What motivates customers to participate in social commerce?

What motivates customers to participate in social commerce?
The impact of technological environments and virtual customer
experiences
Hong Zhang a
, Yaobin Lu b, *, Sumeet Gupta c
, Ling Zhao b
a School of Management, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, PR China
b School of Management, Non-traditional Security Center, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, PR China
c Indian Institute of Management, Raipur 492051, India
1. Introduction
The increased popularity of social media as an efficient tool for
socialization and information sharing has given rise to a new form
of e-commerce called social commerce [40]. Social media, which
combine user-generated content with social networking features,
are used for creating, initiating, and circulating information within
online social networks [57]. Examples include social networking
sites (SNSs), blogs, micro-blogs, Wikipedia, social shopping sites
and other content sharing sites, such as YouTube and Flickr [41].
Social commerce refers to the use of social media for commercial
transactions and activities that are driven primarily by social
interactions and user contributions [40,63].
The commercial impact of social commerce is now vividly
obvious to various firms. According to Liang et al. [40], adding
commercial features to SNSs and adding social networking
capabilities to e-commerce sites are two major trends in social
commerce. The third trend in social commerce is the increase in
use of social media by traditional offline firms for customer
relationship management, brand communication, product promo-
tion and social shopping. Booz and Co. [8] predicts that worldwide
sales in social commerce would rise approximately six times from
USD 5 billion in 2011 to USD 30 billion in 2015.
Undoubtedly, the success of businesses that aims at tapping the
economic value of social commerce depends on customer
participation [40,63]. An understanding of customer’s motivation
behind participation in social commerce can help businesses
unleash its potential. Since social commerce is a sparsely
researched area, this study examines the motivation that drives
customer participation in social commerce [63]. Customers’
participation behavior in social commerce includes both direct
and indirect commercial transactions [17]. Direct transactions
refer to the purchase behavior during the buying phase of a
customer decision process. Indirect transactions include referral
and e-WOM activities during the goal definition, information
seeking, selection and after sales phases of the customer decision
process and are characterized by requesting and sharing of
commercial information on social media [40,63]. Given that
Information & Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
A R T I C L E I N F O
Article history:
Received 7 November 2012
Received in revised form 10 July 2014
Accepted 13 July 2014
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Social commerce
Social media
Technological environment
Virtual customer experience
S–O–R model
Participation behavior
A B S T R A C T
Social commerce, as a relatively new phenomenon, has attracted little research attention. This study
aims to provide initial insights into the dynamics of customer participation in social commerce. Based on
the stimulus–organism–response paradigm, this study develops a model to investigate the effects of
technological features (perceived interactivity, perceived personalization and perceived sociability) of
social commerce on customers’ virtual experiences (social support, social presence and flow) and
subsequently their participation intention. The results indicate that social commerce intention is
determined by social support, social presence and flow experiences. These experiences, in turn, are
influenced by perceived interactivity, personalization and sociability features.
ß 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: [phone].
E-mail addresses: [e-mail] (H. Zhang),
[e-mail] (Y. Lu), [e-mail] (S. Gupta),
[e-mail] (L. Zhao).
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0378-7206/ß 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

customers’ referral and e-WOM behavior may influence subse-
quent purchase behavior [33], our study focuses on customers’
referral and e-WOM behavior, namely requesting and sharing of
commercial information. This study draws upon the stimulus–
organism–response (S–O–R) model to examine the influence of
technological characteristics of social commerce on customers’
virtual experiences and in turn their intention to request and share
commercial information on social media.
