Understanding Consumers’ Purchase Intentions in Social Commerce through Social Capital: Evidence from SEM and fsQCA

Abstract

Social commerce has become a fiercely competitive environment. Understanding consumers’ purchase intentions can help social commerce platforms retain and attract more consumers. Social capital is one of the primary resources that plays a critical role in facilitating consumers’ purchase intentions in social commerce. Here, complex relationships between different dimensions of social capital are further clarified and its impact on consumers’ purchase intentions are discussed. Based on a survey of 302 social commerce users, this study utilizes an SEM and fsQCA approach to validate the effect of social capital on consumers’ purchase intentions. The SEM results reveal that the effect of structural social capital on consumers’ purchase intentions is fully mediated by relational and cognitive social capital. The fsQCA results confirm the significance of consumers’ social capital as determinants and provide the configurations that can lead to high purchase intentions. Though previous studies have discussed the factors influencing consumers’ purchase intentions, this study takes the first step toward enhancing the understanding of the configurations that link dimensions of social capital to consumers’ purchase intentions in s-commerce using fsQCA approach.

Determining Factors Affecting the Users’ Participation of Online Health Communities: An Integrated Framework of Social Capital and Social Support

“…Compared with the real-life communities, virtual communities have one striking defect, that is, the fragile connection among their members, which can negatively influence user behaviors. This research result is consistent with that of Xu and Zhou (2018) and Yang (2021) .…”

“…Research suggests that social capital has three dimensions, including structural dimension, relational dimension and cognitive dimension, and that all these dimensions can control individual behaviors and interaction ( Yang, 2021 ). First of all, structural capital stands for the contact model among individuals, which can reflect the users’ position in the social system and identify users’ ability to access resources ( Zhou, 2016 ).…”

“…Cognitive capital is a mirror of shared language among users ( Yang, 2021 ). A frequent interaction can increase users’ mutual understanding and help them form a shared language, such as common terms and jargons ( Zhao et al, 2012 ).…”

Determinants of Social Commerce Usage and Online Impulse Purchase: Implications for Business and Digital Revolution

“…The term “social commerce” first emerged on Yahoo in 2005 to describe the practice of sharing product information and netizens’ opinions and ratings on products ( Yang, 2021 ). Social commerce has spawned a slew of new business models, including hybrids that combine offline and online operations ( Kawasaki et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Social commerce quality facets such as brand, information, and relationship quality were identified in another line of research ( Yahia et al, 2018 ; Sheikh et al, 2019 ; Wang X. et al, 2019 ; Anindito and Handarkho, 2021 ). The previous research provided useful information about consumer’s behavior ( Lin X. et al, 2019 ; Molinillo et al, 2021 ; Yang, 2021 ) and the quality of social commerce in sustainable business development. These studies ( Wu and Li, 2018 ; Nakayama and Wan, 2019 ; Akram et al, 2021b ; Jia et al, 2021 ), on the other hand, did not look into the key determinants of social commerce satisfaction using managerial insights and solid overarching theory to develop effective social commerce service improvement and design strategies for sustainable business development.…”