Impacts of Social Media on Consumer Behavior in Decision Making Process in Morocco

Running head: DISSERTATION
Impacts of Social Media on Consumer Behavior in Decision Making Process in Morocco
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1DISSERTATION
Acknowledgement
It provides me utmost contentment to make the final submission of the research that concentrates
on the “Impact of social media of social media on consumer behavior in decision making process
in Morocco”. Since the beginning of the research until the submission, I have been able to gain a
chance of conducting an in-depth research on the impact of factors influencing consumer
behavior in the decision making process.
I want to thank many people who have helped me in producing this project work. Firstly, I would
like to give regards to my supervisor ..................... who helped me a lot to prepare this work.
I also show my gratefulness towards my respondents of the surveys without whose help, I would
not be able to do the work. Special thanks to my children for their tolerance during the last four
years of my MBA studies, all the travels I had to do to attend lectures and sit for exams.
Thanking you all.

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Abstract
The aim of the research is to investigate the impact of social media on consumer behavior in
decision making process in Morocco. Social media is largely influencing as well as changing the
way consumers should behave followed by making decision before purchasing a product or a
service. Considering the huge benefit social media offers to the individuals in terms of
communication regardless of the location and time, it is used drastically by the business
organizations for communicating with the target customers. Compared to the past years, a rise of
the social media use has been encountered in regards to online forums, blogs and social media
platforms. As a result, social media has become the voice of the consumers that has grown in
strength due to the various advantages it provides to both the consumers and the business
organizations.
Issues in terms of the use of social media have been noticed that is having an impact on the
consumer behavior in decision making in Morocco. Morocco is having issues in cascading the
appropriate information to the target users by social media. As a result, the actual information is
not being transferred to the customers and the business organizations are unable influence the
decision making process of the consumers in Morocco. Analyzing the impact of social media in
consumer behavior in decision making in Morocco is important, as this provides an opportunity
to address the impact of the gap of the use of social media on consumer behavior in buying
decision in Morocco.
Positivism philosophy, deductive approach, descriptive design and survey research strategy has
been used. In accordance with the above-mentioned methods, random probability sampling

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technique has been used for selecting the social media users as the population out of which 100
social media users in Morocco has been selected. Primary data collection technique and
quantitative data analysis technique has been used for gathering relevant and updated data and
assessing the relationship between social media use and consumer behavior in decision-making
in Morocco.
Therefore, it can be stated that the alternate hypothesis has been considered in this research, as
the regression analysis value obtained is .000. This shows that the factors of consumer decision
making process on the social media platforms play an important role in purchasing the products
in the market. The acceptance of the alternate hypothesis also suggests that these factors are
important on the part of the decisions that are taken by the customers in purchasing the products.
Social media plays an important role in influencing the decisions of the customers towards a
particular product or service that leads to its accepted or rejection

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................9
1.0 Overview...........................................................................................................................9
1.1 Problem statement...............................................................................................................10
1.2 Research aim........................................................................................................................10
1.3 Research objectives.............................................................................................................10
1.4 Research questions...............................................................................................................11
1.5 Research hypothesis.............................................................................................................11
1.6 Research rationale................................................................................................................11
1.7 Structure of the dissertation.................................................................................................12
1.8 Summary..............................................................................................................................13
Chapter 2: Literature review..........................................................................................................15
2.0 Overview..............................................................................................................................15
2.1 Conceptual framework.........................................................................................................15
2.2 Social media.........................................................................................................................16
2.3 Use of social media globally................................................................................................17
2.4 Use of social media in Morocco..........................................................................................18
2.5 Factors affecting use of social media for business..............................................................18
2.5.1 Relevance......................................................................................................................18

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2.5.2 Quality..........................................................................................................................19
2.5.3 User-generated content.................................................................................................20
2.5.4 Volume.........................................................................................................................20
2.6 Concept consumer behavior and decision-making..............................................................20
2.7 Factors affecting consumer behavior and decision-making................................................21
2.7.1 Culture..........................................................................................................................21
2.7.2 Perception.....................................................................................................................22
2.7.3 Trend.............................................................................................................................22
2.7.4 Economic level.............................................................................................................23
2.8 Theories of consumer behavior and decision making.........................................................23
2.8.1 Theory of reasoned action................................................................................................23
2.8.2 Hawkins Stern Impulse Buying........................................................................................24
2.9 Model of consumer behavior...............................................................................................25
2.9.1 Engel, Kollat, Blackwell (EKB) model............................................................................25
2.10 Current economic scenario in Morocco.............................................................................26
2.11 Benefits of using social media for business organizations................................................26
2.12 Impact of social media on consumer behavior in decision making process......................27
2.13 Challenges of using social media on consumer behavior in decision making process.....27
2.14 Summary............................................................................................................................28
Chapter 3: Research methodology.................................................................................................29

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3.0 Overview..............................................................................................................................29
3.1 Research outline...................................................................................................................29
3.2 Research philosophy............................................................................................................30
3.2.1 Justification...................................................................................................................30
3.3 Research approach...............................................................................................................30
3.3.1 Justification...................................................................................................................31
3.4 Research design...................................................................................................................31
3.4.1 Justification...................................................................................................................32
3.5 Research strategy.................................................................................................................32
3.5.1 Justification...................................................................................................................33
3.6 Sampling technique and sample size...................................................................................33
3.6.1 Justification...................................................................................................................33
3.7 Data collection process........................................................................................................34
3.7.1 Justification...................................................................................................................34
3.8 Data analysis technique.......................................................................................................35
3.8.1 Justification...................................................................................................................35
3.9 Ethical considerations..........................................................................................................35
3.10 Accessibility issues............................................................................................................36
3.11 Summary............................................................................................................................37
Chapter 4: Findings and Analysis..................................................................................................38

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4.0 Overview..............................................................................................................................38
4.1 Demographic factors............................................................................................................38
4.2 Inferential statistics..............................................................................................................43
4.2.1 Correlation analysis......................................................................................................43
4.2.2 Regression analysis.......................................................................................................52
4.3 Summary..............................................................................................................................55
Chapter 5: Discussion....................................................................................................................56
5.0 Overview..............................................................................................................................56
5.1 Discussion............................................................................................................................56
5.2 Summary..............................................................................................................................59
Chapter 6: Conclusion and recommendation.................................................................................60
6.0 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................60
6.1 Linking with objectives.......................................................................................................61
6.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................62
6.3 Future scope of the study.....................................................................................................62
References......................................................................................................................................64
Appendix 1.....................................................................................................................................73
Survey questionnaire.................................................................................................................73