Understanding social commerce use intention: A mixed-method approach based on structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Abstract

The adoption of social commerce by businesses is still in its early stages, and only companies that swiftly adapt can achieve success. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to expand our understanding and comprehend the factors that decide the exploitation of social commerce by users - only in this way can companies formulate appropriate strategies leading to greater competitiveness. This study enhances the knowledge of social commerce by formulating a conceptual model of social commerce use and empirically validating it. The study enhances the current understanding of the social commerce environment by examining the impact of trust, social interactions and experience. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the factors that can influence users' intention to use social commerce in the context of the selected country. This study is one of the first to explore the predicting effect of experience on trust and intention to use social commerce. A mixed-method approach combining structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is utilized to get more robust results. SEM is used to verify the proposed social commerce model using a quasi-representative sample of 750 complete questionnaires. fsQCA is employed to enhance the research findings. The results indicate that the most critical factors that directly influence the use of social commerce in the Czech Republic are trust in the social commerce environment and experience with the online environment. Trust also has a significant indirect effect on the use of social commerce.