Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Technological Forecasting & Social Change

The role of social support on relationship quality

and social commerce
M. Nick Hajli
Department of Management, Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 29 January 2013
Received in revised form 29 April 2014
Accepted 26 May 2014
Available online 24 June 2014
Keywords:
Social commerce
Social support
Relationship quality
Social media
Online communities
Social networking sites
PLS-SEM

a b s t r a c t
Empowered by social media, individuals are active content creators in social networking sites.
This has brought new changes in business environment, of which social commerce is one
of them. Social commerce, a new stream in e-commerce, highlights the role of technological
advancements to develop a new social commerce era. In social commerce era, individuals
share their knowledge, experiences, and information about the products and services with
peers, providing a supportive environment in an online context. Drawn from social support
theory, relationship quality, and social media concept this research proposes a model to
investigate the role of social factors that impact on relationship quality and social commerce
intention. A survey conducted on Facebook, a popular social networking site, and PLS-SEM
method was applied to empirically test the proposed model. The results offer a valuable picture
of social factors that influence relationship quality and social commerce intention. Towards
these ends, the study highlights a new picture of consumers' behaviour in social commerce era.
It provides a new theory in the area of research social commerce. Practical implications of the
research also highlight new technological changes in e-commerce platform and provide new
strategies to firms to adopt these new technological advancements.
2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The proliferation of the internet has given the opportunity
to consumers to use social media, from email to Twitter and
Facebook, to have social interactions with other users without
meeting them [1]. Consumers are now content generators
on the internet by using new technologies [2], which offer new
opportunities for both businesses and consumers [3]. The use
of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as leading social networking
sites (SNSs) has increased, with their popularity creating
new routes for e-vendors, called social commerce [4]. YouTube
and Facebook are among the most popular SNSs [5], which
increasingly attract individuals to SNSs, mostly because of
individuals' perceived usefulness [6]. In recent years, SNSs and
online communities have been growing quickly [7,8]. SNSs have
different values, such as relationship marketing and relationship
E-mail address: m.hajli@bbk.ac.uk.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2014.05.012
0040-1625/ 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

quality [9] and these social networks offer a suitable environment in identifying emerging social behavioural changes [8].
Identifying emerging social behavioural changes is important
due to the fact that development of e-commerce to social
commerce is a behaviour change [10]. The concept behind social
commerce is that social media benefits commercial transactions
of vendors by developing closer relationships with customers,
enriching the quality of the relationship, increasing sales and
encouraging loyalty to the business. To reach these aims, a
business may use a social media tool such as Facebook or
Twitter to gain access to social platforms. Because social media
now influence marketing activities [11], consumers who use
social media communicate with brands [1214] and generate a
positive effect on brand evaluation [15]. Companies can now
apply social media strategies to influence [16] and increase their
sales [7,17]. Therefore, it is useful to understand how people use
social media for communication to form new forms of social
interaction [1,18] and find out about consumer behaviour in

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M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

an online context. In addition investigating social commerce

intentions and drivers for social commerce may make the
market familiar with the influence of technological advancements, particularly Web 2.0 and its effects on consumer's
behaviour in the social commerce era. Social commerce is
facilitated by technologies such as social media for consumers to
have interactions and to gather contributions by individuals to
gain information about buying a product or service [4]. Social
commerce, social media and Web 2.0 technologies demand
new issues and the development of new theories in this area
and may be one of the most challenging areas of information
systems (IS) and marketing research in the coming decade [4].
Research shows that customers like to share their shopping
experiences with other friends [10]. These experiences are
important for consumers, especially when they receive information from friends and this influences their shopping
behaviour [19]. It is argued that consumers in an online context
are most influenced by word of mouth (WOM), which is the
high-flying feature on the internet [19] and has ripple effect
[20]. WOM occurs when consumers share their experiences
about a product or leave their views with other consumers [21].
Social interaction and relationship of individuals in the
online context are mostly based on shared interests [22] and
produce information richness in the transaction environment
[23] leading to better customer understanding. Being in a
group and having social interaction with other members are
human needs; these are now facilitated by Web 2.0 applications such as social media. Online communities such as SNSs
are new web services providing both personal experiences
and information sharing in a business context [7].
In this research, the author proposes a model to investigate the social interaction of consumers on the internet in
social commerce era. In particular, this will investigate social
support to explain the effects of social factors on relationship
quality and social commerce intention. Social support refers
to the social interaction of people in a group and their feelings
about being cared for, being answered to and being supported
[24]. Social support is defined as The social resources that
persons perceive to be available or that are actually provided
to them by non-professionals in the context of both formal
support groups and informal helping relationships. [25].
Social support has been thoroughly investigated in psychology, sociology and health studies [26]. With the emergence
of Web 2.0 and social relationships in social technologies, it is
now being welcomed into business studies [27]. People share
their knowledge and experiences more freely when they feel that
their participation improves their reputation [28]. Twitter as a
popular SNS is a good example, where members of communities
regularly provide social support for others [1]. Availability of
online social support in SNSs [29] is a factor which may influence
social commerce intentions. There are a number of established
researches based on social support theory in online community
studies [10,30,31]. This research will extend theory to online social
support based on the relationship of individuals on the internet.
Therefore social support in terms of relationship quality, can result
in better understanding of both customer loyalty and adoption.
This has also facilitated the use of information systems and
marketing disciplines in this context.
Although the adoption of information technology and
e-commerce has been studied in depth, there is a need for
new theoretical frameworks to include social interaction of

