IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ininma/v56y2021ics0268401220314614.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of imitation on Chinese social commerce buyers’ purchase behavior: The moderating role of uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Xiayu
  • Li, Yanrui
  • Davison, Robert M.
  • Liu, Yezheng

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore how buyers’ imitation of others’ online behavior is positively associated with purchase behavior. In addition, we consider the moderating role that product uncertainty, seller uncertainty and product fit uncertainty play in the relationship between imitation and purchase behavior. Users in China who have purchase experience on Xiaohongshu were chosen to test the hypotheses. Finally, longitudinal data from 282 respondents was collected. The findings show that imitation has a positive impact on purchase intention. Purchase intention positively affects actual purchase behavior. Product uncertainty and product fit uncertainty positively moderate the relationship between imitation and purchase intention. But seller uncertainty doesn’t moderate the relationship between imitation and purchase intention. Both theoretical and practical contributions are also considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Xiayu & Li, Yanrui & Davison, Robert M. & Liu, Yezheng, 2021. "The impact of imitation on Chinese social commerce buyers’ purchase behavior: The moderating role of uncertainty," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ininma:v:56:y:2021:i:c:s0268401220314614
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102262
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401220314614
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102262?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sohaib, Muhammad & Han, Heesup, 2023. "Building value co-creation with social media marketing, brand trust, and brand loyalty," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    2. Yogesh K Dwivedi & Elvira Ismagilova & Prianka Sarker & Anand Jeyaraj & Yassine Jadil & Laurie Hughes, 2023. "A Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Model for Understanding Social Commerce Adoption," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 1421-1437, August.
    3. Al-Omoush, Khaled Saleh & Ancillo, Antonio de Lucas & Gavrila, Sorin Gavrila, 2022. "The role of cultural values in social commerce adoption in the Arab world: An empirical study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    4. Jingjing Wu & Yiwei Chen & Lin Hu & Anxin Xu, 2022. "Influence Factors on Consumers’ Instant Cross-buying under Supermarkets’ Cross-border Integration: From the Perspective of the Elaboration Likelihood Model," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    5. Chen, Xiayu & Shen, Junya & Wei, Shaobo, 2023. "What reduces product uncertainty in live streaming e-commerce? From a signal consistency perspective," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    6. Wang, Fei & Xu, Haifeng & Hou, Ronglin & Zhu, Zhen, 2023. "Designing marketing content for social commerce to drive consumer purchase behaviors: A perspective from speech act theory," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ininma:v:56:y:2021:i:c:s0268401220314614. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-information-management .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.