Social media adoption the role of media

Social media adoption: The role of media needs and innovationUses and gratifications Partial least squares a b s t r a c t This research is designed to empirically investigate how social

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Social media adoption: The role of media needs and innovation

Uses and gratifications

Partial least squares

a b s t r a c t

This research is designed to empirically investigate how social media needs and innovation influence theadoption of social media amongst Internet users The theoretical perspective of the uses and gratifica-tions, and Rogers’ five characteristics of innovation are reviewed and extended to explain the needsand motivations of the consumer The study is conducted by testing and quantifying the relationshipbetween the uses and gratifications of social media, while taking into consideration the mediating effect

of social media technology innovation This research applies a two-phase, multimethod strategy in thecontext of Malaysia The strategy comprises the qualitative approach via focus group discussions (FGDs)with 48 respondents and the quantitative approach via online survey questionnaires with 428 respon-dents Overall, the findings suggest that social media adoption is significantly driven by three types ofneed category – personal (consisting of enjoyment and entertainment), social (consisting of social influ-ence and interaction) and tension release (consisting of belongingness, companionship, playfulness) Inturn, these needs are motivated by the social media innovation characteristics (relative advantage,observability, compatibility) that increase the likelihood of the adoption The research makes a significantcontribution in the area of media and technology adoption, which can be used to help marketers under-stand the factors that motivate social media usage, particularly the UXDs in designing human–computerinteraction strategies

Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved

1 Introduction

The widespread global usage of Internet media has had a

tremendous influence on the social interaction between

individu-als, the community and society Based on the statistics released

by Internet World Stats in 2012, the number of global Internet

users amounted to 2,405,518,376 worldwide, which shows an

increment of 544% since 2000 (Internet World Stats., 2012) Of

these, each month, one billion Internet users actively used

Facebook, 800 million used YouTube, 343 million used Google+

and 200 million used Twitter and LinkedIn (Pick, 2013) These

numbers position social media as the most engaging online sites

worldwide (Radwanick, 2011) and depict phenomenal changes in

media consumption patterns (Mangold & Faulds, 2009)

Social media initially started as a medium of interaction that

allowed Internet users to create, generate and exchange media

content between users (Cooke & Buckley, 2008; Kaplan &

Haenlein, 2010), and initiate voluntary participation and nication (Bernoff & Li, 2008; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) As theInternet users experienced the ease of use and usefulness of socialmedia, it encourages immense adoption of the medium andenables the Internet user to gain power over information selection,thereby affecting their behavior and attitude by the new ways itbrought to their lives (Durukan, Bozaci, & Hamsioglu, 2012;Preece, 2001)

commu-Internet users have many options concerning their intention toexperience and use social media, due to the availability of hun-dreds of such social media sites with different features and targetuser groups For example, sites like Xanga and MySpace placeemphasis on journaling activities, classmates.com and ziaonei.comhelp former classmates reunite, while match.com and jiayuan.comare used to search for personal relationships Moreover, socialmedia sites vary in the degree to which innovative tools, such asinstant messaging, blogging, video/music sharing and games, areprovided to the users While the number of social media sites isincreasing at a phenomenal rate, some have received less traffic

or have even been terminated as a result of assertive competition.For instance, MySpace failed to provide a simple means of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.10.050

0747-5632/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author Tel.: +60 12 440 3110.

E-mail addresses: izzalasnira@gmail.com (I.A Zolkepli), yusniza@um.edu.my

(Y Kamarulzaman).

Contents lists available atScienceDirect

Computers in Human Behavior

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w e l s e v i e r c o m / l o c a t e / c o m p h u m b e h

navigation for its users (Wunker, 2011) making its users to

cyber-migrate to other social media (Zengyan, Yinping, & Lim, 2009)

Friendster received less traffic in the US since 2005 after

encoun-tering technical and social difficulties (Goldberg, 2007), while

SixDegrees, which has been recognized as the first social media site

in the world, failed to sustain its business and was terminated in

2000 On another instance, it is projected that Facebook to lose

80 per cent of its frequent users between 2015 and 2017 (ABC

News., 2014) as the younger users are cyber-migrating to other

social media that better satisfy their needs These real life

exam-ples indicate that at some point during the lifecycle of the social

media, users will reach a certain level of gratification and gain

ben-efit out of the usage Hence, the tendency of media adoption relies

on the psychological reasons that Internet users develop toward it

(Cheung, Chiu, & Lee, 2010; Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, 2004; Lee &

Ma, 2012; Quan-Haase & Young, 2010)

One of the prominent theories that explain social and

psycho-logical needs that motivate users to adopt the media is the Uses

and Gratifications Theory (UGT) (Blumler, 1979; Katz, Haas, &

Gurevitch, 1973) Previous studies that utilized UGT suggested

var-ious understandings of media needs and motivation; for instance,

media is used to satisfy immediate and deferred gratification, as

an informational and educational resource, for fantasy and

escap-ism, and also as a means to connect or disconnect from reality

(Charney & Greenberg, 2002; Diddi & La Rose, 2006; Kaye, 2004;

Ko, Cho, & Roberts, 2005) Besides media uses and gratifications,

the innovation characteristics of social media also exert an

impor-tant influence over the adoption decision Being built based on

Internet technology, social media has emerged as one of the most

influential innovative media in the twenty-first century (Lee & Ma,

2012) The five characteristics of innovation byRogers (2003)are

employed to describe the important innovations that take place

in manipulating the adoption decision As social media users are

active and use social media to meet psychological needs, the

inno-vation characteristics constitute a significant driver that motivate

usage Evidence from past studies have so far little emphasized

the technology innovation characteristics, which represent added

value to the social media (Cheung et al., 2010; Shin & Shin, 2011;

Fischer & Reuber, 2011)