consumers on the internet and its applications for businesses

and marketing strategies. Accordingly, this research addresses
these questions: (1) Does perceived social support in SNSs
influence a consumer's decision to become involved in social
commerce? (2) Does perceived social support in SNSs influence
relationship quality? (3) Is relationship quality or perceived
social support more important in shaping a consumer's decision
to deal in social commerce?
To answer these questions a survey was conducted with
Facebook users in the UK.
2. Social commerce
Social commerce has emerged from the advancements
in information and communication technologies (ICTs) and
Web 2.0 applications [32], where consumers are empowered
to generate content and also interact with businesses [33].
The social environment of online communities is a suitable
place to share information and knowledge [34] and these
environments are knowledge management platforms [35].
These communities can be an opportunity for businesses
to employ digital marketing [36], produce informational and
emotional supports for consumers [30,37], market communications [38] or enrich value of co-creation in branding [39].
These advancements have given opportunities to consumers to create their own content, rate and review services
and products and leave their comments on the internet. In fact,
customer involvement is a key strategic factor in marketing
[40]. Therefore, the study of social commerce can be an important agenda for marketing discipline.
The basis of social commerce is in commercial activities,
social media technologies and community interactions [4]. To
adopt a social commerce strategy, business can configure it
in two ways. They can keep their current e-commerce website
and use the applications and extensions of SNSs to facilitate
interface on their website for interaction with communities in
SNSs. This community can be a page for instance on Facebook
or Twitter. Alternatively, SNSs such as Facebook add commercial features for advertising or commercial purposes. These
configurations give opportunities to interact with customers to
encourage better understanding of their needs or to develop
their relationship quality with their customers.
3. Theoretical background and literature review
Customers are partners and part of a value creation chain
in a business [39,41]. Therefore, businesses need to understand their customers [42] and building marketing relationships with them is necessary. Relationship quality as an
important factor in relationship marketing literature is
related to different factors; this can influence loyalty towards
a business [42,43]. Relationship quality can be defined in
various categories. However, it is mostly focused on trust,
commitment and relationship satisfaction [42,44]. Relationship quality in an online context can be categorized to
characteristics and behaviour of the vendor [44]. In the online
context, an e-vendor promotes relationship quality in
different ways including investment in the relationship with
customers, customer relationship management, social support, etc.

M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

3.1. Social support in an online context

People hang out on online communities to receive social
support [45]. Social support can be defined as perceived care,
love and support of members of a group [24]. Individuals
receive supportive resources in relationships developed with
friends in their communities [46]. With the rise of social
technologies, the new environment of content delivery has
been made much easier, where users can share information
and knowledge; it is much more user-friendly than before
[34]. These relationships and ties between members provide
emotional aid and information support [22,46]; this is now
available in SNSs [30]. Members of an online community
carry out different individual actions, which contribute to the
group by information sharing about a product or service [47].
In fact, community interaction influences the community
commitment of members [48]. The main reason why people
join online communities is for social support and to exchange
relevant information [45]. Hence, it is important to investigate these SNSs to see how people integrate information and
use communication technologies (ICTs) by employing social
interactions on the internet [1]. Receiving emotional and informative support brings warmth to people in SNSs [10,45].
Users on these platforms provide support to each other.
Moreover, the social interactions of individuals through social
media facilitate and influence their decisions in purchase
process [49]. These two constructs, informational and emotional supports, have been investigated in this study, although
social support can be viewed as a multidimensional construct.

