Adoption of social media sites by B2B companies in China

Lacka, Ewelina and Chan, Hing Kai and Chong, Alain; (2015) Adoption of social media sites by B2B companies in China. In: BAM2015 Conference Proceedings 2015. British Academy of Management, GBR.

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Abstract

Social media sites have been perceived to be irrelevant in B2B sector. This is because of the perception of poor usability of those sites for B2B marketing. This study while extending Technology Acceptance Model by Nielsen’s Model of Attributes of System Acceptability assesses the impact of usability, utility and perceived usefulness on adoption and use of social media sites in B2B context. The empirical investigation, carried out on a sample of 181 Chinese B2B companies, reveals that users’ perception of the usefulness, usability and utility of social media sites drive their adoption and use in the B2B sector. The usefulness is subject to the assessment of whether social media sites are suitable means through which marketing activities can be conducted. Users’ ability to use social media sites for B2B marketing purposes, in turn, is due to those sites learnability and memorability attributes.