A Theoretic Extension and Empirical investigation of conducting Business Online Social Network: The Continuance Intention Phenomenon

Online Social Network (OSN) is a web 2.0 enabled technology that permits OSN participants to interact with both old and new friends initially. This model of OSN ventured into conducting business activities on platforms, which resulted in many springing up but not surviving, yet the explosion of business activities on these platforms continuous to grow. It is therefore important that OSN practitioners and researchers understand the key determinants of OSN business transaction and continuance intention propellants. The purpose of this paper is to establish the factors that determine OSN participant’s continuance intention to do business on OSN platform. The research framework is grounded in an extended expectation-confirmation model (ECM). An online survey model was used to collect 300 valid responses from OSN participants who have ever conducted business using OSN. A partial least square version 2.0.M3 (PLS) and Warp PLS 4.0 were deployed to perform CFA analyses and structural equation modelling, respectively. The emerging results provide significant evidence in support of the five out of nine factors tested against the hypotheses proposed, namely: Perceived Behavioural Control (0.01), Satisfaction (0.14), Expected Benefit (0.15), Social Norms (0.24), and Habit (0.31), as the main determinants of OSN continuance intention.


Introduction
OSN has become a $1.8 billion industry, with 246 social media networks up and running (Engeldinger, 2011).It is considered the fourth most popular activity on the Internet, meaning that more than 66% of the global on-line population visit and participate in social networks and blogs (Nielsen, 2010).Furthermore, Nielsen Online (2009) estimates that, globally, 67% of Internet users accessed social network sites or blogs in 2008.According to the 2009 Youth net report (Hulme, 2009), 75% of 16 to 24 year olds claimed they could not live without the Internet; 82% of the young people surveyed said they had used the Internet to look for advice and information for themselves, and 60% stated they had looked for information for someone else.This kind of scenario is increasingly becoming common, with studies indicating that since early 2009, Internet users were spending more time on social networking services than email (Nielsen Online, 2009).It goes without saying from the above scenario that OSN platforms have become the new avenue for business opportunities, and a good investment in this regard promises to pay off.However, the extent or amount of time that people will continue to rush into this new business venture is a big question that keeps occupying the minds of researchers.This is because fighting for a share of the market through OSN entails investment and cost.While the term ''OSN'' is used to describe this phenomenon of buying and selling on social networks, the term ''social network(ing) sites-(SNSs)'' also appears in public discourse, and the two terms are often used interchangeably.
SNSs are virtual communities where users can create individual public profiles, interact with real-life friends, and meet other people based on shared interests (Kuss & Griffiths, 2011).The growth of OSNs, in terms of membership and use, has been very impressive over just a few years.For instance, it is reported that 79% of adults (30 years above) who use the Internet, use social network sites and nearly half of adults (47%), or 59% of Internet users, use at least one SNS (Hampton, Goulet, Rainie & Purcell , 2011).This growth certainly presents a huge business opportunity for the digital age, which, if properly dealt with, can address the economic downturn we experience today.It comes as no surprise that, this phenomenon is currently undergoing intense research in social sciences (Cachia, Compañó & Da Costa, 2007) and information systems in particular, with private sector companies also trying to investigate OSNs, in order to learn about emerging lifestyles that may affect traditional business models (Cachia et al., 2007).For example "online repurchase intention" (Lee, Eze & Ndubisi, 2011) "Online Continual usage" (Al-hawari & Mouakket, 2012), "customer intention to return" (Kim, Ferrin & Rao, 2009), and "Understanding information systems continuance: an expectation-confirmation model," (Bhattacherjee, 2001).
Among the numerous research studies listed above, none of them address the unique issue of transacting business on OSN platforms.There are, therefore, open research challenges related to OSNs for business purposes (Wolcott, Kamal & Qureshi, 2008;Swamynathan, Wilson, Boe, Almeroth & Zhao, 2008;Pallis, Zeinalipour-Yazti & Dikaiakos, 2011;Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010;Fortino & Nayak, 2010: Shakimov, Lim, Cáceres, Cox, Li, Liu & Varshavsky, 2011).It is acknowledged by El Morr & Kawash (2007) that little research has been conducted in understanding how network providers can turn these services into business and profit making and to identify the requirements and acceptance trends of users.According to Fortino & Nayak (2010), social networking introduced novel collaboration paradigms between network users and serious study needs to be conducted on the use of such platforms for internal business purposes.Zhang, Wang & Xia (2010), however, extend the above challenges as prominent and wonder how to use social networking for customer support and, of course, targeted marketing.Despite the huge business prospects of this social phenomenon and its marketing potency, academic research has not been enough in grasping issues relating to online social networking (Colliander & Dahlén, 2011).