Putting this into perspective, we integrate UGT and Rogers’ five

innovation characteristics to examine the antecedents of social

media adoption We attempt to address this phenomenon by

extending the prior work of UGT to explain users’ needs and

moti-vations, as well as incorporating innovation characteristics to

fur-ther understand the decision-making concerning adoption, which

are both presumed to hasten the process Hence, this study aims

to investigate the following: what explains consumer adoption of

social media? The needs and motivations to use social media are

a very important consideration for future knowledge concerning

consumer and social media marketing This research is of the

utmost importance both academically and practically to fill the

gaps in the current understanding on the consumer predictive

needs and their relation to the adoption behavior of social media

This article is structured as follows We first survey the

litera-ture in order to learn about the past results regarding needs with

respect to media adoption A thorough review is provided in the

earlier part to ensure that the antecedents of media adoption are

carefully captured as a prelude to the extension of a

multidimen-sional conceptualization of social media adoption These factors

are subsequently used to construct a set of hypotheses and a

research model In addition, social media innovation

characteris-tics are emphasized to determine the connection between the

needs and adoption This is followed by a description of the

empir-ical study, discussion of its results and make suggestions for future

research Through this research, we describe the potential outlook

of the antecedents of social media adoption so that future

researchers can further extend other intensifying mechanisms ofsocial media adoption for other countries or cultural background

2 Literature review2.1 Social media

We define social media as a group of Internet-based applicationsthat are built on the ideological and technological foundations ofWeb 2.0,1which allow the creation and exchange of user-generatedcontent (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Parra-López, Bulchand-Gidumal,Gutiérrez-Tanˇo, & Dı˘az-Armas, 2011; Quan-Haase & Young, 2010).Social media is a social site that has so far received an enormousnumber of users and has managed to attract Internet users morequickly than any other medium online in terms of interaction andpersonalization It has seven functions – identity, conversations,sharing, presence, relationships, reputations and groups – in whicheach function allows the user to reveal and examine a specific facet

of the social media experience (Kietzmann, Kristopher, McCarthy, &Bruno, 2011) Irrespective of the functions, its benefits and uses weredeveloped from the exclusivity of user-generated content featuresthat were incorporated within the system In turn, these transformpassive individuals into active producers (Nov, Naaman, & Ye,

2010); share opinions, insights, knowledge and content (Cho, Chen,

& Chung, 2010); create and maintain relationships with other viduals with similar needs, interests or problems (Smock, Ellison,Lampe, & Wohn, 2011); and as a source of entertainment and self-expression (Kim, Jeong, & Lee, 2010) Behind these functions liessocial media innovation attributes that give the user ease of useand usefulness when using the medium (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010)

indi-In sum, the functions, uses and benefits of social media provide

a high level of online and offline integration through which theuser shows affective engagement We contend that the innovativefeatures afforded by social media are the indicators that induceInternet user psychological temptation to adopt social media.2.2 Media needs

In reviewing the media needs that lead to social media tion, previous research mostly employed UGT UGT redefineshow and why the individual uses media; explains the motivationalneeds that motivate the user to select the media, media channel ormedia content; and also describes the subsequent attitudinal andbehavioral effects (Diddi & La Rose, 2006; Lee & Ma, 2012; Rubin

adop-& Perse, 1987; Ruggiero, 2000) UGT assumes that users are directed in their behavior and are aware of their needs Purposivevalue, self-discovery, entertainment value, social enhancement andmaintaining interpersonal connectivity are the key needs that arewidely adopted for online media (Cheung et al., 2010) UGT alsooutlines the ways of classifying needs and gratifications Forinstance,Schramm, Lyle, and Parker (1961)classify media needs

goal-as immediate and deferred gratifications,Weiss (1971)classifiesthem as informational-educational and fantasist-escapist, while

McQuail, Blumler, and Brown (1972)suggest diversion, personalrelationship, personal identity/individual psychology and surveil-lance as important dimensions for the development of UGT.The key concept of UGT is that the choice consumers make whenconsuming media motivates their desire to gratify a range of needs

In UGT, the basic human needs that interact with the individualcharacteristics refer to the psychological setup, social position, lifehistory and society, which include a media structure that produces

1 The term Web 2.0 refers to the changes in Internet Technology from that of way communication to two-way communication, which exercises positive and

one-perceived problems and one-perceived solutions to the user The

prob-lems and expected solutions are modelled into motives for

commu-nication, and lead to media behavior Such work places media uses

and consequences within the larger context of individual everyday

social habits and routines It suggests ways in which the

motiva-tions and traits lead to the consumption of the media over other

avenues for the fulfilment of individual needs (Palmgreen, 1984;

Papacharissi, 2009; Rubin, 1994; Rubin & Windahl, 1986; Stafford,

Stafford, & Schkade, 2004; Weng & Ding, 2012)

The categorization of UGT byKatz et al (1973)is the one widely

used in media research.Katz et al (1973)use UGT to analyze mass

media adoption in detail, which covers five important media –

tele-vision, radio, magazines, books and cinema Katz et al list 35 needs

that were drawn from the social and psychological functions of the

mass media, and which have been categorized as cognitive needs,

affective needs, personal integrative needs, social integrative needs

and tension release needs These needs have been employed in

many studies to understand the uses and consequences of various

media (Cheung et al., 2010; Ko et al., 2005; Lee & Ma, 2012;

Papacharissi & Mendelson, 2011; Smock et al., 2011) The strength

of UGT inKatz et al (1973)lies in its applicability to a variety of

media contexts It shares a frame of analysis that focuses on

motives, social and psychological antecedents, and cognitive,

atti-tudinal or behavioral outcomes (Palmgreen, 1984; Ruggiero,

2000; Severin & Tankard, 2010) This study extends the

categoriza-tion of Katz et al concerning the uses and gratificacategoriza-tions into a more

comprehensive one in the social media setting by taking into

consideration the innovative aspects of the medium

2.3 Past studies on media needs

Past research that employed UGT focuses on media or media

channels that examine media motives or media attributes with

rel-evant social and psychological antecedents to look at the

conse-quences or effects associated with the consumption of the

medium For instance, soap opera (Alexander, 1985; Babrow,

(Palmgreen, Wenner, & Rayburn, 1980; Rubin, 1981; Rubin &

1983, 1987; Rubin & Bantz, 1989), talk shows and radio shows

(Armstrong & Rubin, 1989; Surlin, 1986; Turow, 1974), watching

cable television (Becker, Dunwoody, & Rafaell, 1983; Jeffres,

1978), channel surfing (Walker & Bellamy, 1991; Ferguson,

1992), magazine and tabloid reading (Atwater, 2009; Payne,

Severn, & Dozier, 1988; Salwen & Anderson, 1984), watching

real-ity television (Papacharissi & Mendelson, 2007) and using the

Internet (Charney & Greenberg, 2002; Ko et al., 2005; Leung,

2001; Lo, Li, Shih, & Yang, 2005; Morris & Ogan, 1996;

