Keywords

1 Introduction

Social media technologies and tools are emerging as important source of firm business value creation. They have been considered as the driving forces behind the growth of social commerce [1]. Social media offer new ways to interact with a given firm key players [2, 3], including real-time one-to-one communication with online consumers. In addition, online consumers can now use social media to communicate in real-time with their peers before their final purchasing decisions [4]. The social media high business value has attracted firms across various sectors, as “social media positively influences most companies’ revenue and sales” (p. 1) [5]. Indeed, it is estimated that about two billion people are current active users of social media. This number will reach about 2.5 billion in 2018 [5]. In addition, advertising revenues generated by social media are quite impressive. They went from about 17.85 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 to reach the notable amount of 41 billion U.S. in 2017 [6].

While the high operational and strategic value of social media has been acknowledged by prior studies [7,8,9,10,11], very few studies have explored key factors of social media adoption and use within workspace across many countries. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to examine the main factors that influence social media adoption and use by organizations across multiple countries. To achieve our research objective, the study aims at examining the following research questions:

  1. 1.

    Is the extended TAM suitable to study social media adoption and use within organizations across multiple countries?

  2. 2.

    What is the moderating effect of user computer experience on the relationship between user attitude and the behavioral intention to use social media?

To address our research questions, the study draws on the emerging literature on social media, an extended version of TAM that integrates two new constructs namely: perceived risk (PR) and perceived security (PS). In addition, the study tests the moderating effect of user computer experience on the relationship between user attitude and the behavioral intention to use social media. Then, the proposed model is tested using the collected data from each country and the pooled or global data. After the introduction, we first present our theoretical development. Then, in the next section, our research methodology is discussed. The subsequent section presents and discusses our results. Then, the discussion, implications, limitations and future research perspectives section is presented. In the final section, we present the conclusion of the study.

2 Theoretical Development

Our proposed research model (Fig. 1) was developed based on the emerging literature on social media, an extended version of TAM that integrates two new constructs namely: perceived risk and perceived security.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Proposed research model

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The TAM is probably the most used research framework in the information systems field [12,13,14,15]. The model was first developed by Davis [12] to explore the reasons behind the acceptance or the rejection of information technology (IT) by potential users using a small set of constructs. TAM argues that perceived usefulness (PU) or the “degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance” (p. 320) [12] and perceived ease of use (PEU), which is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort” (p. 320) [12] are the two particular beliefs that are of “primary relevance for computer acceptance behaviors” (p. 985) [15]. The model also identifies a positive relationship between PEU and PU. Furthermore, TAM posits that IT usage is determined by the user’s behavioral intention, which in turn is jointly explained by the user’s attitude toward (ATT) using the computer system and PU.

Drawing on the above discussion, we propose the following hypotheses in the context of social media use within organizations (Fig. 1):

  • H1: PEU has a significant positive effect on ATT.

  • H2: PEU has a significant positive effect on PU.

  • H3: PU has a significant positive effect on ATT.

  • H4: PU has a significant positive effect on the user’s behavioral intention to use (BIU).

  • H5: ATT has a significant positive effect on BIU.

In addition to these five hypotheses that are the founding blocks of the TAM, we argue that in the context of social media PS or “the subjective probability with which users believe their sensitive information (business or private) will not be viewed, stored, and manipulated during work sessions by unauthorized parties in a manner consistent with their confident expectations” (p. 165) [16] and PR or “the extent to which a functional or psychosocial risk a user feels he/she is taking when using a product” (p. 165) [16] are key determinants of the behavioral intention to adopt social media within organizations. Indeed, in the current digital world where a massive amount of data is generated and use by users as well as exchanged between various firm stakeholders, ensuring that private users information is stored safely is an important step toward facilitating the acceptance of social media within organization.

Therefore, we propose the following hypotheses (Fig. 1):

  • H6: PS has a significant positive effect on BIU.

  • H7: PR has a significant negative effect on BIU.

Computer experience which is defined as “a level in which someone have ever used a technology to ease his/her work” (p. 27) [17], has been viewed as an important adoption factor in the diffusion theory [17]. It has been used as a moderator for the relationships between effort expectancy and behavioral intention and social influence and behavioral intention in the context of consumer acceptance of personal information and communication technology services [18]. Drawing on this discussion, we hypothesize the following:

  • H8: Computer experience moderates the relationship between user’s attitude and its behavioral intention to use social media within workspace.

