Social Commerce Adoption Model

Mahmood Hajli
Birkbeck, University of London
[email protected]

Abstract

In recent years the emergence of Web 2.0has brought changes in businesses. It may be
observed as a paradigm shift in business (Wigand, et al., 2008). It has affected e-commerce,
resulting in the emergence of a new concept known as social commerce. This has also led to
changes within many business plans in online markets. Drawing on the Technology
Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) the author analyses some of the components of
social commerce which affect the intention to buy among individuals by proposing and
testing Social Commerce Adoption Model (SCAM). Most research undertaken in the area of
social commerce has been descriptive and lacks a solid theoretical foundation. This research
gathers survey data and applies structural equation modelling (SEM) to analyse the data.
Participation on forums and communities and perceived usefulness are shown to positively
impact the trust, leading to more intention to buy among consumers.

Keywords
e-commerce adoption, Social Commerce, Social Commerce Networks, TAM, SEM.

Introduction

The proliferation of the Internet has transformed consumer behaviour. With the advancement
of ICTs and e-commerce and the emergence of Web2.0, customers are shifting their
behaviour from being passive consumers of information to active content creators and shares
in cyberspace. This new stream in e-commerce is known as ‘social commerce.’ Social
commerce is a new concept, which enables customers to have an active position in cyber
space.

In this environment consumers are not only buying a product or service, but they are creating
content which can be a two-way value creation for customer and seller. Consequently,
today’s customer is participating in a business process with an active behaviour. As a result,
e-commerce without social commerce can be considered old and conventional. For instance,
if an online shop does not make use of the advancements in e-commerce, it can no longer
compete in the online market place. Now the consumer is creating content for other users to
display on a website. The owner of a business can use it as the integration tool for its
functions; therefore, it is a novel type of interaction (Schubert and Ginsburg 2000; Fuller et
al. 2006). These tools, which enable customers to interact on the web, encourage them to
develop new solutions and share them on the Internet (A Afrasiabi Rad, et al., 2011).

There are some successful businesses that efficiently use social media such as Flicker,
YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, blogs or other social networking websites and communities.
Amazon and eBay were global pioneers of e-commerce. Today these exemplars of online
shopping are changing their market position with social networking websites like Facebook.
There was a dramatic 500% increase on traffic of social network website between 2007 and
2008 (Leitner and Grechenig, 2009; Palmer, 2008). Many authors believe that next
generation of online businesses will be based on communities to attract new customers,
therefore, it is important for businesses to have a business model adopted to social commerce
(Lorenzo, Constantinides, Geurts, & Gómez, 2007; Wu, Ye, S. Yang, & Wang, 2009). Some
research has shown that potential consumers are interested more in other people’s
recommendation than merely vendor generated product information. Thus, in cyberspace this
behaviour can be done by online rating, recommendation and voting (The Nielsen Company
2007).

However, the by-products of the proliferation of the Internet and expansion of e-commerce in
the digital economy have been the creation of a sort of cyber deception and fraud (Grazioli
and Jarvenpaa, 2000). This phenomenon has raised concerns for Internet customers and also
raises the likelihood of customers buying a product based on false prices or quality. This is
raising concern among customers as social commerce platforms such as those using
Facebook expands (Grazioli and Jarvenpaa, 2000).

Theoretical foundations and the model of research

Social Commerce
The advancements in e-commerce, alongside the introduction of Web 2.0 in 2005, have
created new business models for the digital economy. These models, based on capabilities of
Web 2.0, have increased possibilities of communication among consumers by new channels
such as blogs, social networks, social media and communities. Many business models such as
B2C and C2C have been enormously changed by these developments.

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies, which can be viewed as a paradigm shift (Wigand,
et al., 2008), along with the introduction of wikis, blogs, communities and social networks,
has dramatically changed the structure of the web. Some authors believe social commerce is
affected by the expansion of social networking (Leitner and Grechenig, 2008). Many of the
technological advancements like RSS, AJAX or APIs offer online shoppers an interactive
system which enables them to make connections with other platforms. This, in turn, has had
an effect on business models such as B2C and C2C.

Moreover, customer Relationship Management (CRM) is improving with this stream. For
instance, social communities create multiple advantages for both customers and business in
terms of using massive information which is produced in the social commerce platforms
(Leitner and Grechening, 2008). This will lead businesses to have better CRM and strengthen
their relationship with customers (Wu, Ye, S. Yang, & Wang, 2009).