Papacharissi, 2002a, 2002b; Stafford et al., 2004)

From these many studies,Rubin (1983)identifies nine recurring

consumer needs toward television adoption: (i) relaxation, (ii)

companionship, (iii) entertainment, (iv) social interaction, (v)

information, (vi) habit, (vii) pastime, (viii) arousal, and (ix) escape;

whilePalmgreen et al (1980)add (i) para-social interaction and (ii)

surveillance motive for news watching; and Bantz (1982)

introduces voyeurism for television programs.Rubin, Perse, and

engaging with interpersonal communication media: (i) pleasure,

(ii) affection, (iii) inclusion, (iv) escape, (v) relaxation, and (vi)

control Affection, inclusion and control come from

interpersonal-oriented needs, whereas pleasure, relaxation and escape are

developed within UGT itself and are used to study media usage

In addition, the construct of unwilling to communicate

represents a tendency to avoid oral communication and has been

identified as a motive for talk radio and Internet usage (Burgoon,

1976; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000) Also, Internet users who find

face-to-face communication less rewarding are more likely to usethe Internet for social communication (Papacharissi, 2002a,2002b; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000) Other dimensions that areused to link to media consumption include loneliness, anxiety, cre-ativity and sensation seeking It has been found that mood andcontent preference are strong predictors of selective viewing andthinking (Conway & Rubin, 1991; Perse & Rubin, 1990; Hawkins

et al., 2001)

Past studies have also given considerable attention to the mational and social uses of newer media InPerse and Courtright’s(1993)study of computer-mediated communication, they identifyfour types of need: (i) relaxation, (ii) entertainment, (iii) self-awareness, and (iv) excitement Subsequently, Perse and Dunn(1998)explore the use of computer connectivity to communicatewith other users through information services and find six needs:(i) learning, (ii) entertainment, (iii) social interaction, (iv) escapism,(v) passing time, and (vi) out of habit.Hardy and Scheufele (2005)

infor-have combined the research on computer-mediated tion and UGT to understand how exposure to hard news, togetherwith interpersonal communication, could lead to greater participa-tion in public affairs

communica-UGT assumptions are also employed to understand how sumers select and what they expect of online versus traditionalnews media (De Waal, Schonebach, & Lauf, 2006; Schoenbach, DeWaal, & Lauf, 2005) Conversely, Dimmick, Chen, and Li (2004)

con-detect an overlap between the niches of offline and online media,and a pronounced tendency for the Internet to displace traditionalnews sources, like television and print media Equally,Kaye andJohnson (2002) identify guidance, surveillance, entertainment,and social utility as the four primary motivations of political uses

of the Web that are connected to the amount of use, trust in ernment, feelings of efficacy, political interest, and likelihood tovote Also,Chyi (2005)employs the UGT framework to understanduser willingness to pay for online news content The closest paststudies that can be used to understand the needs for social mediaadoption are by Perse and Courtright (1993), Papacharissi andRubin (2000), Charney and Greenberg (2002), Stafford et al.(2004), Ko et al (2005), Chang, Lee, and Kim (2006), Quan-Haaseand Young (2010), Cheung et al (2010), andLee and Cho (2011)

gov-who studied media needs for the Internet or Internet-based media.These studies found that consumers use media to fulfil interper-sonal needs, which include the needs derived from offline mediagratification (e.g entertainment, information, relaxation, surveil-lance, pastime and escape) and newer online media needs (e.g.sociability, interaction, popularity, companionship, mobility,advancement, and convenience) However, this study investigatesthe other possible needs that might explain why people use socialmedia Different media have a different potential for motivatingconsumer involvement (Greenwald & Levitt, 1984), in which theinvolvement can be either enhanced or alleviated by the uniqueattributes of the media

findings pertaining to media needs, which provide a baseline indeveloping the multidimensional conceptualization of social mediaadoption Based on all these, and due to the inherent participatorynature of social media that exists in the online platform, we con-tend that some of these needs are relevant to the current context,and, hence, will use them in developing our research model Theseneeds were tested in the focus group discussion to investigatewhether or not they constitute an important variable to explainsocial media adoption

2.4 Social media innovationThe turn of the century brought a significant improvement inthe enhancement of technology innovation The innovation of

social media provides users with a variety of communication tools.

For instance, Facebook allows users to broadcast messages to a

large audience using status updates and wall posts, while also

pro-viding features, such as chat, for messages that the user wishes to

keep private While the diversity of features available in the social

media allows for equally diverse forms of communication, previous

research addressing the motivation for using social media

consid-ers the possibility that usconsid-ers tend to use social media features for

the same purposes, which means that the motivation to adopt

social media is homogeneous (Smock et al., 2011) Although not

yet examined, the relationship between social media needs and

innovation is suggested through empirical evidence (Durukan

et al., 2012; Lee & Cho, 2011)

Innovation is the core construct in the study concerning

technology readiness that encourages the user to establish a certain

attitude toward the technology (Davis, 1989; Parasuraman, 2000)

It has been shown that the domain specific to innovation has a

posi-tive impact on adoption This reflects the tendency to learn and

adopt innovations within a specific domain of interest (Ho & Wu,

2011) In this study, social media innovation is proposed to be the

mediator that links consumer attitude with the outcome of using

social media Individuals with high technology innovativeness are

found to have a stronger intrinsic motivation to use new

technolo-gies and enjoy the stimulation of trying new technolotechnolo-gies compared

to less innovative individuals (Dabholkar & Bagozzi, 2002)

In view of the different ways in which innovation is acquired,

or innovativeness construct is widely used in much of the innovation

research The understanding of newness or innovativeness helps to

develop the dynamics of the innovation process and innovation

per-formance (Damanpour, 1996; Garcia & Calantone, 2002) In effect,

McCarthy, Ridgway, Leseure, and Fieller (2000) suggest that the

basis of innovation attributes relies on the innovation descriptive

properties and qualities or features that innovation possesses

Inno-vation possesses attributes in accordance with what is assigned by

individuals on the basis of perceptions (Dearing & Meyer, 1994)

