Impact of social experience on customer purchase decision in the social commerce context

Pages47-71
Date20 February 2020
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JSIT-05-2019-0088
Published date20 February 2020
AuthorYonathan Dri Handarkho
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information systems,Information & communications technology
Impact of social experience on
customer purchase decision in
the social commerce context
Yonathan Dri Handarkho
Department of Informatics, Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta,
Indonesia and Vincent Mary School of Science and Technology,
Assumption University, Bangkok, Thailand
Abstract
Purpose This study aims to examinethe factor of social experience inuencing an individualspurchase
decision in the social commerce(SC) environment by proposing a model developed based on the social impact
theory. The proposed model consists of the number,closeness and tie strength of the inuencing factor and
the receiver.
Design/methodology/approach A total of 288 responses werecollected from Indonesian SC users to
validate the theoretical model, which consists of perceived herd behavior, peer communication, emotional
support, parasocial interaction and subjective norms. This study also explores the moderating effects of
gender, age, experiencesand occupations on the direct effect of model variables, which affect the individuals
intentionto purchase in SC.
Findings The results of this study showed that parasocial interaction is the strongest determinant of
intention to purchase in SC, followed by perceived herd behavior and peer communication. However, the
direct effectof subjective norms and emotional support werefound insignicant in this study. For moderating
effects, only gender and occupationwere signicant in terms of the immediate effect of peer communication,
perceivedherd behavior and subjective norms on intention to purchase.
Originality/value The study contributes to theory in theform of insight on immediate effect and the
exploratory investigationof moderating effects. It also contributes to practiceby suggesting several practical
actions based on thendings designed to achieve the objective of improving customersintentionto purchase
in SC.
Keywords SEM, Social impact, SNS, Social commerce, Moderating factor, Social experience
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The power of social network sites (SNS) has spread through every level of society,
encouraging not only individuals but also organizations to use such platforms (Ngai et al.,
2015). These sites help them to share and connect with others for various purposes,
including commercial intent, for instance, social commerce (SC). This is a form of
e-commerce that uses SNS to share information on any particular product and service to
inuence the consumers purchase decision (Lal, 2017;Shanmugam et al.,2016). According
to Lu et al. (2016), the salient constructs that build SC are social technologyand community
interactions related to commercial activity. SC places social experience as a priority with a
The authors wish to express their gratitude for the support from the Indonesian Endowment Fund
for Education (LPDP),the Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education of the Republic
of Indonesia,Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta (UAJY) Indonesia and Assumption University
Thailand.
Impact of
social
experience
47
Received14 May 2019
Revised17 July 2019
14January 2020
Accepted27 January 2020
Journalof Systems and
InformationTechnology
Vol.22 No. 1, 2020
pp. 47-71
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1328-7265
DOI 10.1108/JSIT-05-2019-0088
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1328-7265.htm
secondary focus on shopping (Lu et al.,2016). Through networking, collaborating and
information-sharing, the customer collects product-related information from others in the
form of opinions, experiences or reviews toward specic products or services (Chow, 2015)
to aid their purchase decision-making (Sharmaet al.,2017). Specically, the term SC in this
study refers to the third-party SNS (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and others) used by
sellers to facilitate interaction with their customers and between fellow customers;
meanwhile, the transactions are executedexternally (Farivar et al.,2017;Liébana-cabanillas
and Alonso-dos-santos, 2017;Lal, 2017). On these platforms, vendors can post content
related to their products or services and involve consumers in social interaction. Through
this, they acquire information and knowledge,which helps them to purchase the items from
a particular vendor (Hajli, 2014;Shanmugam et al., 2016;Lal, 2017;Han et al.,2018;Beyari
and Abareshi, 2019).
SC has been an interesting topic to examine because of its popularity as a relevant
solution for internet technologyusage issues such as the inadequacy of human and nancial
resources faced by many micro, small and medium enterprises (Braojos et al., 2019). By
adopting SNS technology that is familiar to both the vendor and the user, SC simplies
social interaction among customers, in the vendors favor (Meske and Stieglitz, 2013;
Esmaeili and Hashemi, 2019).
As social experience such as recommendations, interactions and communication among
people in SC is posited as the primary construct that buildsthis platform, the observation of
its effect on the individuals purchase decision becomes signicant. With the growth of the
SC platform, the form of social experience perceived by the customer is not only limited
within their inner circle. It also includes interacting with strangers and people they would
otherwise not be able to contact in real life as if they were friends (Xiang et al.,2016). The
previous traditional construct,such as subjective norms, is no longer sufcient to represent
the social experience occurring on this platform. Therefore, this study proposes a model to
determine which factors inuencethe individuals purchase decision, based on the theory of
social impact from Latané (1981) that consists of the number, the closeness and the tie
strength between thosewho generate the inuence and the receivers.
Several social factors from the previous study are proposed in the theoretical model to
complement the traditional construct. This study also considers the exploration of the
moderator effect of gender, age, experiences and occupations that may inuence the direct
effect of a social experience construct on the individuals intention to purchase. Moderating
effects have not been considered extensively in previous SC studies, primarily related to
social experience, and consequently,this represents a signicant theoretical contribution to
the research. The followingresearch questions are examined in this study:
RQ1. Which factor from social experience contributes to the individuals purchase
decision in SC usage?
RQ2. Which factor has moderating effects on an individuals intention to purchase in
SC?
RQ3. How does social experienceaffect an individuals decision to purchase in SC?
Several prior studies involve factors derived from social experience to construct theoretical
models concerning consumer purchase intention in SC. Some examples are subjective
norms, social support and trust used by many scholars to develop models to observe
individual behavior(Osatuyi and Turel, 2019;Gvili and Levy, 2019;Molinillo et al.,2019;Yin
et al.,2019;Lin et al., 2018;Lal, 2017;Huang, 2016;Shanmugam et al., 2016). However,many
of the prior studies only place these factorsas complementary to their model. It is difcult to
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