Aim and objectives
Aim: Flowing from the foregone challenges, underpinning OSN potential business opportunity in this age and time, the aim of this paper is to empirically study OSN participants' continuance intention for business transactions.The research questions to be addressed in this paper are enunciated as follows:

Objectives
 What factors drive people to choose OSN for their business needs? To what extent are these driving factors predicting continuance intention of OSN users for business transaction?
Theoretical Background: The three most adopted models used to research into IT continuous usage are the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1986(Davis, , 1989)), the Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM) (Bhattacherjee, 2001) and the Cognitive Model of Satisfaction Decisions (COG) (Oliver, 1980).TAM hypothesises that actual system use is determined by users' behavioural intention (BI) to use, which in turn is influenced by users' attitudes toward using.TAM has dominated IS "use" research and led to much exploration and widespread discussion over its application and extensions, of which this paper is one.ECM was proposed to describe user's behaviour in "continuance usage of an information system".ECM's objective is to evaluate an individual's continuance and loyalty for system use and argues that user satisfaction is the most important determinant of a user's intention for continued use.This paper intends to validate the assertion mentioned in ECM, but strongly believes that satisfaction cannot be the only determinant factor for IS continuance usage, and has hence introduced a variety of variables to explore all determinant factors.While TAM has enjoyed widespread use, with related literature growing tremendously, there has been limited activity in ECM, post-adoption behaviour and IS continuance research (Bhattacherjee, 2001;Bhattacherjee & Premkumar, 2004), hence this study.

