Mohammad Dalvi-Esfahani,

Higher Education Institute of Al-Mahdi Mehr Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

E-mail: mohammaddalvi@hotmail.com

Factors Influencing Beliefs Formation towards the Adoption of Social Commerce in SME Travel Agencies

Hamed Shahbazi,

Faculty of Engineering, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

E-mail: shahbazi@eng.ui.ac.ir

Mehrbakhsh Nilashi,

School of Computing, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia

E-mail: nilashidotnet@hotmail.com

Sarminah Samad,

CBA Research Centre, Collage of Business and Administration, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

E-mail: sarminahsamad@hotmail.com

Abbas Mardani,

Azman Hashim International Business School, 

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Malaysia

E-mail: mabbas3@live.utm.my

Dalia Streimikiene,

Lithaunian Institute of Agrarian Economcs instead of Lithuanian Institute of Agricultural Economics, Vilnius, Lithuania

E-mail: dalia.streimikiene@lei.lt

Abstract. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence beliefs formation towards the adoption of social commerce in SME travel agencies. Accordingly, a distal-proximal model is developed to study CEOs’ beliefs towards the usefulness of social commerce. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of travel agencies’ CEOs in Isfahan, Iran. With 180 collected data from respondents, the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling approach was taken to assess both measurement and structural models of the study. The results revealed that CEOs’ innovativeness and attitude towards IT as individual factors, and organizational resources as institutional factor were significantly explained beliefs formation of respondents towards the usefulness of social commerce. However, it was found that the influences of CEOs’ IT knowledge, subjective norms (professional peers, employees) and firm size on perceived usefulness were found insignificant. Implications of the study are further discussed.

Received: February, 2018

1st Revision: March, 2018

Accepted: June, 2018

DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2018/11-3/13

JEL Classification: D02, O17, P31

Keywords: social commerce, distal-proximal, travel agency, small and medium-sized enterprises