Social Support for Social Commerce: An Empirical Study with Trust as a Mediator and Culture as Moderator

Purpose - Social commerce (SC) is the growth of social media highlighting the e-commerce transactions and currently, the greatest challenges of e-commerce have attracted the influence of trust in social commerce intention (SCI). Based on the challenge, the study's purpose is to discover the effect of social support (informational and emotional support) on the SCI. The study also explores the mediation effect of trust and the moderation impact of culture between the USA and Korea. Design/methodology - This study used a sample of 482 surveys filled out by online shoppers from the US and Korea, two countries with divergent cultural values. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to analyze the hypothetical paths. In addition, bootstrapping and multi-group analysis are perform to view mediation and moderation effects respectively. Findings - The results of our study shows that both informational and emotional support significantly influences trust and SCI. Our results also supports the mediating effect of trust in social support and the moderating effect of culture in forming SCI. Originality/value - Our empirical results provide important information to businesses formulating cross-cultural SC strategies. This will help SC companies to analyze the aspects of customer trust through social support, which in turn will increase SCI and thereby established a competitive position for SCs. Our results will also be holistic directions for SC vendors in cross-cultural settings, which will offer important social and economic contributions to the sustainable growth of SC's business.