The specific characteristic of social commerce is that interactions are community-based not
one-to-one (Stephen and Toubia, 2009). This phenomenon is shaping new business models
based on communities where the objective is to bring features of social commerce to e-
commerce in order to design customer-oriented businesses. This is value added for customers
and will improve marketing strategies.

A Afrasiabi Rad et al., (2011) evaluated the effect of these components on social shopping
behaviour with vendors and consumers and proposed a model to have a better understanding
of social commerce. However, as of now there is not any research in this area using such an
approach. Rather, most of the research undertaken in the area of social commerce has been
descriptive and lacks a solid theoretical foundation.

In this research we developed Social Commerce Adoption Model (SCAM) to address the
adoption of s-commerce. There are six predictors for s-commerce as shown in Fig.1. The
reason we selected these constructs is because according to Fisher (2010) three of them (as
shown in Fig. 1.) are s-commerce components and according to the literature review they
were believed to be significant in understanding and explaining intention to buy in s-
commerce.

Fig 1.0 Social Commerce Adoption Model (SCAM)

Social commerce and e-commerce

The impact of social networks is considerable among Internet users and the way they
communicate and share data today Social networks have had considerable impact of on the
way Internet users communicate and share data (Swamynathan, et al., 2008) – notably on
Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.
Some authors (Swamynathan, et al., 2008) believe that if social networks are helping to
improve the problem of trust in e-commerce, then adoption of this new concept would have a
positive impact on the online bazaar. We believe this is a development in e-commerce which
needs more attention by researchers and academics who are searching to find a way to
understand social commerce. Moreover, for users involved in social networks and engaged in
transactions with friend of friends, usually the satisfaction they derive from their shopping
behaviour is significant Moreover, social networks users engaged in transactions with friend
of friends, usually derive significant satisfaction from their shopping behaviour
(Swamynathan, et al., 2008).

Social shopping

The concept of social shopping is slightly different to social commerce. In social shopping,
online shoppers facilitate a platform that a customer can use to interact with other customers
to get advice from trusted individuals, find a proper product and then buy the product (Leitner
and Grechenig, 2007). In this type of commerce, consumers collaborate and their shopping
behaviour is like social networking platforms. There are many different reasons why a
consumer joins social shopping platform such as campaigns, a friend invitation, price
comparison . Such a customer can have a shared platform with other members such as
communities or blogs. They find their place in different groups which share the same
interests and start to make friendships in an environment where they can communicate and
chat together to make a proper decision for their shopping. The goal for a vendor will be to
create a situation for these customers to make them permanent customers ( Lei and Wang,
2005).

Stephen, A. T., and Toubia, O. (2009) believe that social shopping is a collaborative network
for online shoppers while social commerce is a collaborative platform for online sellers. This
is a good distinguishing factor between social shopping and social commerce.

According to Stephen and Toubia (2009) the origin of social shopping is the increasing
attraction of Web 2.0, the application of which attracted consumers to social networking
websites like Facebook. This is social shopping, whereas in social commerce businesses
establish networks of sellers (A Afrasiabi Rad, et al., 2011). However, we believes it also
could be a network of buyers. In social shopping a consumer can leave comments,
recommend a product, rate a vendor and publish a wish list. This allows customers to feel
greater satisfaction and have interactions with others (Leitner and Grechenig, 2008).

A customer mainly decides to buy a product in an offline world under the influence of a
friend or family member. Similarly a customer shows the same behaviour when they go
online by reading reviews of other friends, chat, creating niche groups of consumers and
online social ties (A Afrasiabi Rad, et al., 2011).Such advancements have pushed online
retailers to offer interactive platforms , Which this form social commerce. This paper
proposes that this would be a must in order for businesses to use functions of Web 2.0. In this
era the most important issues would be satisfaction and customer loyalty that can be provided
by Web 2.0.