19

concept in relationship marketing [42]. This relationship is

dependent on the vendor service quality and how it builds the
connection with consumers.
3.3. Social commerce intention
Social commerce intention is a measurement of how to
anticipate a possible consumer's actions. This new stream, social
commerce, tries to use the commercial opportunities in SNSs
with the relationships in networks and communities to gain
commercial advantages [58]. These commercial advantages can
lead the business to increase their sales or improve customer
loyalty. Intention to use has been thoroughly investigated
before through the introduction of related theories such as
theory of reasoned action, theory of technology acceptance
model and theory of planned behaviour. Consequently, we use
intention to use social commerce for the outcome construct of
the proposed model of this research to see the relationship and
power of social support and relationship quality. A consumer's
attitude to social commerce does not influence his or her
intention to use social commerce, although it may be affected by
the actual behaviour of their activities in a group or community
[59]. In fact, social interaction of members in a group is likely to
be one of the main factors in determining consumer behaviour
[47]. Hence, their peers and associates have great influence on
intention to use in social commerce. The quality and quantity of
information provided by consumers, such as costumer reviews
and ratings, influence social commerce intention [40].
4. The research framework

3.2. Relationship quality

Relationship quality refers to relationship closeness or strength
and it is one of the key determinants of customer loyalty [41].
Relationship quality is a key concept in relationship marketing.
Research shows that relationship quality has mainly three facets;
trust, relationship satisfaction and relationship commitment [50].
Therefore, in this research the author assumes that better
relationship quality is accompanied by these indicators.
Trust is a central issue in most economic and social
transactions, especially in an online context where there
may be lots of uncertainty [51]. Trust also is a central issue
in social commerce [52]. Trust in a business shows that
an e-vendor is honest and benevolent [53]. Benevolence
and credibility are seen as two distinct types of trust [54].
Credibility based trust, which usually is impersonal and relies
on reputation information, refers to the belief that the other
party in a transaction is reliable and honest; benevolence,
however, refers to repeated sellerbuyer relationships [54].
Relationship commitment refers to an individual's desire to
continue a relationship with a retailer [50]. Commitment is a
main factor for a long term relationship [55]. This indicator of
relationship quality shows the importance of the relationship
with service provider that maximise the efforts to guarantee
the relationship [56]. Relationship satisfaction, the other
indicator of relationship quality, refers to the affective state
of people from their complete evaluation of the relationship
they have with other people [50]. Investment in a relationship
with consumers has a direct and great impact on intention
to buy in consumers and also in customer retention [57]. The
strength of this relationship or relationship quality is a key

This study identified three constructs which build up the

research model of this paper: social support, relationship
quality and social commerce intention. The author intends to
test the direct and indirect relationships of these constructs
on social commerce intention.
4.1. Research hypotheses
In order to have a better understanding of our research
framework, the corresponding elements of our research
framework are shown in Fig. 1.
4.1.1. Effect of social support
Members of online social networks have informational and
social supports within the group [22]. Individuals may join SNSs
and online communities as there is social support, both
emotional and informational [45]. Consumer communications
in social media which endorse a brand positively, can affect their
intentional behaviour [15]. They support their friends through
the provision of information, knowledge and experiences as well
as their emotional support. In an online context, these social
supports are the added value for networks and communities.
These values encourage people to be more active and share their
information and support other people. They receive informational and emotional supports from other members of communities, which in turn lead them to use the SNSs and other social
platforms when buying a product or service. This type of
information and experiences related by consumers are supportive in making purchase decisions as they can present direct or
indirect product or service experience [40]. Socialization and

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M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

Commitment

Relaonship quality
H3

Sasfacon

Social commerce
intenon

H2

H1

Trust
Social support

Emoonal support

Informaonal support

Fig. 1. The research model.

social interaction of consumers through social media affect

purchasing decision [60]. Additionally, information provided by a
third party has influence in intention to buy [61]. Accordingly,
this research hypothesizes:
H1. The perception of social support in a SNS is positively
associated with the user's social commerce intention.
In addition, informational and emotional supports generated in
online communities are likely to increase trust, commitment and
satisfaction in consumers. Participation and interaction of consumers in online communities have a positive influence on
consumer commitment, which leads to more trust in the
community itself [62]. Research shows that individuals need to
have social interaction with their network in order to please their
social desires for belonging, which provide them commitment to
their network [63]. By popularity of SNSs many users have a sense
of belonging to their favourite SNS. Information produced through
customer review can be as informant and recommender [40] and
can generate complimentary consequences [61]. The relationship
of individuals in SNSs and the availability of social support offer
trust to the network [64] and satisfaction to consumers [31].
Moreover, social interaction of members influences further
commitment of other members in online communities [48]. It is
also argued that social media activities of companies positively
affect their relation equity [11]. Hence, the author hypothesizes:
H2. The perception of social support in a SNS has a positive
effect on relationship quality between consumers and an
e-vendor's website.
4.1.2. Effect of relationship quality
Members of online communities intend to participate in
group activities and support other members through their