Literature Review
Expectation-Confirmation Model (ECM): Past e-commerce studies found that online shopping behaviour has been studied using constructs, such as users' continuance, acceptance decisions, online shopping intention and purchase behaviour (Chiu, Chang, Cheng & Fang, 2009;Lee, 2010;Ahmad, Omar & Ramayah, 2010;Hernández, Jiménez & Martín, 2011).Bhattacherjee, Perols, Johan & Sanford(2008)made a substantial contribution in using ECT to study individual user satisfaction and continuance behaviour (Bhattacherjee, 2001;Bhattacherjee & Premkumar 2004) and conducted research to investigate cognitive beliefs and affect, including IS users` intention to continue using IS.This IS continuance model was empirically validated using field survey of online banking users, and the results shows that IS continuance intention is determined by satisfaction and perceived usefulness of continued IS use.User satisfaction is, in turn; influenced by confirmation of expectation from prior IS use and perceived usefulness.
The following hypotheses are therefore deduced: H1: A customer`s satisfaction of OSN site positively determines a customer`s OSN continuance behaviour.H2: A customer`s confirmation of OSN site positively affects a customer`s OSN shopping satisfaction.H3: Confirmation of expectations positively affects expected benefit of OSN usage.
Trust: Trust, according to Constanza & Lynda (2012), "makes consumers comfortable sharing personal information, making purchases, and acting on web vendor advice.All of these are behaviours essential to widespread adoption of e-commerce".The issue of trust is very important when it comes to business, let alone conducting such business in an environment where participants do not see each other.Therefore, an understanding of the influence of trust is critical to both researchers and practitioners (Nicolaou & McKnight, 2006;Tung, Chang & Chou, 2008;Wu & Tsang, 2008;Palvia, 2009;Lu, Zhou & Wang, 2010;Shin, 2010).Several studies focus on various issues of trust in online dealings (Awad & Ragowsky, 2008;Choudhury & Karahanna 2008;Kim et al., 2008;Vance, Elie-Dit-Cosaque & Straub, 2008) and evidence appears to suggest that consumer trust in the online vendor has a positive relationship with attitudes towards purchasing on OSN, hence, the below hypothesis: H4: A customer`s perceived trust in OSN will strongly affect a customer`s OSN confirmation Habit: Prior research in IT usage indicates that habit determines much of IT continued usage (Limayem & Cheung, 2011).Habit is defined as "a well-learned action sequence, originally intentional, that may be repeated, as it was learned without conscious intention, when triggered by environmental cues in a table context" (Ortiz de Guinea & Markus, 2009).When IT use is habitual, it ceases to be guided by conscious planning.It is instead, triggered by specific environmental cues in an unthinking or automatic manner (Bhattercherjee & Barfar, 2011).Ortiz de Guinea & Markus ( 2009) maintain that the mere presence of IT or a specific task that a user is confronted with, for instance that of communicating with a colleague about writing a report, is an important cue that may trigger habitual IT usage.Previous research has found a strong relationship between habit and continuance behaviour in IS, and many efforts have been made by different researchers in showing how habit influences IT usage and the conclusion is almost invariably the same (Scholderer & Trondsen, 2008;Barnes, 2011;Barnes & Böhringer, 2011;Limayem & Cheung, 2011).Understanding the IS feature that develops habitual behaviours among OSN participants is crucial in promoting habitual use of OSN in the long run.In light of the above, this study hypothesizes that: H5: A customer`s habit has a direct positive effect on IT continuance behaviour.
Expected benefits, perceived ease of use and satisfaction: In the ECM, perceived benefits (PB) or expected benefit (EB) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) are considered the basic utilitarian factors in participants' online business intention.Adapting Davis' definition of PB (Davis, 1989) in the context of OSN for business transactions, EB refers to the extent to which a participant in OSN perceives that doing business on OSN will improve his or her business experience.PEOU in this paper is defined as the extent to which an OSN participant perceives the ease of interaction with the OSN site and is able to receive the product or service information that he or she needs.Many researchers conclude, both theoretically and empirically, that the easy use of technology will lead to peoples' perception of usefulness (Davis, 1989;Hong, Thong& Tam, 2006;Colesca & Dobrica, 2009;Lu et al., 2009;Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman & Witty, 2010).Therefore, PEOU has an essential effect on PB.When consumers find it easy to interact with OSN sites, to search product and service information, and to do business online, they will consider OSN more useful.Expected benefit is a term suggested to replace perceived usefulness in this new model (Bhattacherjee, 2001;Bhattacherjee & Barfar, 2011) and is defined as "user`s perception of expected benefit of IS use" (Bhattacherjee, 2001).Satisfaction, on the other hand, is described as an emotional state by the above authors.In the field of an IS continuance model, the relationship between perceived usefulness and satisfaction is supported by a number of research findings (Bhattacherjee, 2001;Brown & Jayakody, 2008;Liao, Palvia & Chen, 2009).The following hypotheses can confidently be stated, following the sources stated above: H6: Costumers' perceived ease of use of OSN is positively related to Expected Benefit of OSN for business transactions.H7: A customer`s EB of OSN positively affect a customer`s satisfaction of OSN usage.H8: A customer`s EB of OSN positively determines continued behaviour of OSN for business.
Behavioural control and social (subjective) norm: One well known and applied model that has been used extensively to explain the impacts of the behavioural decision-making process, by identifying the important predictors of individuals' behaviour, is the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) by Ajzen (1985Ajzen ( , 1991)).The TPB posits that individuals' intentions are the closest determinants of their behaviour, with intention as a concept to capture individuals' motivation to perform a given behaviour (Ajzen, 1991;Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2009;Ajzen, 2011;McEachan, Conner, Taylor & Lawton, 2011).Ajzen`s theory of planned behaviour was recently applied to social networking by Baker & White (2010) who conducted a study examining use of the theory to predict adolescents` use of social networking.The study confirmed the TPBs components of attitude, perceived behavioural control, and group norms in predicting intentions to use social networking sites.They then found support that intention predicts behaviour.To test the efficacy of the above findings, the following hypotheses are made: H9: Perceived behavioural control positively affects OSN continuance behaviour.H10: Social norm positively affects OSN continuance Behaviour.

Methodology
Research instruments development: The research model hypothesised a set of theories, which was empirically tested using a longitudinal field survey.The formulated survey was tested for any errors among doctorial and masters research students before it was used to collect data on the web.The items for the constructs were formulated based on a pre-validated ECM and TPB studies and the question measurements rewarded to suit the OSNs environment.This was done to ensure that only people using the internet to transact business would find it meaningful to answer.The survey model asked the participants a series of pre-established questions with a limited set of response categories.This was meant to disqualify intruders.A five-point Likert scale rating was used, ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree, to measure the relative importance of constructs.Through Survey monkey software, the model was administered to 800 OSN buyers and sellers.The survey was hosted on the web and through the web link address; the researcher was able to monitor respondents through their IP address and emails that accompany all responses, to ensure there were no repetitions of responses.Measurement model: The research model (Fig. 1) was tested using Smart Partial-least Square PLS 2.0 (PLS) M3 release.PLS modelling is particularly suited for research in IT continuance intentions and is a strong approach for work intended to develop and refine theories.In contrast to techniques for structural modelling, such as Amos and Lisrel, PLS makes less severe assumptions about theoretical closure in models.Where Amos and Lisrel are strong approaches for testing the fit of fully developed models PLS is a superior approach for developing and refining theoretical models (Hair, Anderson, Tatham & William, 1995).The measurement model was validated, by assessing scales with their means, standard deviations, and correlation among each pair of scales, and consisted of two parts.The first part dealt with issues of demography about the respondent, while the second part dealt with items to measure the theoretical constructs of an extended ECM.The demographic information included: gender, age, class of residential area (Table 1), among other factors.Individual construct items were taken from studies of: Davis (1989) for Perceived Usefulness (PU); Davis (1989); Gefen, Karahanna & Straub, (2003) for Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) Gefen et al. (2003); and Hassanein & Head (2007) for Trust (TRUST); Hong et al. (2006) for Confirmation (CONF)modified for online shopping; Hong et al. (2006) for Online Repurchase Intention (INT) (modified for online shopping), Bhattacherjee (2001), (modified for online shopping) and; Devaraj, Fan & Kohli, (2002) for Satisfaction (SAT),and were adjusted to fit to the context of this study.

