Social media research: Theories, constructs, and conceptual frameworks

Purpose – The present study aims to conduct a systematic literature review to und erstand how current social media studies have adopted theories, used research constructs, and developed conceptual frameworks. Design – The current study examined 149 articles on social media published in the top eight hospitality and tourism journals between 2007 and 2017. Methodology – First, descriptive statistics were presented to show the status quo of theories and constructs used in social media-related articles. Second, three causal chain frameworks are developed based on the antecedent-moderator–mediator-outcome model. Findings – First, psychological theory is the predominant theory that has been applied to explain the behavior of social media users. Second, platform-related antecedents have been identified as the most prevalent antecedents. Third, consumer outcomes have attracted the most research interest. Fourth, only about half of the selected social media publications used moderators or me.

Download Free PDF View PDF

User-generated content (UGC) has become an important part of travel planning, as travelers evaluate travel products based on past reviews. However, different factors account for why tourists utilize UGC. The aim of this study is to review extant studies on UGC to identify the antecedents of UGC utilization for travel planning and the theories, models, and frameworks used in these studies. A total of 54 studies from 2005 to 2016 were found. This study found that UGC adoption is determined by attributes relating to the user, the source, the content, and response variables. It also found distinct and heterogeneous theories and frameworks mainly drawn from the information systems, socio-psychology, and management disciplines. Among the antecedents, the average path coefficients of the extracted relationships show that trust predicted attitude more than the other variables. Implications and future research directions are provided.

Download Free PDF View PDF

Marketing Intelligence & Planning

PurposeThis paper aims to examine factors that influence repeat visits to non‐transactional web sites. Drawing on repurchase and continuance research, this study identifies four focal constructs: site commitment, satisfaction, social influences, and medium involvement, and clarifies the mediator versus moderator role of site commitment.Design/methodology/approachActual visitors to five B2B and B2C non‐transactional web sites provide data participated in an online survey. The tests use the combined sample and then verify results for the individual sites. The test for mediation relies on structural path analysis; the test for moderation uses moderated regression analysis.FindingsThe four focal constructs influence web site revisitation, though in most settings, only site commitment has a direct effect. Findings support the mediator role of site commitment, though some sites exhibit only partial mediation. Results are consistent across B2C and B2B contexts. The relative impact of socia.

Download Free PDF View PDF

This paper examines the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) salespeople to assist in their job functions. The authors propose that a salesperson's attitude toward social media usefulness, as well as a salesperson's learning orientation, will influence how much a salesperson uses social media to assist in day-to-day job tasks. Additionally, the impact that the use of social media has on collecting knowledge about competitors, adapting to customers, and sales performance is considered. Accordingly, a broad literature review is provided to introduce extant theory contributing to the proposed model. The practical uses of social media by salespeople will be described, and then the theoretical foundation is built, encompassing social media use, goal orientations, and adaptive selling theory. Results of an empirical model are provided, followed by a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications. Highlights Findings of the study suggest that social media is one way to enhance sales performance, but its use alone does not guarantee such enhancement. Social media use will affect performance of salespeople through affecting their competitive intelligence collection and adaptive selling. Perceived usefulness of social media was not significantly related to salesperson social media use. Results support linking collection of competitive intelligence to a salesperson’s adaptive selling behavior.

Download Free PDF View PDF