Rogers (2003)in the Diffusion of Innovation Theory, posits that

innovation is spread through society based on the S-curve graph,

which explains that early adopters select the technology first and

are then followed by the majority until the innovation is common

to everyone The S-curve is an innovation- and system-specific

graph that is used to describe the diffusion of the social media

among the members of a specific system (i.e Internet users) In

relation to this, to date, there has been little research concerningthe impact of social media innovation and its influence on Internetusers, which will answer to the S-shape graph of social mediaadoption Rogers proposes a five-factor framework to explain theattributes of innovation that work as the predictors of the speed

of adoption He asserts that relative advantage, compatibility,observability and trialability are positively associated with adop-tion whilst complexity has a negative relationship These five char-acteristics of innovation are conceptually distinct, but empiricallyinterrelated through all five dimensions Subsequent studies havereplicated (Kitchen & Panopoulos, 2010; Lee, 2004), modified(Agarwal & Prasad, 1997) and extended (Kearns, 1992; Moore &Benbasat, 1991) this framework and have provided empirical sup-port for the assertion

We realize that social media adoption is highly related to vation uniqueness (Chung & Austria, 2010; Drury, 2008; Park, Kee,

inno-& Valenzuela, 2009; Parra-López et al., 2011; Raacke inno-& Raacke, 2008; Smock et al., 2011; Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009),which increases the speed of technology adoption Innovationattributes of social media reflect the idea that the greater the inno-vation, the more room there is for adoption of the technology

Bonds-3 Conceptualizing social media adoptionThis research looks at the holistic view of social media adoption

in which emphasis is given to what drives consumers to adoptsocial media It is noted that personal, social and situational moti-vation stimulate social media adoption and are believed to changedepending on the cruciality of the needs and the motives of socialmedia usage Several media adoption antecedents are investigatedfrom the area of media and technology innovation In this study weadopt a parsimonious approach by classifying the needs based onthree categories in accordance withKatz, Blumler, and Gurevitch(1974) and McQuail (1979), and the innovation characteristicsbased onRogers (2003) These characteristics are considered rele-vant in the context of social media adoption since they touch onthe relative advantage of the social media, observability of themedium, compatibility of the medium with other technologicalmedia, and their complexity and trialability in terms of usage.These categories are the first order construct that consists ofpersonal needs, social needs, tension release needs and innovationcharacteristics Each of these four constructs is discussed in thefollowing sections

Table 1

Some empirical findings of previous studies pertaining media needs from 2000 to 2013.

communication, sights and sounds, career

communication with friends and family

3.1 Personal needs

Based onKatz et al (1974), personal needs are operationalised

as an individual’s desire to appear credible, confident, and project high

self-esteem These needs are closely related to an individual’s value

system Based on the surveyed literature, it is presumed that

personal needs have four measured constructs: (i) trendiness,

(ii) enjoyment, (iii) entertainment, and (iv) interactivity

3.1.1 Trendiness

Trendiness is operationalised as the extent to which an individual

perceives themself to be involved in the latest (technological) trends

(Boyd & Mason, 1999; Chryssochoidis & Wong, 2000; Van

Rijnsoever & Donders, 2009) In contrast to innovativeness,

trend-iness is considered as part of a lifestyle The consumer is presumed

to purchase new technologies to enhance social identity (Leung,

1998).Chang et al (2006)find that perceived popularity or

trend-iness is a significant factor to explain online game adoption

3.1.2 Enjoyment

Enjoyment is operationalised as happiness, pleasure and flow

when using any medium (Lin, Gregor, & Ewing, 2008) Consumers

that experience enjoyment show several distinct characteristics

with those that do not experience it; for instance, enjoyment has

been indicated as a contributor to educational outcomes (Goetz,

Hall, Frenzel, & Pekrun, 2006), motivation to engage in physical

activities (Motl, Berger, & Leuschen, 2000) and is theorized as

hav-ing a stabilizhav-ing influence on societal structures (Sato, 2006) Past

research on the Internet indicates that enjoyment forges social ties

to understand an individual’s evaluation and affection toward the

online usage (Koh & Kim, 2003).Nov et al (2010)find that

enjoy-ment is an intrinsic motivation that encourages online community

users to share photos, online discussions and gossip It is also

congruent withLin et al (2008), who consider the notion of

enjoy-ment as explaining an act to perform or an activity one engages in

(a sensation)

3.1.3 Entertainment

Entertainment is operationalised as the way social media serves

as a means for entertaining and escaping pressure (Lee & Ma,

2012) The value of entertainment is attributed to the media ability

to satisfy the user’s needs for emotional release and relief of

anxiety (Lee & Ma, 2012; Ruggiero, 2000; Siekpe & Kamssu,

2005) Conversely, research on content contribution on mobile

applications also suggests that contributing content on such

platforms provides a good source of entertainment (Chua, Goh, &

positively related to Internet news reading (Diddi & La Rose,

2006; Lee & Ma, 2012)

3.1.4 Interactivity

Interactivity is operationalised as a process of message exchange

(Song & Zinkhan, 2008) As proposed byRogers (2003), the

interac-tive innovation of social media offers two-way communication,

which helps to speed-up the adoption process because it attains

a critical mass of users more quickly Interactivity perceptions

include consumer characteristics and situations The perceived

values of interactivity contribute to a positive attitude toward

innovation, which affects the adoption (Song & Zinkhan, 2008)

3.2 Social needs

Social needs are operationalised based onKatz et al (1974)as

affiliation needs where the consumer intends to be part of a group,

wants to be recognized as part of the group and relates to a sense of

belonging It is based on the argument that much of the previous

research on motivation identifies the significance of social tions as a motivator for and benefit from participating in onlinemedia (Haddock & Zanna, 1999; Perugini & Bagozzi, 2001; Phang,Kankanhalli, & Sabherwal, 2009) Hence, it is presumed that socialneeds have two measured constructs: (i) social influence and(ii) social interaction

connec-3.2.1 Social influenceSocial influence is operationalised as the degree to which aconsumer perceives that important others believe he or she shoulduse certain technology (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003).Previous research shows support for the role of subjective normsthat influence behavioral intentions (Ajzen, 1991; Fishbein &Ajzen, 1975).Chiasson and Lovato (2001)find that social influence

is a significant antecedent of the adoption of information systems.Social influence is posited as having a direct influence on consum-ers’ social media adoption This is because the group (friendshipconnection in social media) normally acts as a strong referencepoint to individuals, increasing compliance and the desire to beaccepted as one of the group members Such influences are likely

to be stronger than the more diffuse and less direct and personal,societal norms (Dholakia et al., 2004; Talukder & Quazi, 2011).3.2.2 Social interaction

