Product, social media, personal and platform characteristics that influence social commerce adoption and continuance: a South African analysis
Date
2023
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Abstract
Problem: Existing research focuses on adoption and continuance separately and does not clearly understand how business, social media, personal, and platform characteristics combined influence social commerce adoption and continuance in the pre and post-adoption phases.
Purpose: First, understand how a combination of factors influences social commerce adoption and continuance. Second, build a conceptual model that explains the factors that influence social commerce adoption and continuance. Third, test and validate the model. Fourth, provide recommendations to businesses and social commerce platforms. Methodology: A correlational design was used. Data was collected from 448 social media users of all demographics through an online survey. A multiple regression analysis was used to analyse the data, using adoption and continuance as dependent variables and the remaining variables as independent variables.
Findings: In the pre-adoption phase, product/service recommendations, online forums and communities, trust and attitude are positively correlated with social commerce adoption. Ratings and reviews of products/services are negatively related to adoption. Brand is not significantly correlated with adoption. In the post-adoption phase, perceived usefulness and ease of use are all positively correlated with the continuance of social commerce. Satisfaction is not significantly correlated with continuance. Analysis and
Conclusion: The true power of the variables studied lies in their combined influence on adoption and continuance. The novelty of this research is that it presents a dynamic and holistic perspective of social commerce adoption and continuance, which is an advance on the static and fragmented view produced in the existing literature.
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Digital Business to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022
Keywords
Adoption, Continuance, Social commerce