Impacts of Social Media Usage in Facilitating Social Commerce: The Roles of Social Support and Cultural Identity Change

The development of social media has led to an increasing number of customers engaged in cross-border social commerce environment wherein cultural differences exert impacts on their behaviors in different manners. However, how social media usage influences customers' cultural identity change and their engagement in cross-cultural social commerce remains under-investigated. Based on the S-O-R paradigm, this study explores the mediating role of cultural identity change in social media usage and engagement in social commerce and the moderating role of social support. A total of 2,058 samples from 135 countries were surveyed through an online data platform. The results of this study show that social media usage for information and social media usage for socializing both exert positive effects on international customers' cultural identity change and then boost their engagement in social commerce. In addition, social support positively moderates the relationship between different dimensions of social media usage and cultural identity change respectively.