Social interaction is operationalised as communication thatoccurs between two or more individuals, in which each person isaware of both his or her own membership in the group and rela-tionships to and with others that belong to the group and in whichthe interactions occur primarily through an Internet venue toachieve mutually shared goals (Bagozzi, Dholakia, & Pearo, 2007)

Park et al (2009)note that social interaction is regarded as one

of the gratifications that motivates college students to participate

in Facebook groups In line with this,Dunne, Lawlor, and Rowley(2010)conclude that maintaining relationships in the social con-text is a key driver for using social networking sites.Sun, Rubin,and Haridakis (2008) claim that one of the motives for Internetusage is social interaction Smock et al (2011) conjecture thatsocial media platforms offer features that foster the developmentand maintenance of relationships for social media users, which,

in turn, become a shared social experience

3.3 Tension release needsAccording toKohut (1977), the human organization of experi-ence is composed of the needs for grandiosity, the needs for ideal-ization and the needs for an alter ego or belongingness Thisconception emphasizes the relationship between the self andself-objects, which are the cognitive representations of other peo-ple and their actions toward developing an attitude It provides thestructure and motivation for the tension release needs for thisresearch Tension release needs are operationalised as the needfor escape and diversion from problems and routines (Katz et al.,

1974) Based on this operationalisation, it is presumed that tensionrelease needs have four measured constructs: (i) belongingness,(ii) companionship, (iii) playfulness, and (iv) escapism

3.3.1 BelongingnessBelongingness is operationalised as being part of to avoid feelings

of loneliness and alienation (Kohut, 1984) UGT stresses that uals interact with other media users to achieve a sense of belong-ing (Rubin & Windahl, 1986) Koh and Kim (2003) find thatbelongingness is one of the important indicators to determine vir-tual community adoption Also,Baumeister and Leary (1995), and

between the socializing gratification and media consumption toachieve a certain degree of belongingness The special features of

social media let the user build a sense of belongingness toward the

medium Other research focuses on how belongingness interacts

with overall user well-being and feelings of individual loneliness,

which have been found to have a direct effect on individual

well-being (Reddy, Baum, Fleming, & Aiello, 1981; Rook, 1987)

However,Lee and Robbins (1995), who studied the social

connect-edness and social assurance scale, confirm that a sense of

belong-ingness influences individual perceptions toward an object and

how the individual behaviorally responds in demanding social

situations

3.3.2 Companionship

Companionship is operationalised as the feeling of being together

and being a member of a group of friends, spending time together,

socializing and networking (Ridings, Gefen, & Arinze, 2002)

Accord-ing toLee and Robbins (1995), individuals build companionship

from early infancy and extend it throughout their adult life As a

human being grows, the companionship serves as a model that

imitates and provides the experience of likeness Companionship

has been found to predict social satisfaction and well-being

(Baldassare, Rosenfield, & Rook, 1984), alleviate loneliness (Rook,

1987), increase leisure experiences (Unger, 1984), and provide a

point of social connectedness and assurance (Lee & Robbins,

1995) Likewise, peer affiliation or friendship connection has been

found to relate to self-esteem and mood, reduce stress and

facili-tate social interaction and friendships (Reddy et al., 1981; Wong

& Csiksazentmihalyi, 1991).Rook (1987)also indicates that

com-panionship is the strongest predictor of loneliness and social

satisfaction

3.3.3 Playfulness

Playfulness is operationalised as the degree to which a current or

potential user believes that the social site will bring a sense of pleasure

(Sledgianowski & Kulviwat, 2009) Past studies have revealed that

attitudinal outcomes of emotion, pleasure and satisfaction are the

result of playfulness (Sandelands, Asford, & Dutton, 1983)

Accord-ing to Moon and Kim (2001), playfulness is a critical factor that

reflects the user’s intrinsic acceptance of the Web Playfulness is

also known to affect the flow in human interaction Playfulness

measures how users experience fun when using and experiencing

technology (Van der Heijden, 2004).Moon and Kim (2001)view

playfulness as an intrinsic motivator, influenced by the user’s

expe-rience with the World Wide Web, which is also related to social

media in this context of research Individuals with a positive

play-fulness belief toward technology view interactions with technology

more positively than those with a less positive playfulness belief It

was found that playfulness has a direct effect on the behavioral

response to use the Web (Sledgianowski & Kulviwat, 2009)

3.3.4 Escapism

Escapism is operationalised as the extent to which the user

becomes so absorbed that they tend to fulfil their desire to ‘leave’

the reality in which they live in a cognitive and emotional way

(Henning & Vorderer, 2001) Hirschman (1983) conceptualizes

escapism as a utilitarian function because it relieves individual

mental burdens When consumers are so absorbed by the use of

technology, they tend to escape from reality (Saade & Bahli,

2005) Accordingly, the empirical results described bySaade and

Bahli (2005)assume that escapism contributes to the perception

of usefulness However, particularly in virtual world settings,

escapism not only contributes to the perceptions of usefulness

but also to the impression of entertainment (Jung & Kang, 2010)

Users are expected to become immersed in the use of the virtual

world and escaping reality will relieve them from their daily cares

or boredom (Close & Kukar-Kinney, 2009) Rubin, Haridakis, and

Eyal (2003)suggest that the media serves as a social relationship,

which functions on different levels, in that the media is used toconnect with, or escape from real-life relationships, and can also

be used to form parasocial relationships

3.4 Innovation characteristicsInnovation characteristics have been proposed as a mediator forthe consumer’s adoption of social media.Labby and Kinnear (1985)

suggest that innovation characteristics are a significant constructthat determines technology adoption, and that the predictivepower of this variable is strong Innovation is an idea, practice orobject that is perceived as new by an individual Innovation char-acteristics are operationalised as the characteristics of innovationthat are perceived by individuals as useful to help explain the rates

of adoption (Rogers, 2003) Innovation characteristics that are ceived as having a greater (i) relative advantage, (ii) compatibility,(iii) trialability, (iv) observability, and less (v) complexity, are thedimensions that are presumed to enhance the adoption of innova-tions (Rogers, 2003) In this context of research, innovation charac-teristics refer to the attributes of innovation that social media havethat bring social media users to a greater level of experience andgratification, and through which adoption is induced

per-3.4.1 Relative advantageRelative advantage is operationalised as the degree to which aninnovation is perceived as being better than the idea it supersedes.The degree of relative advantage is often expressed as the eco-nomic profitability that conveys social prestige (Rogers, 2003).The nature of the innovation determines the type of relative advan-tage that is important to the adopter Past studies have found rel-ative advantage to be one of the strongest predictors of adoption.The perceived attributes of innovation suggest that relative advan-tage is positively related to acceptability, thus making it one of themost effective factors for predicting acceptability or adoption (Ho

