knowledge, awareness and perceptions in relation to IBA. For this study, data were collected from 30 respondents using semi-structured interviews and purposive sampling.

Social influence comprises customer recommendations, suggestions, ratings, reviews, experiences and thoughts regarding the IBA of Islamic and conventional banks. The findings reveal that social reviews, social experts, social consensus, social responsibility and social perceptions are the key antecedents of social influence that can enhance IBA of SNPs. The research finds that positive social reviews, expert support, consensus, social responsibility and social perceptions are significant in relation to conventional Internet banking. The respondents revealed serious concerns about the privacy of their personal and financial information especially in relation to Islamic banks.

The effective and well-organized use of SNPs can foster service reviews, word of mouth, higher levels of service awareness, interactive communication, social consensus and social trust to drive the adoption of Internet banking. This study proposes the conceptual model which has positive business implications and provides the banks direction to use the SNPs to their advantage to influxes their customers to adopt the use of Internet banking.

Most previous studies have used technology acceptance model, theory of planned behavior and unified theory of acceptance and the use of technology theories in the adoption of technology and IBA. These theories have not fully illuminated the role of social content as a way to enhance or decrease the number of customers in conventional and Islamic banks. This study develops social influence theory by exploring several dimensions (i.e. social reviews, awareness, consensus, cooperation and experts support) in the context of IBA for users of SNPs. Social influence can create more reviews and can lead to more prepurchase information. It can drive customer inquiries and engagement and can inform purchase decisions for IBA. On the other hand, it can motivate existing customers of Islamic banks to use conventional banking services due to effective word of mouth.

This paper aims to identify the social motivational factors that can enhance brand-related content across social networking platforms (SNPs). It examines how brands can enhance motivation to create and exchange brand stories for existing and target customers.

The study followed an interpretivist approach and collected data from 40 customers of 5 top apparel brands based in the UK using non-directive and semi-structured interviews. The respondents were chosen using purposive sampling and thematic analysis was undertaken using the NVivo 11 Plus software.

The findings highlight various social motivational factors that can inspire the creation, sharing and exchange of brand-related content using SNPs. These include social responsibility, staying connected, inspiration from others, opinion leaders and recognition, optimal decision-making, inspiring or disheartening experience of the brand and emotional connection with the brand. People’s purchase decisions are strongly influenced by close friends, local online community groups, opinion leaders and other credible sources. Moreover, the respondents reported having more trust in shared consumer experiences than company advertisements and other marketing tactics.

The findings of this research will be beneficial for organizations, brand managers and marketing teams, offering insights into how stakeholders can enhance brand-related content on SNPs. The findings also show that online local communities on Facebook and expert opinions are the most significant factors in enhancing brand-related content, social engagement and purchase decisions.

There is limited literature on why people are motivated to create and exchange brand-related content, especially in the context of the apparel industry. The study offers insights into how brands can create motivation for enhancing brand-related content in ways that are recognized as a cheap and highly effective way of advertising, influencing pre-purchase information, purchase decisions and social engagement on the part of SNP users.

Social media users can now create, exchange, modify and consume socially generated experiences which can enhance social influence toward mobile banking (MB). This study aims to provide understanding of how social actor interactions through social networking platforms (SNPs) can create social influence for MB adoption and present a research framework that can help to understand which social actors have higher social influence toward MB adoption in conventional and Islamic banks.

SNP users have different levels of perceptions and experiences about the usability and credibility of MB. Therefore, their experiences are subjective realties which can generate socially constructed knowledge. To understand these subjective realties, a social constructivist approach is adopted. Data were collected from interviews with 60 individuals from diverse occupational backgrounds.

Identification element of social influence explained that the shared reviews and recommendations of opinion leaders, industry experts, celebrities and friends were highly positive for conventional banks; therefore, there is high word-of-mouth for MB of conventional banks. Internalization of social influence highlighted that people are more likely to accept the wisdom of the crowd and close friends, which can generate their engagement and connection with MB. Finally, the compliance factor of social influence explained that people can only adopt MB when they perceive high usability and credibility.

This study has provided understanding to the marketers of how social actors on SNPs can play a role in the creation, exchange, modification and consumption of socially generated influence that can impact the MB adoption intention for conventional and Islamic banks.

Although many theories and models have been presented about the marketing strategies and antecedents of MB adoption, the extensive use of SNPs has changed marketing strategies. For example, this study has found that social media users are highly influenced by the social reviews and recommendations they receive from their close friends. Therefore, socially generated influence on SNPs can create an adoption intention toward MB.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how fashion consumers behave when they make purchases using social media platforms – specifically, Instagram. In particular, the work examines the role played by consumer–brand involvement and self–brand connection (SBC) as predictors of customer brand engagement (CBE).