This study makes important contributions to the extant
literature. First, with the exception of Liang et al. [40], few studies
have examined requesting and sharing of commercial content in e-
commerce. The extant research on this topic has focused mainly on
the drivers of user-generated content (UGC) from different
perspectives. For instance, Daugherty et al. [18] investigated the
determinants of consumer consumption and creation of UGC from
the motivational perspective. Zhang and Zhu [69] examined the
social effect of content contributions in Chinese Wikipedia from
the social influence perspective. Our study, however, differs from
the extant literature in significant ways. We focus on the goal
definition, information seeking, selection and after sales phases of
the customer decision process. We explain one kind of participa-
tion behavior in social commerce, namely requesting and sharing
commercial information on social media, from a virtual customer
experience perspective. Second, this study employs the S–O–R
model to link the technological environments of social commerce
to customers’ participation behavior. Though the extant research
has enriched our knowledge about the influence of human–
computer interface on customer behavior [31,46], it has not
examined the emerging social media in-depth. Based on previous
studies, we identify three technological characteristics, namely
perceived interactivity, perceived personalization and perceived
sociability. These three characteristics capture key features of the
social commerce environment and thus shed light on this new
phenomenon. Third, we develop a framework of virtual customer
experiences including social support, social presence and flow for
the social commerce environment and examine the roles of these
three virtual experiences in motivating customer participation in
social commerce. We believe this framework would be useful for
examining customers’ experience and behavior in a social
commerce context.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section
presents the theoretical background of the paper. The third section
proposes a research model based on the S–O–R paradigm. The
research methodology is discussed in the fourth section, followed
by the analysis of results in the fifth section. The final section
concludes with a discussion of the results, the theoretical and
practical implications, as well as limitations and future research
directions.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. The S–O–R model
The S–O–R model from environmental psychology states that
the various aspects of the environment act as stimuli (S) that
together affect people’s internal states (O), which in turn drive
their behavioral responses (R) [42]. Baker et al. [4] adapted the
model to the retail context and conceptualized stimuli as
environmental cues, namely, ambient conditions, functional/
esthetic design factors and social factors. Studies that have applied
the S–O–R model to the retail context reveal that retail
environmental stimuli influence consumers’ internal states, which
subsequently drive their behavior toward the store. In online retail,
the stimuli pertain to the design features of the online
environment that consumers interact with [20]. The internal
states refer to emotional and cognitive states of consumers,
including their perceptions, experiences and evaluations [31]. The
responses represent consumer behavior, such as purchase behav-
ior, store exploration and online communication [51].
The use of the S–O–R model as an overarching theory is
appropriate for this study for two reasons. First, the S–O–R model
has been applied extensively in previous studies on online
consumer behavior [20,46]. For example, using the S–O–R model,
Parboteeah et al. [46] examined the effects of task- and mood-
relevant cues in a website on consumers’ cognitive and emotional
experiences and subsequent online purchase behavior. Animesh
et al. [2] also applied this S–O–R model to explore the impacts of
technological features of virtual worlds on users’ virtual experi-
ences and purchase behavior. Their findings support the applica-
bility of the model in explaining individuals’ internal reactions and
behavioral responses to environmental stimuli. Second, given the
critical roles of technological environments and virtual experi-
ences in influencing customer behavior in social commerce, the S–
O–R model provides a parsimonious and structured manner to
examine the effects of technological features as environmental
stimuli on customers’ virtual experiences and in turn their
intention to request and share commercial information on social
media.
2.2. Technological features as environmental stimuli (S)
Social commerce platforms, that is, social media, are artifacts
with unique technological features [63]. Online customers interact
with the social commerce environment via the enabled techno-
logical features and form their estimations of these features [46].
Therefore, the technological features of social commerce platforms
not only reflect the objective properties independent of the
customers, but also the subjective properties as perceived by the
customers [31]. Since our study focuses on customers’ perception,
experience and behavior, the technological features here refer to
the subjective properties of social commerce platforms as
experienced by the customers [2]. Previous studies on social
commerce have confirmed that technological features of social
commerce platforms cluster around three crucial elements,
namely, perceived interactivity [2], perceived personalization
[44] and perceived sociability [2]. These three features capture
various aspects of an individual’s interactions with the social
commerce environment that comprises people and the technology
medium. Perceived interactivity and perceived personalization
reflect the features that support interactions between customers
and the technology, whereas perceived sociability reflects the
feature that facilitates better interactions among customers using
the technology. The present study focuses on these three crucial
technological features, namely, perceived interactivity, perceived
personalization and perceived sociability.
Interactivity of a medium is the degree to which one can
control the medium in modifying its form and content in real time
[54]. It focuses on the interaction between individuals and the
technology [54]. As a key distinguishing design feature, interac-
tivity has been found to influence customers’ response to an
online medium [30]. In this study, we focus on perceived
interactivity and define it as customers’ perception that the
social commerce environment can facilitate the interaction
between them and the technology.
Perceived personalization is defined here as customers’
perception about the adaptability of the site to meet their
preferences [56]. In social commerce, website personalization
strategies focus mainly on providing an online customer with
tailored content based on his/her needs, preferences, profiles, prior
interactions and social networks. Therefore, personalization
perception represents the fit between website content and one’s
preferences [56]. Due to information overload in social commerce,
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Please cite this article in press as: H. Zhang, et al., What motivates customers to participate in social commerce? The impact of
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perceived personalization will reduce customers’ information
screening cost and improve their decision-making quality, and
thus contribute to a better experience [55].