& Wu, 2011; Kitchen & Panopoulos, 2010)

3.4.2 CompatibilityCompatibility is operationalised as the degree to which an inno-vation is perceived as consistent with the existing values, past experi-ences and needs of the potential adopters An idea that is morecompatible is less uncertain to the potential adopter and fits moreclosely with the individual’s situation Compatibility helps givemeaning to the new idea so that it is regarded as being more famil-iar (Rogers, 2003) An innovation can be compatible or incompati-ble with sociocultural values and beliefs, previously introducedideas and/or client needs for the innovation Innovation that isincompatible with cultural values can block adoption Innovationshould be compatible with both cultural values as well as previ-ously adopted ideas The compatibility of an innovation with a pre-ceding idea can either speed up or retard the rate of adoption.Individuals cannot deal with innovation except on the basis ofthe familiarity The perceived compatibility of the new idea withthe previous experience of potential adopters leads users to utilizethe innovations correctly (Garcia & Calantone, 2002; Kitchen &Panopoulos, 2010; Rogers, 2003)

3.4.3 TrialabilityTrialability is operationalised as the degree to which an innova-tion may be experimented with on a limited basis New ideas thatcan be tried on the instalment plan are generally adopted morerapidly than innovations that are not divisible Some innovationsare more difficult to divide for trial than others (Rogers, 2003).The personal trying of an innovation is a way for an individual togive meaning to an innovation and to find out how it works underone’s own conditions If an innovation can be designed so as to betried more easily, it will have a more rapid rate of adoption (Davis,

1989; Venkatesh et al., 2003) Trying a new idea involves

re-inventing it so as to customize it more closely to the individual’s

condition An innovation may actually be changed during its trial

(Davis, 1989; Rogers, 2003)

3.4.4 Observability

Observability is operationalised as the degree to which the results

of an innovation are visible to others Some ideas are easily observed

and communicated to other people, whereas other innovations are

difficult to observe or to describe to others (Kitchen & Panopoulos,

2010; Rogers, 2003) The easier it is for individuals to see the

results of an innovation, the more likely they are to adopt Such

visibility stimulates peer discussion of a new idea, as the friends

and neighbors of an adopter often request evaluation information

concerning the innovation (Davis, 1989; Rogers, 2003)

3.4.5 Complexity

Complexity is operationalised as the degree to which an

innova-tion is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use Any new

idea may be classified on the complexity-simplicity continuum

Some innovations are clear in their meaning to potential adopters

while others are not (Rogers, 2003) Complexity may not be as

important as relative advantage or compatibility for many

innova-tions, but for some new ideas complexity is a very important

bar-rier to adoption (Davis, 1989; Rogers, 2003)

4 Hypotheses development

As stated beforehand, the research model is built based on UGT

and the five innovation characteristics ofRogers (2003) It

incorpo-rates a different set of relational behaviors as well as a sequential

path in the outcome variable (adoption) The multidimensional

model was developed from the review of the literature; it involves

first order and second order constructs (latent and manifest

variables) The following examines the relationship presented in

the research model relating media needs, innovation

characteris-tics and adoption behavior, as illustrated inFig 1

4.1 Relationship between media needs and innovation characteristics

Understanding why people accept and reject technology has

proven to be one of the most challenging issues (Davis, Bagozzi,

& Warshaw, 1989; Swanson, 1988) Past studies have looked at

the impact of users’ beliefs and attitudes on technology usage

behavior (Davis et al., 1989; Srinivasan, Anderson, & Ponnavolu,

2002), and how, in turn, these beliefs and attitudes are influenced

by various factors including the innovation design and tics (Moore & Benbasat, 1991; Swanson, 1988), and involvement inthe development process of innovation (Baroudi & Orlikowski,1988; Franz & Robey, 1986) Incorporating the above mentioned,

characteris-it is hypothesized that:

H1a – Personal needs (trendiness, enjoyment, entertainment,interactivity) are positively influenced by the innovationcharacteristics of social media

H1b – Social needs (social influence, social interaction) arepositively influenced by the innovation characteristics of socialmedia

H1c– Tension release needs (belongingness, companionship,playfulness, escapism) are positively influenced by theinnovation characteristics of social media

4.2 Relationship between innovation characteristics and social mediaadoption

This research framework presumes that the innovation teristics of social media play the role of a mediator in the relation-ship between media needs and adoption The main purpose ofmeditational analysis is to examine why an association between

charac-a predictor (medicharac-a needs) charac-and outcome (charac-adoption) exists (Frazier,Tix, & Barron, 2004; Zhao, Lynch, & Chen, 2010).Raju (1980)sug-gests that innovation intervenes between the need for stimulationand innovative behavior as a mediator variable Empirical resultsshow a positive and significant relationship between the need forstimulation and innovation (Joachimsthaler, 1984; Roehrich,

2004) Hence, the need for stimulation is perceived to be an cedent of adoption, either directly or indirectly, through innova-tion Based on this background, we hypothesize that:

ante-H2– The innovation characteristics (relative advantage, patibility, observability, trialability, complexity) of social mediainfluence the adoption behavior of the consumer

com-4.3 Relationship between media needs and social media adoption

A more prolific approach to this relationship lies in an analysis

of the psychological processes involved in the induction of ior According toCartwright (1949), andLampe, Wash, Velasquez,and Ozkaya (2010), to influence the behavior of another person, achain of processes must be initiated within the person Theseprocesses are complex and interrelated, and are characterized ascreating a particular cognitive structure, creating a particular

motivational structure and creating a particular behavioral

struc-ture Behavior is determined by the beliefs, opinions, and facts a

person possesses and by the needs, goals and values a person

has, and by the momentary control held over behavior (Durukan

et al., 2012; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Westaby, 2005) From the past

studies on media, it is noted that certain media attributes affect the

users’ needs toward the media (Greenberg & Salwen, 2009)