social interactions and communications on the provided

platform [65]. These interactions build trust among members
and satisfy them with the provision of informational and
emotional supports. The support and benefits they gain create
value, which in turn brings satisfaction to them [10]. Therefore
the social support from their social interactions can persuade
them to re-use the system [66] and influence their social
commerce intention. Research shows that relationship quality
positively affects purchase in consumers [67,68]. Therefore, the
research postulates the following hypothesis:
H3. Relationship quality has a positive effect on user's social
commerce intention in SNSs.
5. Research methodology
5.1. Strategy of research
It was assumed that social relationships of users on SNSs
create value. This study takes the positivist paradigm and
employs a survey base strategy. The first part of the research
contains a pilot study on 68 students in the UK, London. The
pilot study is carried out with 68 participants, comprised
of 59% women and 41% men. Participants are recruited
from among postgraduate and undergraduate students of
the University of London. The study was conducted in the
University of London. The pilot study assisted the researcher
to test the questionnaire and the overall quality of survey
before conducting the main research.
5.1.1. Measurement development
All constructs of the proposed model were adopted from
existing literature as shown in Table 1 to increase the reliability
and validity of the research.

M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

21

Table 1
Final constructs of the model after pilot study.
Codes

Scales

Factor loading

Social support
Adapted from Liang, Ho, Li, and Turban [10]
SE1
SE2
SE3
SE4

Emotional support
When faced with difficulties, some
When faced with difficulties, some
When faced with difficulties, some
When faced with difficulties, some

SI1
SI2
SI3

Informational support
On the Facebook, some people would offer suggestions when I needed help.
When I encountered a problem, some people on Facebook would give me information to help me overcome the problem.
When faced with difficulties, some people on Facebook would help me discover the cause and provide me with suggestions.

0.798
0.757
0.814

RC1
RC2
RC3

Relationship quality
Adapted from Liang, Ho, Li, and Turban [10,55]
Commitment
I am proud to belong to the membership of Facebook.
I feel a sense of belonging to Facebook.
I care about the long-term success of Facebook.

0.861
0.862
0.837

RS1
RS2
RS3

Satisfaction
I am satisfied with using Facebook.
I am pleased with using Facebook.
I am happy with Facebook.

0.797
0.892
0.891

RT1
RT2
RT3

Trust
The performance of Facebook always meets my expectations.
Facebook can be counted on as a good social networking site.
Facebook is a reliable social networking site.

0.707
0.785
0.826

IB1
IB2
IB3
IB4

Social commerce intention

Adapted from Hajli, M.; Liang, Ho, Li, and Turban [10,69]
I am very likely to provide the online vendor with the information it needs to better serve my needs.
I am willing to provide my experiences and suggestions when my friends on the Facebook want my advice on buying something.
I am willing to buy the products recommended by my friends on Facebook.
I will consider the shopping experiences of my friends on Facebook when I want to shop.

0.701
0.700
0.848
0.791

people
people
people
people

on
on
on
on

Facebook
Facebook
Facebook
Facebook

are on my side with me.

comforted and encouraged me.
listened to me talk about my private feelings.
expressed interest and concern in my well-being.

Some of the research constructs have multi dimensions.

Relationship quality measured by satisfaction, trust and commitment and finally, social support has two components;
emotional and informational supports. Social commerce intention, the dependent variable of the research model, measures
the willingness of a consumer to share his or her experience,
gives advice to other members, seeks the information and
advice to buy a product or service and recommends a service
or product to other members in the SNSs.
5.1.2. Instrument development
A questionnaire developed to test the model (Fig. 1) and
the items were measured on a Likert-scale. A seven-point has
been chosen, from 1 strongly disagree to 7 strongly agree.
Although the questionnaire items were adopted from previous studies, the author developed the instrument in different
phases based on the three stage instrument development
by Moore and Benbasat [70]. In the first step, items of the
questionnaire were created. Some of the items were adopted
from existing literature and some of them from previous
work. Content validity was the object of this step [70].
Content validity; this refers to the instrument measures,
which must strained from all probable measures of the
properties in a study [71]. This is mostly a qualitative assessment [72]. To have a proper content validity, the research
goes through a substantial literature review in the domain of