Social presence

The experience of the user in online shopping is different than offline, in which the user has
social interactions with humans. In online shopping consumers do not have human warmth
and sociability (Geffen and Straub, 2003). In fact, the relationship between vendor and
consumer is anonymous and impersonal as well as automated (Wang and Emurian, 2005). In
a high street shop customers spend their time in store and interact with the seller whereas in
an online shop it is a major challenge to create an online store which is socially rich (Kumar
and Benbasat, 2002).There are many definitions for social presence that Fulk et al. (1987),
define as the extent to which a medium allows consumers to experience others as being
psychologically present.K Hassanein and M Head (2006) examined the possibility of
integrating human warmth and sociability through the web interface in order to influence
user’s attitudes toward online shopping. According to them, social presence is able to inspire
into websites social pictures and rich descriptions (Hassanein and Head, 2006).Some studies
have highlighted the positive relationship between social presence and trust which can affect
the intention to buy online (Hassanein and Head, 2006; Gefen and Straub, 2003).

The features and applications of web technologies can influence social perception. These will
increase trust and consequently the intention to buy in consumers. Actual interactions with
other users in regards to the advancement in e-commerce technologies like online forum and
communities, recommendation systems, chat rooms, etc. influence consumers behaviour in
online market.

Research model and hypotheses

A model is an approximation to, and simplification of, some feature of real life (King, et al.,
1994). In this research we developed a Social Commerce Adoption Model (SCAM) in order
to better understand the adoption of s-commerce. There are six constructs for SCAM as
shown in Fig.1. The reason we selected these constructs is because three of them –
recommendation and referrals, forum and communities and rating and reviews are s-
commerce components (Fisher, 2010), while the others – trust, perceived usefulness and
intention to buy according to the literature review – believed to be significant in
understanding and explaining the intention to buy in s-commerce.

Trust

Many authors believe trust, and specifically social trust, has become an important issue
(Jackman and Miller 1998; Warren 1999; Paxton 1999).Social trust is important, because it
reduces “transaction cost” in business interactions (Mutz, 2005). It reduces the tendency to
monitoring other parties’ interaction, and also for sanctioning systems as reliable (Mutz,
2005). Therefore, it is widely believed that establishing trust will promote economic growth.

Social trust differs among people. According to research on social trust in the USA by Mutz
(2005), for a customer who has never undertaken online shopping, increasing the level of
social trust makes it more likely they will shop online. Similarly, a lower level of trust makes
the customer less likely shop online.

Many different practitioners and researchers on e-commerce believe that social trust is a key
component in a country`s economic expansion and whether they can benefit from economic
potential introduced by e-commerce (Mutz, 2005). Now the importance of trust needs to be
tested in social commerce.

In situations where people do not know each other, a high level of social trust can smooth the
progress of exchange between them – creating growth in the economy due to reduction in
transaction cost.

Trust improves the efficiency of a society by facilitating coordinated actions (Putnam 1993,
p.167). Social trust facilitates expansion of businesses in the market by attracting more
customers leading to economic growth. Many believe the market in a digital economy is
based on reducing face to face meeting. Instead, trust plays a key role in online interaction.
Nowadays with the proliferation of the Internet and the emergence of a digital economy,
countries which are concerned about economic growth have greater concern for social trust.
Trust is more important when risks are perceived to be high, as in the case of e-commerce
(Mutz, 2005). This area is widely observed by researchers (Putnam 1993 and Mutz, 2005).
People are concerned about buying products on the Internet if they have to leave their private
information and credit-card details. It also is a concern in social networking sites (SNS).
Disclosing personal information is a big concern in e-commerce adoption and now the same
issue is in s-commerce. The problem is that in some countries, such as the USA, people are
also concerned about the organizations and institutions which provide security for online
shops. Generally, people in America have more trust in each other than trust in institutions
(Warren, 1999).

The level of social trust is different between countries. A cross-country comparison of eBay
participations (Vishwannath 2004) illustrated that seller rating on e-Buy plays an important
role. This is a development in e-commerce which has been introduced by Web2.0.

Some authors (e.g., Glover and Benbasat, 2006; Grazioli and Jarvenpaa, 2000) mention that
some advancement in ICT has been used by companies to increase social trust within the
marketplace and online shops while decreasing their risk perceptions in online behaviour.
This includes deceiving consumers by building unreal trust building methods and system of
risk reduction (Grazioli and Jarvenpaa, 2000). This highlights the identity crisis in the IS
research (Xiao, Bo; Benbasat, Izak, 2011) where new developments in e-commerce can even
increase customer deception. This study uses trust as a foundation to test social commerce
components.