Wasko and Faraj (2005)conceptualize that social reasons are a

factor in electronic participation, which are divided into structural,

(relating to the density of networks), thickness and thinness of ties

between individuals; cognitive, (relating to the level of shared

skills, knowledge, discourse and practice among network

participators) and relational (referring to identification with the

collective through shared norms and trust) This explains that the

social reasons for participating in electronic networks are

multi-layered and that contextualizing these interactions within

the concept of social media is helpful in gaining a more meaningful

understanding of participation Notwithstanding,Best and Krueger

existing social connections and ties into a new and larger community

In addition,Lampe et al (2010)explain that motivation contributes

to content-generation building for the online community and

highlighs that different motivations for use are tied to different

patterns of contribution by the network members

Furthermore, Raacke and Bonds-Raacke (2008), and

Papacharissi and Mendelson (2011)expose that in order to better

understand the extent to which users expect to enjoy the benefits

of media, various needs and desires that they establish toward the

media require fulfilment (Papacharissi & Mendelson, 2011; Raacke

& Bonds-Raacke, 2008) Individuals use the Internet to gather

information, meet new people, and communicate with both

geographically distant and close others, which contribute to the

prediction of psychosocial outcomes over and above the time spent

online Similar needs found concerning this include social

motiva-tion, achievement motivation and immersion (Perse & Ferguson,

2000; Shen & Williams, 2011; Smock et al., 2011) Consumer choice

of media is based on the perception that the media benefits will

affect the medium they choose to fulfil a particular task

H3a – Personal needs (trendiness, enjoyment, entertainment,

interactivity) are positively related to social media adoption

H3b – Social needs (social influence, social interaction) are

positively related to social media adoption

H3c – Tension release needs (belongingness, companionship,

playfulness, escapism) are positively related to social media

adoption

5 Method

This research uses the mixed methods approach, which allows

the logical integration of the qualitative and quantitative approach

(Creswell & Tashakkori, 2007) The approach helps to extend the

model by:

i Developing a construct to measure needs and motivation

Therefore, the qualitative method in the first stage of data

collection enriches the understanding of the construct by

exploring more items from the qualitative analysis

ii Measuring the relationships between needs and technology

innovation Therefore, the second stage of data collection

using the quantitative approach is used to measure the

rela-tionship between these variables

iii Enriching the validity of the research through the

combina-tion of both approaches, where, in the area of the social

media study, the research scope is considered as new due

to the fact that social media research is still in its infancy

(Fischer & Reuber, 2011; Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden,

2011) Thus, using a qualitative and quantitative approachinduces confidence in building the research model

The mixed methods highlight some important aspects of thisresearch that allows us to: (i) derive confident results, (ii) stimulatethe creation of inventive methods as a new way of capturing a prob-lem to balance with data collection methods, (iii) uncover the unex-pected dimension of a phenomenon in which different viewpointsare likely to produce some elements that do not fit a theory, thustheory can be re-fashioned, (iv) lead to a synthesis or integration

of theories that brings diverse theories to bear on a common lem, and (v) serve as a critical test, by virtue of its comprehensive-ness for competing theories In essence, the qualitative focus groupwas used to validate and check for unidentified factors, as proposed

prob-by the research model, while the quantitative empirical survey wasused to determine the fit of the model, the validity of the hypothe-ses and testing of the mediation effect

5.1 Data collection5.1.1 Focus group discussion (FGD)

To revisit and broaden the scope of theoretical assumption cerning the role of media needs, a FGD was conducted concerningindividuals’ experiences with social media The convenience sam-pling approach was employed to recruit participants with a heter-ogeneous distribution of age and gender (Bryman & Bell, 2007;Minichiello, Aroni, Timewell, & Alexander, 1990) The aim of theFGD was to discover new information from individuals in respect

con-of social media experience This method was undertaken as a cursor to the survey research to support the development of theconceptual framework as well as the measurement items of thequestionnaire It also aimed to identify a range of drivers that moti-vate consumers to adopt social media

pre-This involved pre-testing, pilot testing and an actual FGD with

48 participants Participants were paid a small fee at the end ofthe session for their participation The discussions used semi-structured interviews that lasted about 40–60 min The discussionswere structured into nine topics: (i) enjoyment, (ii) entertainment,(iii) interaction, (iv) fashion/trend (v) socialability/social concerns,(vi) friendship/companionship, (vii) sense of belongingness, (viii)playfulness and (ix) escapism, relating to feelings, needs and moti-vation to use social media Open-ended questions were designed toaddress affective and cognitive responses toward adopting socialmedia Possible probes were developed to accompany eachquestion Initial impressions, overall themes, non-verbal behaviorand suggestions for improvements were addressed, and notes weremade The levels of familiarity and other group dynamics were alsonoted

The discussions were taped and fully transcribed to allow forcontent analysis to take place using Nvivo 9 Coding of the themewas undertaken to define the eligibility of the latent variablebefore it was statistically tested later in the quantitative stage.Focus group themes and results were reported using a descriptivesummary method described byKrueger (1994) that included adescriptive summary of each theme (refer to Appendix A fordescriptive summary results) The results of the analysis were cat-egorized into two; that is, media needs, which consist of ninethemes (enjoyment, entertainment, interaction, fashion/trend,sociability/social concerns, friendship/companionship, sense ofbelongingness, playfulness and escapism), and innovation charac-teristics, which consist of five themes (relative advantage, compat-ibility, trialability, observability and complexity) The emergingtrend toward social media adoption was identified

The FGD results confirm the latent variable proposed Themodel was validated and checked for missing factors No new

construct or dimension was derived from the result; hence,

verify-ing that the structure of the research model is acceptable

How-ever, some participants stressed that innovation characteristics

are not necessarily important to encourage adoption This assertion

is significantly important to be examined through quantitative

analysis, in which the mediating effect of innovation

characteris-tics will be tested

5.1.2 Online survey research

Owing to the nature of the research, accessibility to the target

audience and facilities available, this study employed an online

survey, which involved a web-based questionnaire for the data

col-lection process The respondents, who consist of Malaysian

Inter-net users, were picked through stratified sampling, which was

then further sampled using simple random sampling Stratified

random sampling was done by dividing the Malaysian Facebook

users (based on data released by the Malaysian Statistical

Depart-ment) into six strata: (i) brand page, (ii) celebrity page, (iii)

enter-tainment page, (iv) media channel page, (v) sports page, and (vi)

places of interest page in accordance withSocialbakers (2012)