0.706
0.845
0.727
0.722

information systems, marketing, psychology and sociology to

support the theory and related issues for the proposed model.
The author also used expert judge approach [72], by sending
the questionnaire, model, and issue on structural equation
modelling (SEM), to experts in each field to increase the
validity of the research. In addition to this step, a pilot study
of students supported the research and helped the author
to check and balance the research procedures. Finally, the
constructs of the model are from existing literature, which
helped the research to find the tested questionnaire items.
This ensured the content validity of the research.
Scale development; the establishment of a panel of judges
was the second stage of the instrument development. In this
stage, the goal was to assess the construct validity of research
and to ensure the questionnaire items were not ambiguous
[70]. Finally the instrument reached the testing stage in the
pilot study. In this stage, the research had 68 samples, mostly
undergraduate and postgraduate students in the UK. Questionnaires were distributed over a two month period, May
and June 2012, in a British university. The research also
launched a website to gather the data through e-survey.
From 100 questionnaires, this phase had 68 useable
questionnaires for the pilot test phase. This stage had different
aims. The first was to make sure our previous steps to design
the questionnaire were done properly and to assess the
reliability of the instrument [70]. The reliability of the research

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M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

investigated stability across the units of observation [71]. The

research was also looking for face validity of each item, as this
was the objective of this testing [72].
The scales were analysed by Cronbach's alpha. As recommended, the present research targeted levels of 0.70 to 0.80
ranges for minimum reliability. The reliability of the pilot
test is shown in Table 2. The AVE was used to determine the
validity and item loading of each construct. Some candidate
responses then had to be deleted from the questionnaire. This
is shown in Table 2.
One of the items that had low item loading was deleted
to enhance the Cronbach's alpha and AVE [70]. The total of
dropped items was one and it was IB3, and the new items are
replaced in Table 1. However, the overall content validity of
research and the domain coverage of constructs were checked
[70]. As the constructs had enough items, the dropping did
not affect the overall quality of scale. Some other considerations were those with factor loading less than 0.70. The
remaining items in the questionnaire are shown in Table 3.
The purpose of analysing responses in the pilot test was
to increase the reliability and validity of the test. To improve
the reliability of the scale, questionnaire wording, quality
of the questionnaire and other overall issues were considered. These steps ensured that the research was ready to be
conducted.
5.1.3. Data collection procedures and sample
The present study used paper and e-questionnaire to
maximise the number of samples. Sampling approach is
convenience sampling. As many people are using Facebook in
the UK, convenience sampling was a strategy to collect data
from volunteer individuals in the UK. This approach also
recommended for a quantitative method. Data for the main
study has been collected in the UK in 2012, asking individuals
who are member of SNSs to fill out paper questionnaires or
inviting them by email to participate in an online version of the
questionnaire. The author has excluded pilot study samples
from the main test. The research only targeted samples from
Facebook and excluded others. The first question was a filter
question in order to select only members of one SNS.
Therefore, we invited 1000 people. The author excluded
samples with a membership in other social networking sites
(only 2%). The reason for this was that most of those who
responded were members of Facebook. In addition Facebook
is a popular SNS. The range of participants was between 18
Table 2
Quality criteria for pilot test and field test.
Scale

Relationship quality
Commitment
Trust
Satisfaction
Social commerce
intention
Social support
Emotional support
Informational support

Pilot test (n = 68)

Field test (n = 200)

AVE

Cronbach's
alpha

AVE

Cronbach's
alpha

0.480
0.555
0.548
0.757
0.468

0.858
0.709
0.704
0.840
0.670

0.747
0.728
0.600
0.741
0.543

0.878
0.809
0.701
0.820
0.702

0.496
0.573
0.633

0.829
0.751
0.711

0.837
0.536
0.624

0.823
0.713
0.703

First order constrcuts highlighted.