In this paper, social commerce-adoption is modeled, using three variables: customer engagement, SBC and fashion-consumer brand-involvement. Using a personal online survey, data on social media users classified as millennials and Generation Z were collected. The model is analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Consumer involvement in fashion has a positive effect on cognitive processing and activation, but not on affection. SBC has a positive effect on all three analyzed dimensions. Finally, gender is found to exert a moderating effect on the relationship between the “CBE activation” dimension and brand loyalty.

The research was conducted during the lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have influenced the responses. Other limitations and potential lines of research for the future are presented at the end of the paper.

Some of the results of this study can directly inform the social media strategies of fashion companies that use Instagram as a channel of communication with their customers. They can also contribute to incentivizing co-created content and increasing consumption among both men and women.

The present study contributes to addressing the scarcity of studies dealing with CBE and social commerce in the fashion sector and, in particular, fashion-consumer behavior on social media (specifically, Instagram).

This paper aims to investigate customer attitude towards the use of emerging social media platforms (SMPs) for promotional activities by United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Islamic banks, particularly, in the post-COVID-19 era. The key drivers of this research include analysing, anticipating and providing recommendations to reinvigorate the marketing and promotional strategies of the UAE Islamic banks to spark renewed customer interest.

This study is anticipatory and descriptive in nature. Primary data is used to understand customer perception towards the use of emerging social media marketing tools by the UAE-based Islamic banks. Reliability, factor analysis and multiple regression analysis are applied to understand customer attitude. While focusing on the current COVID-19 scenario, the need for innovative structure is envisaged to meet the post-COVID-19 needs.

The findings of this research highlight the significance of emerging SMPs such as WhatsApp, TikTok, Pinterest, Viber, Snapchat and their application as promotional tools to inspire the purchase intention of customers in this virtual age. The results of the study reveal these emerging SMPs are predicted to be used as the preferred promotional tools for Islamic banks.

This paper is limited to the UAE Islamic banks and to a specified set of SMPs as promotional tools. Nevertheless, its findings have important implications that can be extended and validated through studying the post-COVID-19 customer attitude towards other innovative promotional tools used by commercial banks in general and Islamic banks in particular, in the GCC and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions.

There is currently limited available research on the innovative social media marketing techniques and promotional strategies. This study is a novel attempt to examine the adoption of the emerging SMPs as promotional tools by the UAE Islamic banks. This paper extends value to the existing studies on the impact of the pandemic on the promotional activities of the UAE Islamic banking industry. Nonetheless, while regionally specific, it is valuable in its potential application to the Islamic banking sector in the entire GCC and MENA region in the post-COVID-19 era.

Customers are interested in finding service recommendations, reviews and word of mouth using social networking platforms. These service reviews are useful for enhancing service quality, level of information and engagement, and purchase intention of customers. The purpose of this paper is to uncover which social networking platform is more useful for the exchange of service reviews and how organizations are improving purchase intention as well as service quality in the light of customer’s reviews/experiences.

The study is exploratory in nature because it aims to understand the use of social networking platforms for enhancing service quality and the purchase intention of customers using a purposive sampling technique. To meet the objective of this study, non-directive and semi-structured interviews have been conducted with customers and marketing teams in the banking sector and internet service providers.

The results show that social networking websites are helpful in fostering responsiveness, awareness, assurance, reliability and empathy. However, respondents revealed serious concerns regarding the privacy of personal and financial information especially in the context of the banking sector. It has been found that official Facebook pages of service-providing organizations, open and closed local community Facebook groups, sponsored ads and promotional advertisements on Facebook, WhatsApp groups and YouTube video comments are more frequently used to exchange service reviews (i.e. influence the process of purchase decision) among friends, friends of friends, family members and the general public. The selected customers and market team respondents revealed that local community Facebook groups (i.e. open groups and closed groups) have gained prime importance for enhancing service quality and purchase decisions.

The effective and well-organized use of social networking platforms can foster service reviews, word of mouth, level of service awareness, interactive communication, intention to purchase, social influence, social trust and services quality. Furthermore, online social networking platforms require a lower level of advertisement costs and offer huge amounts of information, discussions, enquires, service stories, word of mouth, transactions and interactions of consumers.

The present study is exploratory in nature because it selects an under-researched issue regarding the use of social networking applications to enhance levels of purchase intention and service quality. There is limited literature which has combined the multiple constructs in a single study (i.e. social media platforms, cross-platform platforms, service quality and purchase intention of consumers). Most of the previous studies are dependent on various dimensions of service quality (i.e. “reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empath and tangibles”). However, the present study extracted that respondents have given more preferences of services awareness and privacy compared to traditional elements of service quality.

Customers are increasingly interested in reading discussions, experiences, recommendations and reviews on social media platforms related to services and products in which they are highly interested. The purpose of this paper is to find the availability of user-generated content (UGC) in the context of Islamic banks and how it can enhance the level of brand engagement and purchase intention of customers.