Given the concerns and risks about e-commerce, we believe that there is a significant
relationship between trust and online commerce behaviour in a digital economy. Social
commerce and emergence of Web 2.0, in view of the author, can help customers to reduce
their risk and increase social trust. Applications on Web 2.0 like customer rating and review
would be a good solution to overcome this barrier. Apparently, interactions among the
connected users in social networks sites increase trust (Swamynathan, et al., 2008).
Consequently:
H1: User’s trust in s-commerce websites has a positive effect on the user`s intention to buy on SNS.
Social commerce components

Fisher (2010) introduced six categories which are components of social commerce in an e-
commerce environment. These are social media, ratings and reviews, social shopping, social
advertising, recommendations and referrals, and forums and communities (Fisher, 2010).
Companies use them as a platform to communicate with customers, and to enable customers
to communicate with each other, which becomes a new channel for CRM. They can use
social commerce to increase sales and decrease marketing cost.

Kumar et al. (2006) examined the evolution of structure of the Yahoo!360 and Flicker, which
are examples of social networks. They discovered that although there are some isolated users
and communities in these two social networks, there are also a large number of powerfully
connected sections, which span the whole network (Kumar, et al., 2006).

H2: The user`s forums and communities in s-commerce have a positive effect on the user`s trust.
By welcoming friends and other users to join and offer positive support, people in SNSs can
increase their rating. With these interactions the level of trust will increase and consequently,
sales will too (Swamynathan, et al., 2008). Rating will also increase user satisfaction when
they undertake a transaction (Swamynathan, et al., 2008). This satisfaction is important for
CRM and marketing strategies.
H2: User’s forums and communities in s-commerce have a positive effect on the user`s trust.
H3: User’s rating and reviews in s-commerce have effect on the user`s trust.
H4: User’s recommendation and referrals in s-commerce have effect on the user`s trust.

Perceived usefulness

“People tend to use or not use an application to the extend they believe it will help them
perform their job better” (Davis, 1989). This is perceived usefulness that was first introduced
by Davis in 1989 and has been tested and validated by many researchers since 1989.
Perceived usefulness along with perceived ease of use are two variables of Technology
Acceptance Model (TAM), which is one of the most successful theories that can predict an
individual’s intent to employ a technology. There are two core theories to test and predict an
individual’s intention to utilize an information system (IS) (Mathieson, 1991). These two
theories are the TAM, introduced by Davis (1989) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour
(TPB) which was introduced by Ajzen (1985). Perceived usefulness is an important element
of TAM and has been tested and validated by many researchers.

However, TAM is a development of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). TRA was
originally designed to describe virtually any human interactions (Davis et al., 1989), whereas
TAM was intended “to provide an explanation of the determinants of computer acceptance
across a broad range of end-user computing technologies and user populations” (Davis et al.,
1989). Many authors believed that perceived usefulness affects users` intentions to use e-
commerce (Geffen and Straub, 2000; Lee, Park, and Ahn, 2001). This construct is applied
here in social commerce as well.

Han and Windsor (2010) examine the user’s willingness to pay on social network sites
(SNSs). They used the new construct “perceived value of online connection” instead of
perceived usefulness. They found a significant positive effect of the user’s perceived value
of online connection on their willingness to pay other members of SNSs (Han and Windsor,
2010). Accordingly, it should be a significant variable in SCAM.
H5: The user’s perceived usefulness in s-commerce websites has a positive effect on the
user’s trust.
H6: The user’s perceived usefulness has a positive effect on the user`s intention to buy on
SNS.
A Table of hypotheses and associated referenced sources can be seen in Table 2.

Research methodology

Participants

We targeted students, academics, Facebook users and many different people across the world,
mainly in the UK, US, Canada, and Iran . Their ages ranged from 18 to 90 years old.

Data collection

Data was collected by an electronic and paper questionnaire in November and December
2011. Before the main survey, a pilot with 30 students was used to make sure the questions
and wordings were clearly understood by respondents. This pilot exercise was to debug the
instrument (Bell, 2010).
A large number of users were identified from various sources for the main survey. The design
of Web-based surveys is flexible and can be beneficial in terms of the cost and time,
especially with regards to the global research. The questionnaire, which was sent by email,
requested people to participate in the survey. For this research we targeted student union
mailing shots, world submit on the information society (WSIS) mailing shot, posting ads in
Facebook, asking friends to share the questionnaire, posting a news item about the survey in
different communities and also giving 100 paper questionnaires in the UK. From these
sources, 300 people agreed to participate in this study.