Demographics of the respondents:
The model was administered to 800 people who do business online.A total of 317 responded but it was discovered that 17 of the responses were ambiguous and were therefore discarded.Out of the remaining number, 55% were females; implying women are more business oriented on the platform than their male counterparts.The most number of users 40%, falls within the age group of 26-35, representing the working class, spending between one to three hours per week on OSN.Women residing in Europe (22%) are the most users.Information provided by respondents on their OSN usage behaviour revealed that they were experienced OSN consumers.

Data Analysis and Results
First, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis on the measurement model with PLS 2.0M3, using various indices to evaluate the fit of the measurement model (Table 2 and 3).The reliability and validity of the research variables are presented in Tables 2 and 3.All the composite reliability estimates were 0.90 or higher, indicating very high reliability (Hair et al., 1995;Chin, 1998).The average variances extracted (AVEs) were 0.60 or higher, exceeding the rule-of-thumb of 0.50, indicating that at least 70% of the variances observed in the items were accounted for by their hypothesised variables (Hair et al., 1995).All the factor loadings were greater than 0.70, denotingconvergent validity (Fornell, 1992).In addition, the squared multiple correlations of each item (ranging from 0.56 to 0.96) exceeded the 0.40 limit for convergent validity (Hair et al., 1995).To determine discriminant validity, the study compared the shared variances (i.e., squared correlations) between the variables with the AVEs for individual variables (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).Table2presents figuresthat show the AVEs asall being greater than the shared variances, providing evidence of discriminant validity.
Measurement Reliability: Data analysis was performed to validate the research model and because constructs in this study are formative, the assessment of the measurement model sought to estimate internal consistency, the convergent and discriminant validity of construct (Bollen, 1990;Chin & Gopal, 1995).This was done using Cronbach's alpha and Fornell's composite reliability (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
Accordingly, the composite reliability should be greater than the 0.7 cut-off, to be considered adequate (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).The composite reliabilities of constructs have values higher than the 0.7threshhold, making it reliable (Nunnally, 1978).The study shows all constructs have AVE of at least 0.5 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).This means more than 80% of the variance of the measurement items was explained and can be accounted for by the latent variables associated with a given construct (Table 2).
The Cronbach reliability coefficients of all variables are higher than the minimum cut-off score of 0.60 (Nunnally, 1978).