The methodology for this research is designed by following the features of qualitative research methods and a social constructivism approach. Furthermore, non-directive and semi-structured in-depth interviews are constructed to accumulate research data from marketing teams and customers of Islamic banks. The respondents have been carefully chosen on the basis of purposive sampling and their level of awareness related to Islamic banks.

Islamic banks are more frequently using traditional marketing tools that are unable to enhance levels of information among the targeted population and prove an expensive way of marketing. The findings reveal that Islamic banks lag behind in adopting the latest information exchanging technologies compared to conventional banking systems. A lack of skilled people, reputation and trust, lack of e-marketing strategy and lower levels of investment in social media platforms are major barriers to generate UGC, brand engagement and purchase intention among the targeted market of Islamic banks.

The effective and competent use of various social networking platforms can enhance UGC related to Islamic banking products and services. UGC can generate interactive communication, services reviews, feedbacks, intention to purchase, social influence, social trust and positive customer perception among the targeted population of Islamic banks. The study has summarized and offered practical recommendations to show how Islamic banks can address challenges and enjoy a high level of profitability compared to conventional banking systems.

The present study uncovered the steps that must be taken by the top management of Islamic banks to enhance levels of awareness, online product reviews and recommendations, e-word of mouth and purchase intentions of the targeted market. The study enhanced understanding regarding how a higher level of investment in social networking platforms, safe and secure banking systems and skilled IT professionals can address the challenges of Islamic banks. Furthermore, these factors can create positive UGC, social influence, social brand engagement and purchase intention of customers in Islamic banks. These primary factors must be considered by Islamic banks to compete with conventional banking products and services.

The purpose of this paper is to examine both the Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ social media adoption (SMA) for business purposes and the influence of culture on personal versus business social network platform (SNP) selection.

The Technology Acceptance Model’s (TAM) factors of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU) as drivers of Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ social network platform selection are examined as well as the effect of SMA on revenue. Data was collected from 633 small business owners across the United States via an online survey administered in English and Spanish.

Results indicate that Latino/Hispanic business owners use personal SNP more than business SNP for business purposes. PU and PEU were not found to predict personal SNP for Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs. However, for Non-Latino/Hispanics, PU was significant while PEU was marginally significant. Findings for PU and PEU as predictors of business SNP indicate similar results for both Latino/Hispanic and non-Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs, where only PEU was significant. Finally, there was no relationship between either business or personal SNP and revenue for either Latino/Hispanic or non-Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs.

This research provides more insight into Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ self-directed engagement in personal SNP (Facebook) and business SNP (LinkedIn) for business purposes and invites future research in this population to further examine cultural influence and business performance. The findings support the need for Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ strengthening their competency in social media usage to remain competitive, as doing so will enhance their capability for building customer relationships, brand development, and equity financing.

This investigation 1) examines SMA’s role in Latino/Hispanic small and medium enterprises (SMEs); 2) distinguishes between personal and business social network platforms; 3) investigates TAM’s relevance for Latino/Hispanic entrepreneurs’ use of social media for business; and 4) explores SME social media usage as a predictor of revenue. We seek to provide practitioners with a greater understanding of how they may influence business success and sustainability through better competency development and usage of social media platforms.

This chapter proposes an optimized innovative information technology as a means for achieving operational functionalities of real-time portable electronic health records, system interoperability, longitudinal health-risks research cohort and surveillance of adverse events infrastructure, and clinical, genome regions – disease and interventional prevention infrastructure. In application to the Dod-VA (Department of Defense and Veteran's Administration) health information systems, the proposed modernization can be carried out as an “add-on” expansion (estimated at $288 million in constant dollars) or as a “stand-alone” innovative information technology system (estimated at $489.7 million), and either solution will prototype an infrastructure for nation-wide health information systems interoperability, portable real-time electronic health records (EHRs), adverse events surveillance, and interventional prevention based on targeted single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) discovery.

This study analyzes the rise of genome instability in the life sciences and traces the problematic of instability as it relates to the sociology of health. Genome instability is the study of how genomes change and become variable between generations and within organisms over the life span. Genome instability reflects a significant departure from the Platonic genome imagined during the Human Genome Project. The aim of this chapter is to explain and analyze research on copy number variation and somatic mosaicism to consider the implications of these sciences for sociologists interested in genomics.

This chapter draws on two multi-sited ethnographies of contemporary biomedical science and literature in the sociology of health, science, and biomedicine to document a shift in thinking about the genome from fixed and universal to highly variable and influenced by time and context.

Genomic instability has become a framework for addressing how genomes change and become variable between generations and within organisms over the life span. Instability is a useful framework for analyzing changes in the life sciences in the post-genomic era.

Genome instability requires life scientists to address how differences both within and between individuals articulate with shifting disease categories and classifications. For sociologists, these findings have implications for studies of identity, sociality, and clinical experience.

This is the first sociological analysis of genomic instability. It identifies practical and conceptual implications of genomic instability for life scientists and helps sociologists delineate new approaches to the study of genomics in the post-genomic era.