Investigating the role of social identification on impulse buying in mobile social commerce: a cross-cultural comparison

Abstract

PurposeAs social commerce migrates to the mobile platform, mobile social commerce (ms–commerce), an emerging way of conducting social commerce in the mobile environment, is gaining popularity among mobile users. Although impulse buying in social commerce has been the focus of scholars in recent years, individuals' impulse-buying behavior in ms–commerce has not been highlighted and therefore is worth investigating. This study addressed that gap by differentiating and monitoring the impacts that three key targets of social identification in ms–commerce exerted on impulse buying. Furthermore, previous studies had highlighted the importance of culture in impulse buying in other contexts, so the authors examined how the effects of the key identification targets differed across cultures, as a result of cultural diversity among the ms–commerce users. Finally, the authors drew upon the lens of information technology (IT) affordances to explore how different combinations of ms–commerce affordances influenced each target of identification.Design/methodology/approachThis research first applied a qualitative methodology by using semi-structured interviews with 27 ms–commerce users to extract the relevant subdimensions of IT affordances in ms–commerce. Then, the authors tested their hypotheses with survey data collected from the United States and China.FindingsThe results clearly illustrate that three key targets of social identification had varying impacts on impulse buying in different cultural dimensions. In addition, nearly all of the proposed IT affordances in ms–commerce aided users in building multiple identifications, to various degrees.Originality/valueThis study extends social commerce research by examining the important role that social identification plays in impulse buying in the mobile environment. Moreover, unlike previous studies that mainly had focused on ordinary buying in social commerce across cultures, this study investigated the relative importance of the targets of social identification on impulse buying in different espoused cultural dimensions. Importantly, the authors used a technology affordance lens to also uncover the context-specific stimulators of separate identification targets, thus going beyond the existing body of knowledge that focused on general beliefs.