Keywords: social media; purchase intention; technology acceptance model; .... Companies utilizing social media for marketing and advertising, as well as ...
Social media influence on purchase intentions: Instrument validation Abstract: Purpose: This article focuses on the psychometric stability of the technology acceptance model (TAM) by Davis (1989) when applied to users of social media interacting in ways which may eventually lead to the purchase of environmentally sustainable apparel. Method: The study used an online survey method with a sample size of 178. Findings: This research provides evidence that the instrument is a valid and reliable measure when being used in a social media context. Implications: Given this evidence, those specifically impacted by this research, which include but are not limited to communication managers and those responsible for online communities and social media policies, can confidently apply the instrument in further investigations or use in this arena. Originality: The acceptance of users engaging in online peer interaction through specific social media technology websites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest has been validated and makes this study valid for future research considerations. Keywords: social media; purchase intention; technology acceptance model; validation; scale; ease of use; usefulness; social networking sites; online communities, United States
Social media influence on purchase intentions: Instrument validation Introduction It is important to perform validation studies prior to using well-established instruments within new contexts. This is particularly true because the context for the use of technology continually changes. For instance, the advent of social media has changed how consumers interact with both peers and retailers interested in selling them products (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010). It has also modified expectations regarding their experiences within a system (Andzulis, Panagopoulos, and Rapp 2012). Both within this area and in other areas, social media has become vastly popular (Pew 2015). In fact, it has taken less than a decade for these technologies to infiltrate and often revolutionize the way businesses interact with their stakeholders (Brenner 2013). This particularly is evident in the area of purchases and marketing (Weinberg 2009). As a result, social media applications have dramatically altered the way people communication, think about products, connect with peers, interact, share information, and even think (McHaney 2011). The relative speed with which social media permeated marketing and other business practices was not foreseen by most futurists (Aburdene 2005) and as a result has caused many businesses to rethink their strategies for customer interaction (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010), particularly within fashion brands. Kim and Ko (2012) looked at the effect of social media marketing and luxury fashion brands on customer equity and purchase intention and found that “the social media marketing activities that were perceived by consumers were significantly efficacious to luxury fashion brands' future profits” (p. 1484). Additionally, Wolny and Meuller (2013) look at the effect of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on fashion consumers and determined that “those who are motivated by product involvement or have a high need for social interaction engage more frequently in fashion brand-related eWOM than those that are not motivated by those factors” (p. 562). The pressure resulting from these changes has increased the need for dependable ways to measure how users will react when provided with new technology and mechanisms for accomplishing tasks. In fact,
in most situations, a number of factors will influence their decisions about how they will use new technologies. In order for social media applications to be understood and ultimately used more effectively to transact global business, a better understanding of what factors influence a successful implementation must be developed. Berthon, Pitt, Plangger, and Shapiro (2012) found that in order to create an effective social media marketing strategy, social media managers must consider how to “truly engage customers, embrace technology, limit the power of bureaucracy, train and invest in their employees, and inform senior management about the opportunities of social media” (p. 261). One method of accomplishing this is to extend the generalizability of existing instruments to new areas. This approach has been stressed by various researchers in a number of fields and is the focus of this study. Stated simply, the purpose of the present study is to determine whether an adoption of the technology acceptance model (TAM) instrument (Davis 1989) maintains psychometric stability when applied within social media to the area environmentally sustainable fashion purchases. Specifically, this article investigates the acceptance of users engaging in online peer interaction through specific social media technology websites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. This investigation focuses on establishing construct validity, internal validity, and reliability of the TAM instrument in social media settings. If the hypothesized psychometric properties of this instrument are consistent with prior studies, the use of the TAM instrument can be confidently extended to use in this area. Further, if evidence supports psychometric stability, those specifically impacted by this research which include but are not limited to, communication managers, those responsible for online communities and social media policies, as well as managers, marketing specialists, and social media product developers, can confidently apply the instrument in their own investigations and use in this arena.
