Suchergebnisse

PurposeThe social media have enabled companies to reach out to global markets and provided them with the opportunity to customize their strategies and offerings in an unprecedented way. Given the scant empirical evaluation of social media use in the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) business-to-business (B-to-B) context, this paper aims to offer a comprehensive description of the antecedents and consequences of social media use in international B-to-B SMEs and the way in which this use affects their export performance.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a sample of 277 British B-to-B SMEs and uses positivist research with a quantitative approach, adopting a survey strategy through questionnaires and structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results reveal that the use of social media influences export performance through the quality of international business contacts – understanding customers' views and preferences, brand awareness and knowledge of the competition in various international markets. This study contributes to the emerging literature on B-to-B SMEs digital marketing by determining the mechanism through which B-to-B SMEs may benefit from using the social media in their efforts to export.Originality/valueDespite the promising potential of the social media, especially for export-oriented companies, very limited attention has hitherto been paid to the relationship between the use of social media and export performance. This study attempts to fill the gap by investigating the extent to which actual use of social media impacts on the performance of exporting firms.

Purpose
Despite the increasing utilization of webpages for the purposes of information seeking, customers' concerns have become a crucial impediment for online shopping. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the effectiveness of web assurance seals services (WASS) and customers' concerns on customer's willingness to book hotels through perceived website trust and perceived value.


Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire was administrated to measure the study variables. Using partial least squares–structural equation modeling approach to analyze the data collected from 860 users of online hotel websites.


Findings
The results indicate that WASS influence positively on perceived website trust and negatively on consumers' concerns. As well as, perceived value and trust play a mediating role in the link between WASS and consumers' concerns and their intentions. Finally, perceived website trust and perceived value have greater effect on intention to book hotel for low-habit consumers.


Research limitations/implications
This study ignored the cross-culture issue as it concentrates on the customers from developing countries, so further research may need to compare between two or more than two samples from different societies that could give a significant insights. Second, this study stresses on the WASS to predict customers booking intentions that indicates significant results, so further research may need to examine the role of online reviews as a predictor of customers purchase decision as well.


Originality/value
To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first empirical research that investigates and examines the influence of the effectiveness of WASS and consumers' concerns on consumers' intentions through perceived value and trust. This research also investigates the moderating role of habit in the link between perceived website, perceived value and consumers' intentions.