دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی ارزش اجتماعی و قصد خرید جمعی آنلاین: نقش تعدیل کننده تجربه - امرالد 2017

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how the shoppers’ social value perception affects their purchase intention in online shopping context through its distinct role and relationships with other value dimensions. The moderating effect of the characteristics of other members on the relationship among value dimensions and the difference of value perception between experienced and inexperienced members were also tested to identify the boundary conditions of the proposed model. Design/methodology/approach – The survey included 272 consumers from a well-known social shopping website in China to test the hypotheses. Findings – The results indicate that hedonic and utilitarian value fully mediate the relationship between social value and purchase intention. Perceived expertise positively moderates the relationship between social value and the other two values. In particular, the results found that while inexperienced members can acquire both higher utilitarian and hedonic value from social value and their purchase intention relies more on the hedonic value, experienced members place greater emphasis on the utilitarian value. Practical implications – The results may help vendors regain confidence in the social shopping business mode and offer specific policy implications on how to leverage shoppers’ social value perception to generate their purchase intention in a social shopping context. Originality/value – This study focuses on the legitimacy of the independent role of social value and sheds light on the relationships among social value and other value dimensions based on social capital theory, which was under-explored by previous studies. Besides, this study clarifies the moderating role of experience, which highlights the previously unnoticed changing role of consumers’ value perception.

6. Discussion

6.1 Findings

This study aimed to explore how the shoppers’ social value perception affects their purchase intention in online shopping context through its role and relationships with other value dimensions. The moderating effect of the characteristics of other members on the relationship among the value dimensions and the difference of value perception between experienced and inexperienced members were also tested. The findings are discussed below.

The present study enriches consumers’ value theory through employing a social capital perspective to clarify the role of social value and the relationship among value dimensions. The unsupported direct relationship between social value and purchase intention is consistent with some of the previous studies (To et al., 2007) while contrary to others (Sun et al., 2016; Hu et al., 2016). We further conducted the mediation analysis that unravels the full mediating role of utilitarian value and hedonic value in the relationship between social value and purchase intention. The results add evidence to the role of social capital in the social network on an SSW in generating benefits for shoppers (Hsiao and Chiou, 2012).

The moderating role of other members’ characteristics sheds lights on the way of how social value is positively associated with utilitarian value and hedonic value. The moderating role of perceived similarity was not supported by our data, while the important moderating role of expertise was supported, which highlights the importance to understand the distinct role of different aspects of other members’ characteristics. The possible explanation may be that people visit the SSW mostly for the fantasy and new fashion trends and for the shopping task. Shoppers expect that the other members who come from different backgrounds and who have more knowledge about the field could provide them with more diversified and useful information and recommendations. Therefore, while previous studies stress the importance of other members’ similarity in triggering shoppers’ response (Liu et al., 2016), the present study shows that may not be an indispensable factor from the perspective of acquiring their self-referent benefits.