TAM Overview
The implementation and use of information systems (IS) has been an uncertain process dependent on many factors. Some systems become widely used and others do not. IS researchers have explored the reasons for this in many different ways and with varying levels of success (Petter, DeLone, and McLean 2008; Mahmood et al. 2000). Among these approaches, some attempt to quantify success (Delone and McLean 2003), some satisfaction (Doll and Torkzadeh 1991), and others intention to use (Davis 1989). One certain fact this research has revealed is that measuring information system use and outcomes are not simple. Whether a system is successful, useful, and/or high quality currently cannot be characterized as a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ proposition. A straightforward approach would be to propose to users a single question such as, ‘Did the system work well?’ This may seem to be a sensible and easy method to obtain desired information but upon closer inspection, obvious problems become apparent. For instance, the single item approach is not acceptable in most research studies and has been criticized as ambiguous or prone to misunderstanding. Another approach for obtaining information would be to construct a new instrument suited for the domain of study. However, the process of building a new instrument is difficult and requires a great deal of work as evident in Straub’s (1989) work where he outlines a procedure that includes methods for instrument validation, internal validity, statistical conclusion validity, and external validity. While this approach could be used, another IS instrument would be added to number already in existence and this would ignore Jarvenpaa’s, Dickson’s and DeSanctis’ plea for standardization of IS instruments (S.L. Jarvenpaa, Dickson, and DeSanctis 1985). For these reasons, an existing instrument validated for the current study was determined to be the best approach. A particular system may be viewed as a success by some stakeholders and as a failure by others. Since most systems can be explored and related attributes measured from a variety of perspectives, a binomial classification is not warranted. Instead, more complex measures become necessary. In the absence of clear, objective measures, academic researchers have turned to surrogates measures.
One such measure is user acceptance of technology. For nearly three decades, this area has been the subject of intense study. Among the many models proposed to explain user acceptance and predict the use of a system, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been mostly widely examined and researched in the Information Systems academic research community (Davis 1989; King and He 2006). TAM suggests that information system usage patterns result in part from users’ perceptions of whether that system is easy to use and useful, hence the two primary constructs---ease of use and usefulness. TAM is based on underlying theory including the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975). In its original form, Davis (1985) used this theoretical scaffolding to help explain and predict behaviors of technology users. The basic premise was that individual user motivation to accept technology was explained by the two primary factors: perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. These two factors influenced attitude toward using the system. Ease of use and usefulness, in turn, were influenced by a variety of system characteristics. Davis continued to refined his work to arrive at scale with six items loading on each of the two primary factors (Davis 1989). Part of his motivation was to keep the scales short for application in the real world. The model has been tested extensively (King and He 2006) and validated rigorously (Doll, Hendrickson, and Deng 1998). However, it still only provides general information regarding a user’s opinion at a particular point in time (Mathieson 1991). Currently, research regarding TAM continues with new applications, validations, extensions, criticisms, antecedents, and other explorations. In spite of a number of validations in a variety of areas and a preponderance of evidence that it is generalizable across multiple applications (Chuttur 2009), use in social media technology applications, particularly in the fashion industry, has not been fully explored (McGowan et al. 2012). Therefore, it is important to ensure that the psychometric properties of the instrument remain constant in this under-explored area. Social Media in Business
According many researchers, social media use is among the most significant changes to the business world in recent years (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Understanding social media and its application to achieve organizational goals is critical knowledge because it has dramatically changed consumer behavior. As broader age groups become savvy social media users, the impact promises to be even greater. Many people born between the years of 1980 and 1994 are part of the first generation to be raised ‘with the Internet.’ These people, often called Tech Savvy Millennials (Huhman 2013) or the digital generation (Buzzard et al. 2011), have a different set of expectations than do their predecessors. For instance, they expect to have readily available information on all topics at all times. They are accustomed to personalizing, customizing, and having the freedom to control information they consume (McHaney 2011). This makes them, on the whole, a group of consumers less likely to tolerate invasive marketing tools, such as television ads and direct marketing calls, accepted by earlier generations. Brands and retailers are also picking up on this trend with ‘40% of e-retailers maintain a social network page and 59% of top retailers having a “fan page” on Facebook’ (Pookulangara and Koesler 2011, 349). In 2011, nearly 80% of the top 100 retailers had Facebook and almost 70% had Twitter (Pookulangara and Koesler 2011). Companies utilizing social media for marketing and advertising, as well as customer engagement and service, and idea innovation has nearly doubled from 42% in 2008 to 88% in 2012 (Smith, Fischer, and Yongjian 2012). Though social media encompasses an array of forums and channels including blogs, video sharing sites, virtual worlds, online communities, etc. this research focuses four specific tools which can be classified as social networking sites (SNS) (Mangold and Faulds 2009). Social networking sites (SNS) for this study are defined as ‘web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system; the nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site’ (Boyd and Ellison 2007, 211).