Table 3
Instrument development results.
Scale

Original
length

Reduced
length

Note

Social support
Relationship quality
Social commerce intention

7
9
5

7
9
5

No changes
No changes
IB3 deleted and new
item replaced.

and 50 years old; 56% were female and 44% male. They were
mostly residents of London. More than 85% of the participants visit Facebook every day. Demographic information of
this research is shown in Table 4.
In designing the webpage for the questionnaire, the
author considered different issues to attract participants to
become involved in the research; this included good graphic
design, an easy to navigate questionnaire and distribution
throughout many forum and online communities, such as
Facebook. The goal was to attract a variety of participants in
the research. From emails and paper questionnaires distributed through different channels, a total of 232 responses were
received. A few participants were members of other SNSs or
they had a lot of missing data. The total number of 200 usable
questionnaires was prepared for data analysis, of which 123
were online and 77 paper versions.
5.2. Data analysis approach
5.2.1. Structural equation modelling
The use of structural equation modelling (SEM) in social
sciences is growing as it provides researchers with a complete resource for assessing theoretical models [73,74].
This is a powerful tool for the development of a theory.
Additionally, SEM is good for construct validation [73] as it
has advantages over other traditional approaches such as
multi regressions [75,76]. Hence, this research used SEM to
test the proposed model.
5.2.2. Partial least square
A partial least square (PLS) method is one of the popular
procedures in IS researches [77]. This method is from a family
of regression based research methods and was originally
developed to deal with complex data in a low-structure
situation [78]. There are a number of reasons for the popularity
of PLS, such as the ability to investigate latent variables under
conditions of non-normality as in this research [79]. Latent
variables are those constructs that cannot be measured directly
as a dependent variable can. The other advantage of PLS is
that it is appropriate for handling small to medium sample
sizes [77,79]. PLS is good for both theory confirmation and
exploratory research [79]. Social commerce is an emerging
Table 4
Demographic information.
Social
networking
site

Gender

Facebook

56%
female

44%
male

Country/city
of resident

Respond
received

Usable
questionnaire

UK London

232

200

M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

stream in e-commerce and there is not enough theoretical

information for it to date. Moreover, the use of social support
theory in information systems and marketing is a new approach
[10,37]. Overall, the nature of this research is mostly exploratory research. PLS is a good method to target this [78].
This study is looking for applications and predictions for
social commerce; Chin et al., [79] suggest PLS is more suitable
to LISREL. In fact, PLS has relative strengths for both application
and prediction [73]. The research uses the resampling method
of SmartPLS software for significance testing. In the present
study, the bootstrapping of 600 re-samples and 200 cases per
sample was carried out in order to assess the path significance.
The estimate of bootstrap provides the basis for confidence
intervals allowing an estimation of factor stability [77].

6. Results

23

6.2. Validity
To test the validity of the instrument, the author considered
construct validity. Construct validity refers to stability across
methodology, which needs to be investigated for discriminant
validity and divergent validity [71]. Average variance extracted
(AVE) values, which should be at least 0.50, were the source for
convergent validity [15], indicated in Table 2. All of the
constructs achieved this criterion. Discriminant validity was
assessed by comparing the square of the correlations among
the latent variables with the AVE [75]; this is shown in Table 5.
Finally, the author measured the model by examining
the factor loadings of each indicator, which gave another way
to assess convergent validity and discriminant [80]. Factor
loadings of an indicator should be greater than the construct
of it than on any other factor [75,80]. Sufficient convergent
and discriminant validity are demonstrated in Table 6.

6.1. Reliability
6.3. Structural model
Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability scores are two
tools used to measure the reliability of the research. Cronbach's
alpha is shown in Table 2. The reliability of pilot and field test
is illustrated in Table 2. and shows how steps in the post pilot
test improved the reliability and validity of the test. In addition,
composite reliability is indicated in Table 5. By measuring
internal consistency scores; both exceed 0.70. These results
ensure the research has sufficient reliability [15].

The results from PLS using SmartPLS software [81] are

shown in Fig. 2. According to the graph, all the paths in the
proposed model are positively significant at the 0.05 level. By
looking at how the model fits, R2s show that almost 36% of
the variance in the social commerce intention was accounted
for by social support and relationship quality. This means that
social commerce intention was affected by social support and

Table 5
Square of correlation between latent variables.

Commitment

Emotional
support

Informational
support

Social
commerce
intention

Relationship
quality

Satisfaction

Social
Support

Trust

Commitment

0.853

Emotional
support

0.345

0.732

Informational
support

0.443

0.676

0.790

Social
commerce
intention

0.516

0.433

0.526

0.737

Relationship
quality

0.834

0.394

0.497

0.517

0.864

Satisfaction

0.589

0.327

0.436

0.418

0.898

0.861

Social
support

0.430

0.922

0.908

0.523

0.486

0.415

0.915

Trust

0.557

0.351

0.406

0.402

0.860

0.715

0.414

0.774

AVE

0.728

0.536

0.624

0.543

0.747

0.741

0.837

0.600

Composite
reliability

0.889

0.820

0.833

0.823

0.899

0.895

0.911

0.818

Notes: Numbers on the diagonal (in boldface) are the average variance extracted. Other numbers are the square of correlation.

