社会化商务环境下消费者参与意向研究:基于体验的视角

Consumers' intention to participate in social commerce from a consumer experience perspective

社会化商务是指基于社会化媒体来进行商务活动的新兴商业模式。作为一种新兴的商业模式,消费者参与社会化商务活动的动机依然缺乏深入的研究。本研究试图从消费者体验的视角分析社会化商务中消费者的参与意向,并基于刺激-机体-反应框架建立了社会化商务中的消费者参与模型,分析了社会化商务环境中的技术特征是如何影响消费者体验,及其参与社会化商务活动的意向。以人人网和新浪微博用户作为调查对象进行实证分析,数据结果表明,消费者体验(社会支持、社会存在及沉浸体验)决定了消费者参与社会化商务的意向,而消费者体验主要受交互性、个性化和社交性技术特点的影响。

s Social commerce is a new business model which uses social media for assisting commercial activities. The increasing impact of social commerce isnow becoming quite obvious to different types of corporations. In spite of the promising opportunities provided by social commerce, the literature onmotivation behind participating in social commerce is very limited. This study is inspired mainly by the lacunae in the literature on consumers＇ participationbehavior in social commerce. This study attempts to provide initial insights into consumers＇ intention to participate in social commerce from a consumerexperience perspective. Based on the stimulus-organism-response （S-O-R） framework, this study develops a research model to examine how technological features （interactivity,personalization and sociability） of the social commerce environment influence consumer experiences （social support, social presence and flow）, and subsequentsocial commerce intention. This model is then empirically examined by using survey data collected from two pioneering online social network communities,namely Renren （N=563） and SinaWeibo （N--446）. The findings of this study indicate that technological environmental features of social commerce significantly influence consumers＇ experiences, and theseexperiences in turn influence their intention to participation. First, regarding technological environmental features, interactivity is found to have a significantimpact on social support and flow in Renren, and sociability has a positive effect on social support, social presence, and flow in Renren and SinaWeibo.Moreover, our results show that personalization has strong effect on social support, social presence, and flow. Its effect size is greater than that of interactivityand sociability in Renren and SinaWeibo. Second, regarding consumer experiences we found support for direct relationship between flow and social commerceintention in Renren and SinaWeibo. Social presence influences social commerce intention in Renren, and social support plays a greater role in influencing socialcommerce intention than social presence and flow experiences in Renren and SinaWeibo. Third, the findings demonstrate that social support has a positiveinfluence on social presence in Renren and SinaWeibo, and social presence increases flow experience in Renren. This study makes a few important contributions to the extant literature. First, although researchers and practitioners acknowledge the potential role ofsocial commerce, little attention has been paid to consumers＇ participation behavior in social commerce. This study contributes to social commerce literature byexplaining intention to participate in social commerce. Second, we employ the S-O-R model to link technological environments of social commerce toconsumers＇ participation behaviors. Based on previous studies, we identify three technological characteristics, namely interaetivity, personalization andsociability. These three characteristics capture key features of the social commerce environment and thus shed light on this new phenomenon. Third, we developa framework of consumer experiences including social support, social presence, and flow for the social commerce environment, and examine the roles of thesethree experiences in motivating consumers to participate in social commerce.