Social networking sites do more than allow individuals to share connections with their peers and create an identity for themselves. These sites can also fulfill their basic needs. Pookulangara et al. (2011) go as far as to state that SNS ‘go beyond the traditional realm by satisfying much more hedonic needs: the need for approval from peers, the desire for self-expression, and the desire for entertainment’ (p. 351). The authors additionally discuss that the influence of technology is also leading to global cultural impacts and reframing the impact on consumer decision processes (Pookulangara and Koesler 2011). Kucuk and Krishnamurthy (2007) state that ‘many consumers now find it hard to imagine a world without the Internet and the ‘World Wide Web’ and many users find it to be “indispensable”’ (p. 47). This transformation is focused on the consumers as they are the driving force of the utilization of technology in the shopping communication process (Kucuk and Krishnamurthy 2007). According to Consumer Instinct (2012), 96% of the global youth population is active on a SNS with the most popular sites being Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Google+ (Brenner 2013). SNS are the one place to reach a massive scope of consumers even surpassing porn as the top activity on the web (Consumer Instinct 2012). According to Pew Research, as of May 2013, 72% of adults are active in SNS (74% of women and 62% of men). The average US consumer spends 16 minutes per hour active on social media (Brenner 2013). These increases are due to an increase in cell phone usage, particularly smartphones, 40% of cell phone users access SNS from it and 28% access SNS on their smartphones daily (Brenner 2013). Additionally, in 2013 71% of users accessed SNS through a mobile device (Brenner 2013). Smartphone usage is expected to increase drastically through 2017, with 2013 boasting 975 million shipments and that number compounding 20% annually over the next four years (Malik 2013). Firms, in tune with the upswing in the popularity of SNS, are also increasingly using these sites as an integral aspect of their marketing strategies. As of 2013, globally 93% of companies use SNS for business, 70% use Facebook to increase customers, and 34% use Twitter to generate indications on business (Brenner 2013). A term known as ‘reversed shopping’ is taking place on the Internet, in which consumers no longer
feel a need to seek out information regarding products and brands, they expect retailers and brands to come to them, leading to a shift from brick-and-mortar stores to strictly online shopping (Consumer Instinct 2012). Pookulangara and Koesler (2011) state that ‘the Internet has become one of the most important communication channels in the world and growing Internet usage is motivating some changes in the consumer purchasing process’ (p. 348). Mangold and Faulds (2009) add to this revelation indicating that ‘the emergence of Internet based social media has made it possible for one person to communicate with hundreds or even thousands of other people about products and the companies that provide them’ (p. 357). In relation to ESA, it is highly important for ESA brands to be able to connect and inform consumers of the products available, why they are important, and influence consumers to have a positive attitude regarding their purchase intention. According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) social media or SNS is comprised of two indicators; the first being self-disclosure in order to facilitate development of close relationships, with the second revolving around the level of that disclosure, self-presentation. People in SNS sites connect with strangers as well as their close reference group and will be able to share things online about themselves or their beliefs including pictures, text posts, and videos in order to increase their identity as positive (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). These SNS ‘are trending toward becoming the main source of information for many consumers’ (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010, 62). According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), it is of high priority for brands to align their use of multiple SNS to increase activity among users and have extensive reach. Particularly since, as SNS increase in popularity, each platform becomes more intertwined with one another. For instance, many sites are connected through Facebook friends and can be shared amongst one another, increasing the possible scope of reach. Progressive businesses are working hard to understand social media and how it has permeated the social fabric of many societies. Their corporate goals reflect an intention to experiment with social media and to deploy it to their advantage. In general, these business are aware that social media permits the development
of meaningful relations with stakeholders. It permits the location of new customers, a continued relationship with existing customers, and the discovery of relevant information (Kietzmann et al. 2011). New venues for business interaction are enabled by social media. For example, a business can build a fan base and receive substantial feedback from targeted individuals. Businesses can mine unstructured public data as a means to acquire and fine tune business intelligence. Since much of the data on social media is open, information about competitors and competing products can be obtained from new, often unbiased third-party sources. Causal and recreational social media use has developed into a venue for transforming an audience into customers; and for transforming customers into loyal advocates. The term ‘social media’ is used primarily in reference to a number of technologies that allow for generation of user-created information integrated with a forum where user interaction may occur. Social media often includes technology-based multimedia that encourage communication using richer channels than just text or voice. Social media can facilitate one-to-one relationships between users but its strength resides in the fact that many-to-many interactions can occur with ease. Social media allows the development of virtual relationships which enable people to connect at a variety of levels. Most social media application utilize cloud technologies and fall into the category of Web 2.0 (O’Reilly 2005; McHaney 2013). Social media has pushed many forms of communication onto the Internet and have motivated much developed in the mobile application space. The era of social computing has been made possible by the social media applications and has led to a wide-ranging partial replacement of many prior modes of communication such as telephone, mail, email, radio, and, recently television. Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson, and Seymour (2011) state that “Social networking has become daily practice in some users lives… the authors describe features and the evolution of social media, including major social networking sites that came into existence during the 21st century” (p. 72). Thus, leading to the four main social media sites investigated in this study are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Facebook
Facebook is the social media giant (McHaney 2013, 217). Founded in 2004, Facebook is a social media site in which registered users create a personal profiles, add friends (other users), exchange messages and multimedia objects, and receive status messages and notifications based on the activities of their friends and themselves. In 2010 Facebook found itself with over 350 million ‘friends’ (Burke, Marlow, and Lento 2010), that number is nearly double what Facebook’s user count was a year prior, at 175 million (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Today Facebook credits 1.15 billion monthly active users worldwide with the fastest growing segment being ages 45-54 up 46% between 2012 and 2013 (Brenner 2013). In 2013, 47% of Americans reported that Facebook is the number one influencer on their purchases which is nearly double what is was in 2011 at 24% and 23% of Facebook user’s login at least five times per day (Brenner 2013). Twitter Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging website and service that allows users to send and receive short messages with embedded multimedia content. These messages are called tweets. In 2013, more than 215 million monthly users were active with an astonishing increase in users between the ages of 55 and 64 (Brenner 2013). Similar to Facebook, Twitter creates a channel of communication that brings the general public into a more intimate relationship with the brand ‘social media give brands a chance to be a part of a dialogue about their own companies’ (Stephenson 2013). Twitter provides and even more direct two way form of communication tightening the relationship and making it more equal, it makes the relationship deeper by making the customer and the brand/ retailer equals and almost an extension of their family or peer group (Stephenson 2013). In Twitter there are no Fan pages that users like. Each person can follow a brand in the exact same manner a brand can follow a person. Specific retailers have utilized Twitter to their advantage. For example, Etsy, an online marketplace for selling handmade goods, uses it as a tool to instill knowledge in their customers of tips and tricks, upcoming events and promotions, redirect customers to their site, as well as alert followers of new items on their site (Lacy 2010). American apparel has also used this form of media to get their employees involved on
the site fulfilling customer service issues, informing customers of products, alerting followers of new blog posts, promote ad campaigns, provide incentives and competitions, as well as gaining creative ideas from their followers to incorporate in marketing and advertising efforts (Lacy 2010). Instagram Instagram was introduced in October 2010 as a ‘mobile photo and video sharing network’ that is restricted by app use, thus indicating strong ties to smartphone use. Instagram has shown potential through consistent increases in smartphone use popularity. Within 19 months of Instagram being on the market, there were 50 million users and within the next nine months, 50 million more people became regular users (Malik 2013). By September 2013, Instagram was the holder of 150 million users with 50 million of those signing up within the past six months (Malik 2013). Instagram has proven in a very short time to be a key marketing component of brands and retailers. Consumers want to be marketed in short messages that are high in visual value. This is exactly what Instagram provides. Instagram is the ‘perfect opportunity for brands to get quick messages and photos to their target audiences’ (Sprung 2013). According to Kabani (2013), Instagram is perfect for sharing ‘a sneak peak of your upcoming line or to encourage fans to share their own creations’ (n.p.). Instagram is a place where a company can exude their image and tell the story of their brand to the population. By creating a wider audience through the mobile market brands can then transition into creating engagement with their customers and followers through contests and promotional codes. Instagram provides a channel to feature the customers improving that connection and making it more closely tied, meaningful, and real. Through event promotion on Instagram, brands can also ‘attract people to teach them about your product and service and hopefully turn them into customers’ (Sprung 2013). Pinterest Pinterest, launched in 2010, is a site where multimedia, particularly photos, can be shared in a way that enables users to create themed online spaced. These spaces house collections which can be shared and transmitted by users who re-pin the images to their own pin board collections. According to Fact Browser