Construct validity:
The measures show construct validity.This was examined by convergent validity and discriminant validity, which are defined as the measure of constructs that should theoretically be related to each other, as well as the measure of constructs that should theoretically not be related to each other, respectively.Both work together as subcategories; with neither being sufficient on their own, for establishing construct validity (Chin,1998).The acceptable level of convergent validity, is when all item loadings are greater than 0.50 (Wixom and Watson 2001), and the items for each construct load onto only one factor, with an Eigen value greater than 1.0; this is an indication of convergent validity (Table 2).The discriminant validity of the scales was assessed using the guideline suggested by Fornell & Larcker (1981): the square root of the AVE from the construct should be greater than the correlation shared between the construct and other constructs in the model.(Hulland, 1999).The R 2 value is an indicator of how well the model fits the data.The results of model assessment are presented in Figure 2. Satisfaction shows a positive effect (Fig. 2) on IT continuance behaviour (β=0.1, p <.01), supporting H1, thus confirming the original ECM's result, which argues that user satisfaction is the most important requirement determining a user's intention for continued OSN use (Bhattercherjee, 2001).6. APC and ARS are significant at a five percent level, while AVIF is still lower than five.This enables the researcher to conclude that a good fit exists between model and data (Rosenthal & Rosnow, 1991;Kock, 2010), characterised by a correlation and path coefficient of a predictor latent variable, with respect to the criterion latent variable having the opposite signs.This means certain paths might be unlikely or that the direction of relationship is reversed (Kock, 2010).Hence these paths in the model reduce the explained variance in the criterion variable.Based on these results, the model has good fit with its values and measures well.Discussion of Findings: The advancement of Web 2.0 has enabled OSN participants to compare prices and general information online and exchange information regarding their OSN shopping experiences, preventing them from trading with a vendor if they find other vendors offering cheaper and better deals.Online business is gaining greater strategic importance but what is more intriguing, is the factors that compel people to participate, and determines their future continuance intentions.These are: Convenience, product or service not being available offline, better prices and most importantly, time saving factor.Contrary to Bhattacherjee`s (2001) argument that satisfaction is the most important requirement determining a user's intention for continued use, we found perceived ease of use and trust playing a more prominent role than satisfaction.
Theoretical contributions: Findings from this research add confirmation to the important role ICT plays in solving numerous consumer problems.The findings are consistent with previous offline research, where customer participation on OSN was shown to lead to greater satisfaction (e.g.Ryu & Han, 2009) and higher expectation benefits from OSN.The notion that consumers actively participate in the process of co-creating value with firms is attracting increasing attention from academia (OHern & Rindfleisch, 2010).Based on the strong effects of consumer participation in OSN that were found in this study, the current research can be viewed as adding value to existing knowledge and extending this stream of academic research in a new direction (i.e. business OSN).Looking at the magnitude of contribution (β=0.63)towards OSN continuance intention that stems from trust, it will be a gross error to attempt an understanding of OSN consumers, without thinking about trust.Traditionally, trust has been the basis upon which two parties agree to do things in common.With this element becoming so hard to find among people, any plans to run a business online, without first selling this trust commodity, could lead to total failure.It is therefore very important that, practitioners do everything possible to get the trust element nicely packaged and delivered to would be OSN participants for business transactions.This could be done either through third party warranties or directly to users, without first impressing it upon them to make serious commitment.When this is done, the multiplier effect is enormous and peers may also be influenced by this strategy.
Confirmation of the OSN expected benefit can be solicited from users by telling the success stories of OSN pioneers.This could be effective through social media advertisements and propaganda.Doing business on OSN is no more just a profit making venture but a means to take care of social needs of customers, as well as being available24/7, or as long as the net can be reached.This leverages the fear of buying online from unknown agents, where there might be the need to go back to trash issues on previous transactions.The constant interactions and invitations of possible consumers into vendors` community of networks would certainly be assuring.Additional services to OSN participants for business transactions create the impression that a vendor is not just interested in the money of users but also their well-being.This can form the basis of trust for the first time visitor.
Limitations: Various issues had an impact on conducting the research.The collection of only 317 responses could have an impact on generalisation.Reviewing relevant literature proved to be quite difficult, as Social Networking Sites are quite recently developed and academic literature has not explored all aspects.In addition, many sources of reference are not academically based and could thus not be used, which resulted in a time consuming search for relevant literature.However the rapid collection of research data was a pleasant result.Although this was not the author's intention, the type of response can be related to the method used to gather the information.Future research should take care of the above problems and concentrate on sustainability of OSN platforms because it seems to have come to stay for the foreseeable future.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The studies found that doing business on OSN entails more than e-commerce.Vendors on OSN also serve as guardians to people who might need advice from peers before deciding on the line of action to take.This is more prevalent with young people who even ask about where to visit, which hotel to stay at and what to do while on holiday.It therefore means that practitioners of OSN should not only target the direct visitors of their websites, but possible influencers of these visitors who, in-turn, rely on their community of networks online for advice.This calls for group targeting policies.The practice of OSN has come to stay, but operating business on this platforms means doubling as consultant and business person at the same time.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Proposed research model: An Extended ECM

Table 2 : Descriptive statistics and convergent validity
Table3lists the correlations among the constructs, with the square root of the AVE on the diagonal.All the diagonal values exceed the interconstruct correlations; hence the test of discriminant validity is acceptable.The researcher therefore concludes that the scales have sufficient construct validity.To test the validity and causal relationships hypothesised in the research, and to be able to generate model fit indices, a PLS-based SEM analysis was run with WarpPLS 4.0.Standardised path coefficients values are shown at various significant levels to measure relationships and these are displayed in Figure2.From the PLS-based SEM analysis, all hypotheses are supported (Table4: summary of results).

Table 5
Though Warp PLS calculates three model fit indices, namely average path coefficient (APC), average R-squared (ARS) and average inflation factors (AVIF), it reports on other indices to concretise how good a model is.A summary of these indices, discussed according to Kock's recommendations, is set out in Table