3 Methodology

Our study uses a web based-questionnaire to collect data from 2,556 social media users in their workplaces in various countries including: the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, and India. The data collection was realized in January 2013 by a market research firm called Survey Sampling International (SSI). Our study uses items derived from the existing literatures. They were adapted to the social media adoption and use in firms context [12, 16], and measured with a seven-point Likert scale.

For the data analysis, a partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) called SmartPLS tool version 3.0 was used to assess the measurement and structural model [19]. The study assesses the reliability and validity of all the items. More precisely, the study looks at the item loadings values, the composite reliability value, and the average variance extracted (AVE). To meet the minimum requirement, these values should be respectively higher than 0.70, 0.70 and 0.50 [20]. Finally, the study uses the two stage approach proposed by [21] and embedded into SmartPLS 3.0.

4 Results and Discussion

Table 1 presents the outer loadings for full data and each country. As we can see, they all have a value higher than 0.7. Table 2 presents all Cronbach’s alpha values, composite reliability and AVE values of our constructs.

Table 1. Outer loadings
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Table 2. Cronbach’s alpha values, rho and average variance extracted
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As showed in Table 2, all displayed values are meeting the suggested acceptable threshold values of respectively, 0.7, 0.7 and 0.5 [20, 22], and thus justifying the use of all constructs included in our research model.

The study also tested for discriminant validity [23,24,25] by looking at all correlation matrixes with the square root of the AVEs in the diagonals. All the values were exceeding the inter-correlations of the construct with the other constructs in the model, and thus ensuring the discriminant validity.

Table 3 displays the results of our structural models. From the table, we can observe that all the standardized path coefficient of the core relationships in the TAM model in the context of social media adoption and use within organizations are significant at a level of 0.001. Therefore, all hypotheses derived from TAM (H1, H2, H3, H4, and H5) are supported for the full data, Australia, Canada, the UK, the USA and India. The standardized path coefficient related to the relationship between PS and BIU is only significant (at the level of 0.05) for the full data and for the UK (at the level of 0.1), and thus supporting our hypothesis H6 only for the full data and for the UK. This hypothesis is not supported for Australia, Canada, the USA and India, and therefore suggesting differences in adoption behavior across the countries under study when looking at the impact of perceived security on the behavioral intention to use social media within organizations.

Table 3. Results of the structural model for the full data and each country
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Also, we can observe a negative non-significant effect of PR on the BIU for the full data, Australia, Canada, the USA and India. Surprisingly, we found a positive non-significant effect of PR on the BIU for the UK data, and thus reinforcing the existence of differences in adoption behavior across the countries under study for social media adoption and use within organizations. H7 is not supported for the full data and none of the country under study.

When looking at the moderating variable, we can see that computer experience has a direct positive significant effect only on the BIU for the full data and data collected from Canada. However, the standardized path coefficient related to the moderating effects is only significant for the full data (at the level of 0.1) and data collected from the UK (at the level of 0.05), and therefore, we must accept H8 only for the full data and for the UK, and reject H8 for Australia, Canada, the USA and India.

5 Conclusion and Future Research Directions

This study starts with the aim of using an extended version of the TAM that integrates perceived risk and security to assess the acceptance of social media within the workspace across multiple countries and to test for user’s behaviors homogeneity. Also, the study investigates the moderating effects of user computer experience on the relationship between user’s attitude and intention to use social media. To test the proposed model, the study uses data collected from the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, and India. In the data analysis process, the study uses the full data and data from each country.

The study found that all core relationships in the TAM model in the context of social media adoption and use within organizations are significant at a level of 0.001 for the full data, and data collected from each country under study (Australia, Canada, the UK, the USA and India), and thus confirming the robustness of the TAM. The study found the relationship between PS and BIU is only significant for the full data and for the UK. Similarly, the study found that there is a negative non-significant effect of PR on the BIU for the full data, Australia, Canada, the USA and India, with however a positive non-significant effect of PR on the BIU for the UK data, and thus confirming the existence of differences in adoption behavior across the countries under study for social media adoption and use within organizations. Future studies may focus on using more advanced techniques to explore the presence of unobserved heterogeneity [26].

Finally, the study found that computer experience has a direct positive significant effect only on the BIU for the full data and data collected from Canada. However, the standardized path coefficient related to the moderating effects is only significant for the full data and data collected from the UK, and therefore reinforcing the existence in adoption behavior across the countries under study for social media adoption and use within organizations. Looking at the impact of these differences on the organizational performance should be included into future research directions.