Sociability, as a technological characteristic, can be understood
in two ways. First, it can be seen as a structural property of the
social commerce environment that enables customers to engage in
interdependent interactions [31]. Second, it can be understood as a
dynamic quality as experienced by communicating customers. Our
study focuses on the second view and defines perceived sociability
as customers’ perception that the social commerce environment
facilitates customer–customer interactions by allowing social
affordances supported by social media technologies [2]. As
perceived sociability is significantly linked to interpersonal
relationships, trust, social cohesiveness and a sense of community
[37], it is a critical technological feature of the social commerce
environment.
2.3. Virtual customer experiences as customers’ internal states (O)
The S–O–R model suggests that the effects of technological
environmental stimuli on customer behavior are mediated
through customer experiences [2]. Studies on social commerce
confirm the important roles of three categories of virtual customer
experiences in determining customer behavior, namely social
support [40], social presence [53] and flow [2]. The present study
includes these three kinds of virtual customer experiences in the
research model.
Social support is a multidimensional construct, and is defined as
an individual’s perception or experience of being cared for,
responded to, and helped by people in one’s social group [40].
House [28] asserts that social support consists of emotional,
instrumental, informational and appraisal support. Since content
and social relationships are underlying characteristics of social
commerce, social support in social commerce revolves around
informational support and emotional support [40]. Informational
support refers to the cognitive feeling induced by the content in the
form of recommendations, advice, or knowledge that might be
helpful for solving problems [40]. Emotional support refers to the
affective experience of emotional concerns such as caring,
understanding and empathy [28,58].
Social presence evaluates a user’s sense of psychological
connections with other users in a medium [22]. Due to the nature
of social relationships, the social commerce environment provides
a channel for customers to form interpersonal connections with
others, and thus experience social presence [63]. It is defined in this
study as the extent to which the social commerce environment
enables a customer to establish a personal, warm, intimate and
sociable interaction with others [2].
Flow is the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with
total involvement [17, p. 36]. It describes a psychological state, as
well as an optimal and enjoyable experience that people reach
during their engagement in activities [49,64]. Flow was introduced
into the context of Internet marketing by Hoffman and Novak [27]
and Novak et al. [43], and has been recommended as a metric of the
online customer experience. Recently, it has been used to explain
user behavior in the contexts of online shopping [24], instant
messaging [67] and mobile shopping [71]. A website enables its
customers to experience flow by providing: (1) a seamless
sequence of responses facilitated by machine interactivity, (2)
intrinsic enjoyment, (3) a loss of self-consciousness and (4) self-
reinforcement [27,43]. Wang and Zhang [63] examined the
evolution of social commerce and identified specific activities
such as social searching, social shopping, impression management,
social recommendation and social communication. These activities
in social commerce are highly interactive, enjoyable and involving,
and facilitate better customer learning and increase exploratory
behavior [2]. Therefore, we argue that the social commerce
environment can evoke a flow experience.
Flow is considered as an elusive and broad concept and the
literature lacks consensus about its definition and components.
Still, some studies in the computer-mediated environment concur
that flow includes four dimensions: control, attention, curiosity
and intrinsic interest (e.g., [28,59,76]). Wang et al. [64] suggested
that flow includes control, interest, attention and curiosity.
Hausman and Siekpe [26] found that flow includes four
components: challenge, concentration, control and enjoyment.
Animesh et al. [2] further examined the measurement of flow in
terms of these four dimensions in virtual worlds. Adapting from
Qiu and Benbasat [49], we define flow as the perceived sense of
control, attention focus, curiosity and intrinsic interests obtained
from the interaction in social commerce.
2.4. Social commerce intention as response (R)
In social commerce, a customer is exposed to various
technological features or functions, such as user-provided
shopping experiences and ratings, social recommendations and
user profiles, which trigger his or her participation behavior in
social commerce. Since actual behavior is difficult to measure, it is
quite common to measure the behavioral intention as a surrogate
to the actual behavior because intention is proven to be a valid
predictor of the actual behavior [60]. Therefore, we use social
commerce intention, namely intention to participate in social
commerce, as the response in the research model.
Since we focus on the participation behavior manifested as
indirect commercial transactions, social commerce intention is
operationalized here as the intention to request and share
commercial information [40], which is the extent to which a
customer is willing to request and share commercial information
in the social commerce environment.
3. Research model and hypotheses
Based on the above discussion, we present our research model
in Fig. 1.