(2012), Pinterest users follow an average of 9.3 retail companies on the site and those followers have nearly doubled since May 2012, making it the fourth biggest holder of online traffic following Google and Facebook. It is determined however, that Pinterest users are more likely to spend more money on a higher number of products more often than any other leading social media site. With its introduction of the Pinterest app for mobile devices in 2013, there has been a shift from web-based Pinteresting to mobile Pinteresting leading to a surge in users; and the site continuing to break records. Although it does not have as many users as Facebook or Twitter, globally there are 53 million active month users (Benady 2013), with 20 million of those being in the US (Brenner 2013). Pinterest is an important SNS for apparel brands because users can link directly to company websites from the pin boards and Pinterest is ‘Lauded for its ability to inspire purchases. Now it’s time to use that reputation to seduce ad buys from brands and small businesses’ (Constine 2013). Each country has a ‘country manager’ that manages the Pinterest site for that country. UK’s Country Manager states, ‘Pinterest is powerful for discovering new products and prospective experiences’ (Benady 2013). With growth intact, in 2013 Pinterest expanded into experimental marketing campaigns in the US including brand promoted pins, adding ‘pin it’ buttons to brand sites, ‘rich pin’ opportunities that provide more information about a product (Benady 2013), advertising opportunities for brands, and a way to connect with consumers and influence purchase intentions (Constine 2013). Numerous environmental downfalls in apparel production coupled with a significant lack of education amongst consumers in the sustainable area of apparel bring dire need to change attitudes about environmentally sustainable apparel and the feasibility of real-life application and purchase intention amongst the average national consumer. This study proposes that SNS are an effective way to introduce ESA to the masses, track consumer attitudes, and concentrate on social influences to determine the most effective SNS tools to be utilized amongst U.S. national consumer demographics. Method
Subjects Knowledge workers interested in sustainability in the fashion industry formed the target population for this study. Specifically, these individuals are those whose primary work related activities were information-based and required the use of IT to complete these activities. Their primary areas may include marketing, purchasing, advertising, creating social media communities, designing products and so forth. The subjects in the sample included people involved in the fashion industry, students involved in fashion related course work, and others in related areas. The questionnaires were distributed electronically using familiar information technology systems. Each respondent was given the opportunity to provide data regarding four social media technologies: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Instrument The distributed questionnaire provided an introductory disclosure from the researchers explaining the purpose of the study and expectations for data collection. All respondents were given a guarantee of individual response confidentiality, and ensured only summary statistics would be made available to interested parties. The questionnaire consisted of multiple parts. The first section contained demographic questions designed to solicit information about the respondent’s background, their school and work experience, and the extent to which they used technology in the area of social media. The second part of the questionnaire contained several research questions including questions from the TAM instrument. This portion, of specific relevance to this study, consisted of 12 questions designed to measure the respondent’s perceptions of various social media technology ease of use and usefulness. This instrument was designed to provide both individual scale items and composite measures of the two primary constructs being validate. The exact form of the TAM instrument used customized for use in this study is shown in Figure 1. Seven-point, Likert-type scales were used to score the responses for the primary questions. Demographics
The response rate was 64.3% (90 usable returns out of 140 questionnaires distributed). This return rate can most likely be attributed to the use of a personal plea to participate in the research and that most respondents are interested in sustainability and wish to contribute to an area they believe may have a long term impact. The sample contained more females than males with the split being females (73%) and males (27%). 60% of the respondents were between 20 and 30 years of age; 9% were under 20; 18% were between 31 and 45; and, the remaining 13% were 46 and over. 54% of those survey had at least a Bachelor’s degree. 25% of the respondents report using social media five or fewer hours a week. The remainder used social media over 6 hours a week with 12% of those surveyed saying they spend more than 20 hours per week using these technologies. Approximately 81% of the respondents indicated that they used their smart phones for their social media interactions. Nearly all the respondents regularly use social media Facebook (88%), Twitter (45%), Pinterest (48%), and Instagram (47%). These responses provide evidence that the respondents are knowledge workers familiar with social media technologies and fall within our targeted population. Analysis and Results Table 1 reports simple statistics and correlation for each element of the TAM instrument. The internal consistency measure of Cronbach’s alphas for each factor were: ease of use: .974, and usefulness: .975. Reliability for the overall 12-item instrument was calculated to be .97, which compares favorably to overall alphas ranging from .86 to .97 in Davis’ refined study (Davis 1989, 327). [Insert Table 1] To assess the measurement model, both discriminate and convergent validity were checked (Hair et al. 1998). Convergent validity was assessed to indicate the extent to which the items theoretically expected to load on a factor are highly correlated. All item correlations with the factors exceeded .932 for ease of use and .903 for usefulness. Considering the sample size of the study, all these correlations are significant (p