The link to the online survey was posted on these top six pages

from each of these strata The online survey research used survey

monkey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/) The online survey

was activated for eight weeks To encourage participation, we

offered respondents entry into a lucky draw to win one of ten

shopping vouchers worth MYR100, which were given to ten

ran-domly selected respondents The total number of respondents

was 428

The questionnaire was pre-tested and pilot-tested on 20 and

100 respondents, respectively The purpose of the pilot study was

to assess the reliability and validity of the scales Cronbach’s alpha

statistic was used to assess the reliability of the scales while

exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation was used to

check the construct (discriminant and convergent) validity of the

scales suggested byChurchill (1979) Some minor adjustments to

the wording and layout of the questionnaire were made on the

actual online survey

5.1.3 Description of the sample

The structure of the sample by gender was 40.7% males and

59.3% females, and by age 3.0% of the respondents were aged

below 20 years, 12.4% between 20 to 24, 55.1% between 25 to 34,

29% between 35 to 44 and 0.5% of the respondents were aged

above 44 years old All respondents had access to and habitually

used the social media They have used social media for about four

to six years and logged in several times a day In general, the use ofsocial media by the respondents are high

5.1.4 MeasuresAll constructs in the study involved multiple items The contentvalidity of the constructs was ensured by relying on pre-tested andpilot tested scales For the content validity of the adopted scales,experts in the field of marketing, media and IT were asked to verifythe scales None of the items proposed were dropped, whichallowed the items to be used for the pre-testing and pilot test

Table 2summarizes the sources used to operationalize the modelconstructs FollowingChurchill (1979), the existing scales under-went slight modification accordingly

The constructs were hierarchical measured using a 5-point ert scale Hierarchical constructs can be defined as constructsinvolving more than one dimension (Hair, Hult, Ringle, &Sarstedt, 2013) The hierarchical measurements assessing medianeeds consisted of personal needs (trendiness, enjoyment, enter-tainment, interactivity), social needs (social influence, social inter-action), tension release needs (companionship, belongingness,playfulness, escapism) and innovation characteristics (relativeadvantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability).Since the research adopted items from various studies, factoranalysis was done to determine the underlying structure of thevariables before it proceeds with subsequent analysis The condi-tions for suitability of the data for factor analysis were checkedusing Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) for sampling adequacy and Bart-lett’s test of sphericity (BTS) for the presence of correlations amongvariables (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994) KMO indices should be

Lik->0.50 (0.906) and BTS should be significant at p value 0.000(p = 0.000) The factor analysis indicated 16 distinct factors includ-ing the dependent variable The 16-factor solution accounted for69.84% of the total variance These 16 factors were used to runanalysis

5.1.5 Analysis methodPartial Least Squares (PLS) was employed using SmartPLS soft-ware to estimate path models involving latent constructs, which

is indirectly observed by multiple indicators (hierarchical structs) It allows the conceptualization of a hierarchical modelthrough the repeated use of manifest variables A higher orderlatent variable is created by specifying a latent variable that repre-sents all the manifest variables of the underlying lower-orderlatent variables (Dijkstra, 2010; Hair et al., 2013) As a latent vari-able scores are determined in PLS path analysis, latent variables

con-Table 2

Construct, measurement variables & sources.

Personal needs Trendiness (TRN) Boyd and Mason (1999), Chryssochoidis and Wong (2000), Van Rijnsoever and Donders (2009)

Entertainment (ENT) Ducoffe (1996), Chen, Gillenson, and Sherrell (2002), Dholakia et al (2004)

Interactivity (INT) Song and Zinkhan (2008)

Social needs Social influence (SIF) Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), Davis (1989), Venkatesh et al (2003), Dholakia et al (2004)

Social interaction (SIN) Sun et al (2008), Dholakia et al (2004), Haridakis and Hanson (2009)

Tension release needs Companionship (CSHIP) Foster, Francescucci, and West (2010), Parker and Plank (2000), Dholakia et al (2004)

Belongingness (BLG) Lee and Robbins (1995)

Playfulness (PLY) Moon and Kim (2001), Lin, Wu, and Tsai (2005) Sledgianowski and Kulviwat (2009)

Innovation characteristics Relative advantage (RA) Moore and Benbasat (1991), Rogers (2003), Van Ittersum and Feinberg (2010)

Compatibility (COM) Complexity (COX) Trialability (TRL) Observability (OBS)

scores for lower-order latent variables can be obtained, which can

be subsequently used as manifest variables for the higher-order

variables (Esposito Vinzi, Chin, Henseler, & Wang, 2010), which is

called repeated indicators approach as illustrated inFig 2

In Fig 2, we contructed the first order latent variables and

related them to their respective block of manifest variables

(TRN = 6 items, ENJ = 9 items, ENT = 8 items, INT = 8 items, SIF = 7

items, SIN = 7 items, CSHIP = 2 items, BLG = 7 items, PLY = 3 items,

ESC = 2 items, RA = 5 items, COM = 5 items, COX = 5 items, TRL = 5

items, OBS = 5 items) using mode A in their outer model The

load-ings represent the lower order loading The higher order latent

variables can now be constructed by relating them to block of

the underlying lower order latent variables (PERSONAL = items of

TRN, ENJ, ENT, INT; SOCIAL = items of SIF, SIN; TENSION = items

of CSHIP, BLG PLY, ESC; INNO = items of RA, COM, COX, TRL, OBS)

using mode B in outer model where the dashed lines represent

the secondary loadings Through this the hierarchical model can

now be estimated using PLS path modelling We obtain estimates

from lower loadings, higher loadings and structural parameters

Table 3represents the remaining latent and manifest variables thatwere used to run measurement and structural model analysis

6 Results6.1 Assessing the hierarchical structure using PLSThe evaluation of the measurement model for hierarchicalstructure is undertaken by confirming the reliability of each item,the reliability of each construct, convergent validity and discrimi-nant validity of the indicators (Gefen, Straub, & Boudreau, 2000)

We started the analysis by evaluating reliability and validity ofthe lower order constructs by analysing factorial loading, compos-ite reliability (CR) and AVE (Chin, 1998; Fornell & Larcker, 1981;Hair et al., 2013) The reliability of the construct measurementwas evaluated by examining the composite reliability and