Why people use Twitter: social conformity and social value perspectives
| Pages | 265-283 |
| Date | 25 February 2014 |
| Published date | 25 February 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-11-2012-0210 |
| Author | Jaeheung Yoo,Saesol Choi,Munkee Choi,Jaejeung Rho |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval |
Why people use Twitter: social
conformity and social value
perspectives
Jaeheung Yoo
Department of Management Science,
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, South Korea
Saesol Choi
Technology Strategy Research Division,
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Daejeon,
South Korea, and
Munkee Choi and Jaejeung Rho
Department of Management Science,
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, South Korea
Abstract
Purpose – Based on social conformity and social value perspectives, the authors aim to empirically
examine the critical role of social influences on Twitter user behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach – An integrative structural model is developed to explain how
social influences, which are divided into social conformity and social values, work with other salient
factors such as the utilitarian and hedonic values to affect the use of Twitter. The partial least square
method was used to verify the proposed model with usable data from 204 adult Korean Twitter users.
Findings – Social conformity positively affects the frequent use of Twitter and it is mediated through
perceived values such as the hedonic, utilitarian and social appearance values associated with Twitter
use. While social appearance negatively affected the trustworthiness of information shared on Twitter,
the social capital effect on Twitter use was insignificant.
Research limitations/implications – This study has some limitations for general applicability of
the results: the samples include only adult users in Korea, and it is a cross-sectional study for a specific
social networking service. This study theoretically disentangles the complicated nature of social
influences by proposing two distinct constructs (social conformity and social values) and empirically
verifying their significant roles in Twitter use.
Practical implications – Practitioners should recognise that the hedonic value of Twitter is the key
factor that affects both the quantity and quality of information shared on Twitter. In addition user
motivations for pursuing social appearance in SNSs might cause a user to distort the information that
they produce.
Originality/value – This study provides unique implications related to the role of social conformity,
social values and user behaviour on Twitter.
Keywords Social capital,Twitter, Social value, Social appearance, Social conformity,
Social networkingservice
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Recently social networking services (SNSs) have been highlighted as a medium for
information distribution and sharing (Lin and Lu, 2011). Twitter is a micro-bl ogging
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Why people use
Twitter
265
Received 6 June 2012
First revision approved
29 December 2012
Online Information Review
Vol. 38 No. 2, 2014
pp. 265-283
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-11-2012-0210
service on which users can post text messages of less than 140 characters. Instead of a
long paragraph containing rich information, the service is designed to generate short
messages. This simple idea has attracted users from around the world; in May 2013
Twitter reported that it had more than 554.7 million registered users worldwide
(StatisticBrain, 2013). Twitter has grown to become one of the most successful online
services in recent years (Bulearca and Bulearca, 2010; Jansen and Zhang, 2009).
What is behind the success of this social networking service? This is our primary
research question. Researchers in the field of information systems (IS) and information
technologies have determined some critical success factors behind the diffu sion of
innovative systems. Rogers (1995) suggested five key success factors of a new
technology: compatibility, trialability, observability, complexity, and relative
advantage. Davis (1989) suggested that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of
use were the key factors for information systems adoption. More recently the hedonic
features of information systems and services have also been found to be critical for the
success of new technologies in the market (Van der Heijden, 2004). Furthermore the
hedonic factors have become more important for social networking services that are
based on voluntary use (Kang et al., 2009). However the utilitarian and hedonic value
centric models often overlook the important role of social influences on IS use.
Few studies have investigated how social influences affect the adoption and use of
information systems in voluntary use contexts (Kulviwat et al., 2009; Venkatesh et al.,
2003). Most of these studies have adopted the subjective norm concept from the theory
of planned behaviour as a factor that represents the social influence on IS adoption.
Although subjective norms have been the focus of most social influence studies, there
have been studies addressing other social factors that could affect IS usage: social
image theory in psychology (Turel et al., 2007), social identity theory in sociology (Stets
and Burke, 2000), social capital theory (Chang and Chuang, 2011) and social tie theory
(Li, 2007) in organisational behaviour, and network effect theory (Huang and Chen,
2006; Lim et al., 2003) in economics.
Through a review of the literature, we formulated the hypothesis that social
influences comprise two primary natures: one is a force applied by society to comply
with norms and the other is a value pursued by members of the society. By integrating
these different types of social influence with other salient factors in IS adoption, such
as utilitarian and hedonic factors, we suggest an integrative research model that
explains user behaviour on Twitter.
Literature review
Social influence: two forces
Venkatesh et al. (2003, p. 451) defined the role of social influence in IT use as “the
degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe he or she should
use the new system”. They established three conceptual dimensions of social influence
that had been frequently adopted in IS studies: subjective norms, social factors, and
social image. The comprehensive study by Venkatesh et al. (2003) and other studies
investigating the social influences on IS use have presented evidence that social
influences have two different types of forces: one force pushes users to adopt a system
and the other force pulls users to adopt a system. In the literature we found that while
subjective norms or social norms represent the pushing force as pressure to comply
OIR
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