The questionnaire items in this survey are shown in Table 2.0. We used a Likert scale of 1=
strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree to measure the data.

Research design

King et al. (1994) divide research design into four different components which are: research
questions, the theory which will shape the research framework, the data, and finally the use of
collected data. Usually these are not developing separately or in any preordained order
(King, et al., 1994). The primary objective of this research is to develop an adoption model
for social commerce and testing the model by its constructs. To achieve this objective some
research questions are posed, which are presented in Table 1.0.
Research questions

RQ1 Could the user’s trust influence their intention to buy in SNSs?

RQ2 Could the user’s perceived usefulness influence their intention to buy in SNSs?

RQ3 Could the social commerce components influence their trust?

RQ4 Could the user’s perceived usefulness influence their trust in SNSs?

Table 1.0 Research questions

Data analysis

This research uses Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in the data analysis, as other authors
(Gefen, et al., 2000) believe this approach has many advantages over other methods, for
instance Multiple Regression. SEM is also good in terms of path and factor analysis;
especially when we are looking for reliability and validity of a research outcome from
different angles, which is available through this approach. In SEM approach we selected
Partial Least Squares (PLS) method as this method has good advantages compared to others,
for example LISREL. Whereas sample size is important in SEM, PLS is good for a small
sample size research (Gefen et al., 2000) such as our sample, of 300 people. According to
Gefen et al. (2000) and Chin (1998), in PLS the minimum sample size need to be 10 times the
number of items related to the most complex variable or constructs. In the proposed model
we have six constructs and three complex variables, which with a sample size of 300 is more
than adequate for a proper PLS process. Moreover, PLS is also good for exploratory research
(Chin 1998, Gefen and Straub, 2004), which is the nature of this research. This method is also
suitable for testing a new model and theory as it can be good for confirmatory and
exploratory research (Gefen, et al., 2000). Therefore, this method is used in this study in
order to test proposed model (SCAM) and is an exploratory work.

“PLS combines a factor analysis with multiple linear regressions to estimate the parameters
of the measurement model (item loadings on constructs) together with those of the structural
model (regression paths among the constructs) by minimizing residual variance.” (Gefen and
Straub, 2004).With the help of PLS we are able to test validity of discriminant and
convergent scales which is important when we test a new model. “Convergent validity is
adequate when constructs have an Average Variance Extracted (AVE) of at least .5 (Fornell
and Larcker 1981).” (Wixom and Watson, 2001, p.28)

Findings
In this research we conduct an empirical study to validate the SCAM model and test related
hypotheses. The constructs of this survey, including sources from previous research, are
shown in the Table 2.

Factor
Codes Scales Loading

Trust

Adapted from D. Gefen and D.W. Straub

T1 Q5. Promises made by SNSs are likely to be reliable 0.794952

T2 Q6. I do not doubt the honesty of SNSs 0.746591
T3 Q17. I expect that the advice given by SNSs is their best judgment 0.714908
Q7. I believe SNSs have my information safety in minds. 0.704394
T4
Q8. SNSs give me an impression that they keep my privacy 0.660125
T5 information safe. 0.753210
T6 Q18. SNSs (such as Facebook, MySpace) are trustworthy.
 Perceived usefulness
Adapted from J Cha

PU1 Q9. Shopping services on the SNSs will be useful for me. 0.878864
PU2 Q10. Shopping services on the SNSs will make me more efficient. 0.917013
PU3 Q19. Shopping services on the SNSs will make my life easier. 0.901076

Intention to buy
Adapted from HAN, BO and WINDSOR, JOHN; Lu and Hsiao; D.
Gefen and D.W. Straub

IB1 Q14. I am likely to pay for fees to have speed dating on SNSs. 0.535121
IB2 Q2. I am likely to pay for the membership if SNSs start charging 0.562006
IB3 fees.
IB4 Q3. I am very likely to buy books from SNSs. 0.826267
Q4. I would use my credit card to purchase from SNSs. 0.853743

Recommendation and Referrals

Adapted from HAN, BO and WINDSOR, JOHN

RE1 Q11. I feel my friends` recommendations are generally frank. 0.840370

RE2 Q12. I feel my friends` recommendations are generally reliable. 0.840390
RE3 Q20. Overall, my friends` recommendations are trustworthy. 0.867213
RE4 Q21. I trust my friends on SNSs and share my status, pictures with 0.738071
them
Forums and Communities
Adapted from HAN, BO and WINDSOR, JOHN

FC1 Q13. I feel my friends on forums and communities are generally 0.777453
frank.
FC2 Q1. I feel my friends on forums and communities reliable. 0.745523
FC3 Q22. Overall, my friends on forums and communities are 0.868737
trustworthy.
FC4 Q23. I trust my friends on forums and communities and share my 0.766484
status, pictures with them.