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M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

Table 6
Cross loadings.

Indicators

Commitment

Emotional
support

Informational
support

Social
commerce
intention

Satisfaction

Trust

RC1

0.861

0.353

0.455

0.491

0.576

0.532

RC2

0.862

0.293

0.347

0.471

0.472

0.445

RC3

0.837

0.230

0.322

0.351

0.453

0.442

SE1

0.246

0.706

0.401

0.178

0.150

0.217

SE2

0.320

0.845

0.645

0.422

0.329

0.319

SE3

0.303

0.727

0.430

0.358

0.188

0.212

SE4

0.134

0.722

0.468

0.274

0.263

0.268

SI1

0.330

0.540

0.798

0.410

0.369

0.259

SI2

0.231

0.549

0.757

0.378

0.290

0.285

SI3

0.485

0.512

0.814

0.459

0.373

0.418

IB1

0.394

0.313

0.364

0.701

0.188

0.243

IB2

0.268

0.358

0.394

0.7000

0.228

0.206

IB3

0.431

0.356

0.410

0.848

0.398

0.390

IB4

0.414

0.252

0.384

0.791

0.386

0.320

RS1

0.408

0.227

0.339

0.309

0.797

0.458

RS2

0.607

0.242

0.380

0.382

0.892

0.663

RS3

0.490

0.371

0.404

0.381

0.891

0.701

RT1

0.488

0.232

0.362

0.358

0.577

0.707

RT2

0.390

0.329

0.236

0.335

0.554

0.785

RT3

0.410

0.255

0.342

0.237

0.526

0.826

Note: IB = social commerce intention; RC = commitment; RS = satisfaction; RT = trust; SE = emotional support; SI = informational support.
Notes: Numbers on the diagonal (in boldface) are the factor loading of each item.

relationship quality. The R2 for relationship quality means

that almost 24% of the variance in relationship quality was
accounted for by social support. Hence, the results indicate
that the model has the satisfactory level of explanation power.
According to the results of path coefficients (p-value),
relationship quality (0.337) and social support (0.319) both
have significant effects on social commerce. Hence, H1 and
H3 are supported. They have almost the same effect on social
commerce intention although relationship quality is slightly

stronger. Social support also has a significant effect on relationship quality (0.486) and this effect is strong. Therefore,
H2 is supported. Fig. 2 shows the p-value of constructs.
7. Discussions and conclusion
Social relationships of consumers on the internet, through
the popularity of social media, have seen the emergence of
a new concept entitled social commerce. Drawing on social

M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

25

Commitment

0.833***

Relaonship quality
R2

Sasfacon
0.899***

R2
0.337**

0.235

0.351

Path Coefficient
0.861***

Social commerce
intenon

Path Coefficient
0.319**

0.486***

Path Coefficient

Trust
Social support
0.909***

0.899***

Emoonal support

Informaonal support

Fig. 2. Results of the PLS analysis. ** p b .01; ***p b .001.

support theory from social psychology discipline, relationship quality form marketing track, and social media perspective from information systems, a research has been
developed to investigate consumer behaviour in this era of
social commerce. The goal is to find the commercial values
offered by Web 2.0 technologies for both businesses and
consumers. The proposed model reports on social constructs and
the ability to increase relationship quality in business, leading to an
impact on an individual's social commerce intention.
Consumers use social media to share their knowledge,
information and experiences with other peers in their groups
and communities. These advancements make consumers part of
a value creation process for business through the social support
they provide on the internet. The research reveals that their
social support contains informational and emotional supports. It
has been empirically tested and results show that social support
has a positive effect on relationship quality. These supports also
significantly affect relationship quality.
This finding indicates that the social interactions of
consumers have different advantages for business. Consumers
join online communities or use social media and generate
textual information about a product or service. This information
can increase relation quality in a business, leading to increased
loyalty. Therefore, the valuable information created on the
internet has many advantages, relationship quality being one
of them. The co-creation environment engages consumers in a
value creation process for a business.
Another valuable result of the research concerns the positive effect of relationship quality on social commerce intention.
Relationship quality, measured by commitment, trust and
satisfaction, has the potential to enhance social commerce
intention. Relationship quality is seen as a foundation in
marketing literature and is important for shaping customer
loyalty; this is influenced by social support. In fact, social

