Assessing the effect of culture on social acceptability of social media in B2B context: Chinese culture perspective

The literature suggests that the adoption and use of social media can derive a number of benefits to B2B firms (see Siamagka et al, 2015; Wang et al, 2016). Despite the benefits however, the adoption and use of social media in B2B setting is slow (Lacka and Chong, 2016), so is research examining social media adoption by B2B firms (Iankova et al, 2018). To date, only a handful of studies explored factors driving social media use for B2B marketing purposes (Siamagka et al, 2015; Lacka and Chong, 2016). Lacka and Chong (2016), for example, revealed that practical acceptability (perceived usefulness, usability and utility) drives adoption decision. They ignored however the role of social acceptability, referred to social factors, which according to Nielsen (1993) is crucial in the technology adoption decision. Social factors are conceptualised as subjective norms or group norms, which motive persuasion of specific behaviour (e.g. technology use). The importance of assessing social acceptability has been most recently highlighted by Brink (2017), who recognises the key role of leadership from senior managers in the adoption and use of social media by B2B firms. Empirical research is however yet to verify such an impact. In addition to limited research on B2B social media adoption, there is lack of research on the role culture plays in the adoption decision. Previous research has showed hat culture impacts adoption of social media and its use (e.g. Hsu et al, 2015). Yet, there is lack of research on the impact of culture on the social media adoption in B2B setting. This study aims to address this research gap. Specifically, in line with this conference call this study aims to examine the impact of Chinese culture on social media adoption by B2B marketing professionals. This will be achieved though exploratory quantitative study.