Rating and Reviews

Adapted from HAN, BO and WINDSOR, JOHN

RT1 Q15. I feel my friends rating and reviews are generally frank. 0.801502
RT2 Q16. I feel my friends rating and reviews reliable. 0.822111
RT3 Q24. Overall, my friends rating and reviews are trustworthy. 0.890414
RT4 Q25. I trust my friends on rating and reviews and share my status, 0.818788
pictures with them.

Table 2.0 Sources of SCAM constructs

Reliability:

Reliability in a survey is the stability of the measures it uses (Sapsford, 2007). The aim of this
is to seek constant results in repetitive measurement. To measure reliability of this research
we tested the internal consistency, which can be calculated by Cranach’s alpha. Since
Cronbach reliability coefficients need 0.70 or higher, this research has the value of Cranach’s
alpha greater than 0.70 as shown in Table 3.0, which indicates adequate internal consistency.

Reliability Statistics
Cranach’s Alpha
Based on
Standardized
Cronbach's Alpha Items N of Items

.920 .921 25
Table 3.0

Moreover, to improve the reliability of the test, we amended the questionnaire after the pilot
test, as the check for reliability of the research depends on piloting of the instrument and
question wording (Bell, 2010). These two types of reliability tests ensure we can analyse the
data for the survey.

Validity:

As this research is exploratory work which is trying to work on a new stream in e-commerce,
called social commerce and probing an area which is not well understood, validities stressed
on content validity; construct validity with initial factorial tests and for reliability test
researcher should go for internal consistency ( Straub, et al. 2004). An overview of PLS
quality criteria has shown in table 4.0, which we will discuss them as follow.

Composite Cronbachs
AVE R Square
Reliability Alpha
Forums and communities 0.625610 0.869457 0.799119
Intention to buy 0.503450 0.795209 0.349637 0.701150
Perceived usefulness 0.808417 0.926768 0.881417
Ratings and reviews 0.695381 0.901147 0.856356
Recommendations and
0.642918 0.876647 0.809878
referrals
Trust 0.533284 0.872329 0.350912 0.825805

Table 4.0 PLS Quality Criteria Overview

• Content validity:

In content validity we are looking for a way to make sure that the questionnaire measures are
drawn from all potential measures of material under investigation (Straub 1989). To have a
high content validity we undertook a substantial literature review in the area of social
commerce and piloted it on 30 students. Moreover some of the constructs – perceived
usefulness, trust and intention to buy – are taken from existing literature and have been
frequently shown to demonstrate evidence of strong content validity. The literature source for
each construct, which has been used in the literature review, is indicated in Table 2.0.
Noticeably, constructs drew their items from different validated sources, which improved the
validity of this research in regards to the measurement of the constructs. However, we also
considered Face validity of the research by simply showing the survey to untrained people to
make sure questions are understood by respondents. We conducted the main survey after
these steps.

• Construct validity:

Construct validity can be checked by discriminant and convergent validity (Chin and
Salisbury, 1997). To test convergent validity, as mentioned above, we considered AVE,
which should be at least 0.5 (Wixom and Watson, 2001). We used PLS as recommended by
Gefen and Straub (2005). According to the results of PLS quality criteria overview, AVE in
all constructs is more than .5 and we conclude that this research achieved this criteria.

As Gefen and Straub (2005) recommend we performed PLS for discriminant validity (Table
5.0) demonstrating the construct correlations. According to Gefen and Straub (2005), there is
not an exact threshold to apply for discriminant validity but they presented an example: “if
one of the measurement items loads with a 0.70 coefficient on its latent construct, then the
loadings of all the measurement items on any latent construct but their own should be below
0.60”. This is shown in Table 6.0 and we can conclude that this model has discriminant
validity.