support can increase commitment, trust and satisfaction,

leading to improved customer loyalty. This is a key finding
for businesses to adopt social media strategies to establish an
environment for their consumers to develop social support,
which in turn can enhance customer loyalty through relationship quality. Firms in social commerce era are facing huge
challenges by technological advancements on the market.
Researching and investigating these kinds of issues may
shift these challenges to opportunities for firms to adjust their
business strategies. The results of this study highlight the
importance of online communities and social networking sites,
which offer a supportive climate for consumers. This supportive
environment has different values, of which this research investigates the relationship quality. Improving relationship quality
through trust, commitment, and satisfaction influences social
commerce intention and makes social networking sites a valuable
place for businesses. Forecasting consumer's behaviour in social
commerce era, therefore, is a contribution for this research.
The findings of the research have some key points for
marketing and information systems disciplines. Firstly, the
research highlights the role of social interaction of consumers
on the internet. In the current era, where social media has
an increasing popularity among individuals, social relationships among consumers encourage them to participate in
online activities, including commerce. Social support with
emotional and informational dimensions as tested in this
research is now being created in SNSs as a new concept called
online social support. This factor is a key construct in the
development of e-commerce to social commerce. It is mostly
because supportive interactions among consumers in SNSs
produce stronger relationships, making them feel closer to
peers. It is one of the main reasons for individuals joining
SNSs; they feel comfortable with their peers and receive both
emotional and informational supports. Hence, it is a valuable

26

M.N. Hajli / Technological Forecasting & Social Change 87 (2014) 1727

tool to use this supportive environment for relationship

quality. This environment empowers and encourages users
to share their knowledge, information and experiences of
products or services. Moreover, this supportive environment
encourages consumers to come back to the website of a
company, leading to better relationship quality and loyalty.
Therefore, these interactions can shape different values, from
better customer relationship management to customer loyalty
for a business.
Overall, the aim of this research is to investigate the social
interactions of individuals on SNSs, which produce social
support, leading to relationship quality and social commerce
intention. The contribution of the research is to apply social
support theory and integrate it with relationship quality
from marketing discipline to gain a better understanding of
what drives social commerce and what are the commercial
values of social media for business marketing strategies. In
fact, the model has the potential to determine the role of
social factors in e-commerce and marketing strategies. This
has been shown in the model through social support and
relationship marketing. The other contribution of the research
is to highlight the role of IS theories in marketing studies.
Proposing social support in the online environment in the
model and examining its influence on relationship quality,
show that theories from both information systems and
marketing need to be investigated with a view to application
in social media.
In conclusion, the research intent is to show the significant
role of social interaction of consumers in social platforms
provided by Web 2.0 in social commerce era. These social
interactions produce different values for business, which in
turn encourages companies to apply social media strategies,
for instance, to adjust their business plans to meet the present
social environment. It also highlights the role of active
consumers and how they can help business to have a better
understanding of customers' needs. Finally, this study looks at
the future of e-commerce and predicts consumer's behaviour
in social commerce era. Forecasting consumer's behaviour
in social commerce may provide a foundation for firms to
develop their social media strategies and adopt new technological advancements.
The finding suggests to organizations that they should
develop online communities and not only focus on the
content of their communities, but also establish social
support and friendship within the community. Individuals
join online communities and use SNSs to get information
and receive social support, which can produce trust, lead to
satisfaction and enhance commitment. For businesses that
are looking to build up a web presence, it is important to
know why people join online communities. These communities can also help them to have better customer relationships. It is also an important area to conduct more research
as what happened in marketing and IS disciplines, where
efforts have been made to try to understand consumer
behaviour. Therefore, developing social media strategies
to attract more customers to these platforms is essential in
the current environment where consumers are connected
through SNSs.
This research, as in other studies, has some limitations.
Firstly, the results are based on attitudes from Facebook users
and might be different in other SNSs. Secondly, the research

used student samples in the pilot study, which might be

different from other participants in this case. However, the field
test has investigated ordinary users. Future research should
develop the model by collecting data from other samples in
other SNSs.

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M. Nick Hajli is an associate lecturer at the University of London and
adjunct assistant professor at Richmond University. His research is in social
commerce, social media and online communities. He has been published in
refereed journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, International Journal of
Market Research and International Journal of Innovation Management.