3.1. Environmental stimulus and virtual customer experience
3.1.1. Perceived interactivity
Customers interact with the social commerce environment
through content creation and sharing, such as boasting about
shopping experiences and posting shopping messages. Through
such interactions, customers present themselves, as well as
provide informational and emotional supports to others [40].
According to the social exchange theory, individuals reciprocate
with others when they derive benefits from them [7]. Thus, these
customers will also obtain informational and emotional values
from interactions in social commerce and feel obliged to provide
valuable information. Therefore, the social commerce environment
with high perceived interactivity provides a convenient venue for
self-presentation, content contribution and exchange of support
among customers, thus creating a sense of social support [40].
Hence, we hypothesize:
H1a. Perceived interactivity is positively related to the sense of
social support.
Interactivity feature in social commerce enables a customer to
portray a desired self-image [2]. According to the self-presentation
theory [23], people desire to project a social self-image among
other users and are thus motivated to use this medium to
fulfill their desire. With deep personal engagement in projecting
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Please cite this article in press as: H. Zhang, et al., What motivates customers to participate in social commerce? The impact of
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self-impression, customers seek enjoyment and reach a state of
loss of self-consciousness, and thus increase the sense of flow [64].
In other words, the captivating involvement in the interactions and
explorations with the medium may make customers completely
absorbed, which is likely to induce a flow experience. Novak et al.
[43] found that websites with a higher level of interactivity boost
users’ flow states. Therefore, we argue that perceived interactivity
in the social commerce environment could induce a flow
experience. Hence, we hypothesize:
H1b. Perceived interactivity is positively related to the sense of
flow.
3.1.2. Perceived personalization
Perceived personalization in social commerce implies that
content on social media will effectively articulate a customer’s
personal preferences and needs [36]. To closely match customers’
idiosyncratic preferences and needs, relevant and better-custom-
ized recommendations are generated [36]. In social commerce,
these recommended items are classified under a distinct category
with labels such as personalized recommendations or unique offers
for you, which create an encouraging environment for customers
[55]. Thus, the perception of high personalization is a good and
rational reason for customers to believe that social commerce
providers care for them and value them, and thus will induce a
sense of social support among them [40]. Hence, we hypothesize:
H2a. Perceived personalization is positively related to the sense of
social support.
Personalization strategies in social commerce include the
practice of using social network information for presenting social
recommendations to target customers, such as a list of friends who
have similar tastes [14]. When customers find social recommen-
dations in a medium, they will develop a stronger sense of social
identification and familiarity with other customers in the medium
[38]. Thus, increased identification and familiarity of a customer
with other customers may induce warm and close personal
relationships and generate a sense of social presence among them
[2]. Kumar and Benbasat [38] found that personalization of a
website is positively related to perceived usefulness and perceived
social presence of this site. Thus, it is rational to argue that
perceived personalization would lead to a sense of social presence
among customers in social commerce. Hence, we hypothesize:
H2b. Perceived personalization is positively related to the sense of
social presence.
Personalization also includes the practice of using information
technologies to serve customers by tailoring interactions uniquely
for each customer [65]. Some social commerce platforms provide
customized functions whereby customers can alter their interfaces
and interactions to suit their preferences. To meet their personal-
ized needs, customers actively spend time, effort and money in
customization, such as constructing their profiles, and presenting
their preferred identities. According to the user involvement
theory, customers’ participation in the process of customization
may lead them to be fully immersed in what they are doing, thus
inducing a strong sense of flow among them [2]. Hence, we
hypothesize:
H2c. Perceived personalization is positively related to the sense of
flow.
3.1.3. Perceived sociability
Sociability is experienced by customers through mutual
interactions in social commerce, where customers with similar
interests recommend and comment on various services [45,48].
During interactions, customers build their online identities and
form networks to obtain social benefits, such as social support,
friendship and intimacy. Support from others is one of the major
social values that customers obtain from their interactions [19].
Thus, perceived sociability makes customers believe that they are
cared for, valued and helped by other customers in their social
network, which satisfies their need for social support [40]. Hence,
we hypothesize:H8H7H6H5H4H3cH3bH3aH2cH2bH2aH1bH1aPerceivedsociabilitySocialsupportFlowSocialcommerceintentionVirtual Customer Experiences (O) Response (R)SocialpresenceControl VariablesAge GenderInternet shoppingexperiencePerceivedinteractivityPerceivedpersonalizationEnvironmental Stimuli (S)
Fig. 1. The research model based on the S–O-R paradigm.
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Please cite this article in press as: H. Zhang, et al., What motivates customers to participate in social commerce? The impact of
technological environments and virtual customer experiences, Inf. Manage. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2014.07.005