Standard Standard
Original Sample T Statistics
Deviation Error
Sample (O) Mean (M) (|O/STERR|)
(STDEV) (STERR)
Forums and
0.255342 0.267501 0.080777 0.080777 3.161055
communities -> Trust
Perceived usefulness -
0.437077 0.438218 0.074367 0.074367 5.877310
> Intention to buy
Perceived usefulness -
0.461933 0.463014 0.047346 0.047346 9.756484
> Trust
Ratings and reviews ->
-0.041344 -0.040970 0.080852 0.080852 0.511348
Trust
Recommendations and
0.039856 0.025106 0.106531 0.106531 0.374122
referrals -> Trust
Trust -> Intention to
0.226774 0.234723 0.073583 0.073583 3.081863
buy

Table 5.0 Path Coefficients (Mean, STDEV, T-Values)

As Gefen and Straub (2005) recommended we performed PLS for discriminant validity,
which has been shown in Table 5.0 demonstrating the construct correlations. According to
Gefen and Straub (2005), there is not an exact threshold to apply for discriminant validity but
they presented an example: ‘‘if one of the measurement items loads with a .70 coefficient on
its latent construct, then the loadings of all the measurement items on any latent construct but
their own should be below .60’’. This is shown in Table 6.0 and we can conclude that this
model has discriminant validity.

Rating
Forums and Intention Perceived Recommendation
and Trust
Communities to Buy Usefulness and Referrals
Reviews

FC1 0.777453 0.357318 0.218930 0.685604 0.617724 0.277282

FC2 0.745523 0.367856 0.276503 0.502221 0.505456 0.331674

FC3 0.868737 0.254413 0.256140 0.717294 0.719557 0.308857

FC4 0.766484 0.304341 0.216186 0.619831 0.724306 0.324827

IB1 0.162779 0.535121 0.305098 0.161082 0.184032 0.251126

IB2 0.263352 0.562006 0.171481 0.183732 0.186449 0.217292

IB3 0.324577 0.826267 0.438191 0.256210 0.274848 0.398920

IB4 0.375362 0.853743 0.549221 0.325008 0.357667 0.395678

PU1 0.260240 0.522126 0.878864 0.273092 0.268025 0.445855

PU2 0.239656 0.473645 0.917013 0.275178 0.258715 0.482515

PU3 0.326298 0.512527 0.901076 0.406544 0.387334 0.526695

RE1 0.605247 0.261141 0.295945 0.840370 0.598718 0.285619

RE2 0.613124 0.300964 0.232508 0.840390 0.635611 0.283503

RE3 0.686004 0.368572 0.380314 0.867213 0.770467 0.363310

RE4 0.648825 0.117680 0.204416 0.738071 0.618167 0.248148

RT1 0.567784 0.375516 0.272579 0.661001 0.801502 0.256269

RT2 0.609617 0.314438 0.282947 0.665217 0.822111 0.226258

RT3 0.745387 0.280373 0.304525 0.756238 0.890414 0.316080

RT4 0.742955 0.282227 0.278184 0.663001 0.818788 0.357053

T1 0.370845 0.481089 0.429945 0.235182 0.217794 0.794952

T2 0.218833 0.330828 0.449811 0.177167 0.198196 0.746591

T3 0.360975 0.316004 0.402342 0.385134 0.404671 0.714908

T4 0.149101 0.326308 0.297165 0.152082 0.150948 0.704394

T5 0.197820 0.229500 0.330616 0.276804 0.205061 0.660125

T6 0.371545 0.297763 0.429263 0.399640 0.363915 0.753210

Table 6.0 cross loading

Results:

With the SEM approach and the aim of PLS method test results are shown in Fig 2.0. The
model validity is assessed by R square value and the structural paths (Chwelos, et al., 2001).
To do this we performed bootstrapping to test the statistical significance of constructs path
coefficient by means of t-tests. In this model Ratings and reviews, and Recommendations,
and referrals path coefficients of their causal links are not significant. However, other
constructs, Forums and communities, Perceived usefulness and Trust are significant and the
finding supports their hypothesises at p<0.05 level. This is indicated in Table 5.0 with the t-
values. Table 4.0 also shows the R squares and indicates that almost 35% of the variance in
the intention to buy was accounted by the constructs in SCAM. It means intention to buy was,
as hypothesized, affected by perceived usefulness and trust. Trust also has a good R square
and means that 35% of the variance in this construct was accounted by one of the social
commerce components and perceived usefulness. This component is Forums and
Communities.

Fig 2.0 PLS structural model

Manipulating Data:

As we were not expecting two social commerce components, (recommendation and referral
and rating and review), to be insignificant in this model, therefore we tested the model
without data collected from developing countries to make sure the digital divide is not
affecting the model. However, these two components still had lower t-value than 2, which
means these two are not significant in this model. The new model is shown in Fig 3.0. The R
square changed for Trust to 32% and intention to buy to 36%, which also slightly changed
when we took out developing countries data. In a different place we need to discuss the
results from developing countries because R square and significance level have different
results. The author believes it is affected by the digital divide in developing countries.

Discussion, Limitations, implications and future research

Implications for researchers

There is limited research in the area of social commerce which this study seeks to redress.
This study proposed a new model, which can be extended by other constructs. It is the first
adoption model for social commerce. This research shows that at least one social commerce
component is influencing trust and the consequent intention to buy among users. The variable
trust is shown to have a strong strong influence and its effect is significant in reassuring
consumers in s-commerce. Accordingly, the position of trust in SCAM is important.

Fig 3.0 SCAM

Implications for Information Systems

The bases of the model proposed in this research are IT adoption and literature in the area
such as PU and intention to buy or trust, which together highlight the key role of ICT in the
behaviour of online customers. This would be a development for e-commerce adoption
models and the results signify that IS has a reference discipline for the behaviour of online
consumers. This is an issue in marketing that they do not pay attention to the importance of
IT and IS. Now customers are interacting with ICT advancement in e-commerce and new
platforms. This has highlighted the new role of IS in management and attracted practitioners
to look at IS from managerial angle. Moreover, the fact is that in the near future, with the
development of Web 2.0, the role of IS would become more important in predicting online
consumer behaviour.

Implications for e-commerce and s-commerce research

Much research in the area of e-commerce adoption uses TAM. This research built on
previous TAM research introducing a new model of social commerce adoption. Indeed, TAM
is still influencing technology acceptance research, but social commerce has its own
components which are examined in this study.

Work on e-commerce adoption should shift to include social commerce adoption. It is

important to consider new platforms in e-commerce following the introduction of Web 2.0.
This study provides a model to understand s-commerce and understand the behaviour of
consumers in cyberspace.

Limitations and future research

SCAM constructs need more work and some influential aspects, like social presence, may
need to be part of this model. We believe social presence may influence perceived usefulness
and trust. This can be a new construct and might be a future research direction.

There may be many other issues affecting s-commerce adoption such as social presence, user
experience, the perceived ease of use, social shopping, social marketing and social
advertising. These constructs can be added to SCAM and may be important for social
commerce. However, the focus of this survey was on some crucial aspects in social
commerce. Hence, as this research has high reliability and good validity in proposed model, it
could provide a useful tool for academics and practitioners.

In regard to trust as a main construct in proposed model, it is important to mention that there
are many issues around consumer trust (Geffen and Straub, 2004). For example, we must
consider the issue of how the vendor is to trust consumer transactions. The advent of e-
commerce has created an opportunity for developing new forms of deception (Grazioli and
Jarvenpaa 2001, 2003).

Conclusion

The future of e-commerce is social commerce. Web 2.0 has increased communication
between consumers with new channels such as blogs, social networks, social media and
communities, and new channels for firms to get in touch with customers. This will lead
businesses to have better CRM and strengthen their relationship with customers (Wu, Ye,
Yang, & Wang, 2009). Communities are important and a new generation of online businesses
based on communities is attracting consumers, therefore it is important for businesses to have
business models adapted to social commerce (Lorenzo, Constantinides, Geurts, & Gómez,
2007; Wu, Ye, S. Yang, & Wang, 2009). This is supported by SCAM. SCAM supports the
importance of trust and the influence of forums and communities.

Trust is an on-going issue in e-commerce and now in social commerce. This concern is of
rising importance among consumers as social commerce platforms like Facebook commerce
expand (Grazioli and Jarvenpaa, 2000). The present research supports the role of trust and
perceived usefulness in influencing consumer behaviour. The findings of this research
contribute to a basic understanding of social commerce adoption and the ongoing debate on
this phenomenon.
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