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DOI: 10.4018/IJEBR.2018040105
Volume 14 • Issue 2 • April-June 2018
Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
76
Alaa M. Momani, Al-Madinah International University, Shah Alam, Malaysia
Wael M. Yafooz, Al-Madinah International University, Shah Alam, Malaysia
Mamoun M. Jamous, Al-Madinah International University, Shah Alam, Malaysia
Social commerce is a new extension of electronic commerce that involves using social media in
the online shopping process. Although the adoption of social technologies was studied in several
researches, it is still needed to investigate the specific characteristics of social commerce and the
affecting factors on its acceptance. This article verifies the influence of the enjoyment factor on the
adoption of social commerce through applying a questionnaire sample allocated to 282 Jordanian
social media users from those who are interested in online shopping. The research model is developed
to validate the impact of enjoyment, in addition to some other factors, on the behavioral intentions
to adopt and use social commerce. The results show that the enjoyment is a key factor on accepting
social commerce. The research model indicates that it is viable and has a good power in explaining
the variance in the behavioral intentions to adopt and use social commerce.
Behavioral Intentions, Enjoyment, Jordan, Social Commerce, Technology Acceptance, Usage Behavior, UTAUT
Social commerce (s-commerce) is a new stream in e-commerce, presented recently from the
development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), Web 2.0 technology, and
cloud technology. S-commerce represents the benefiting from the social networks to enhance the
e-commerce by adding some new activities for the online shopping process, in order to make it more
social and acceptable by users (Gatautis and Medziausiene, 2014). Some authors like Leitner and
Grechenig (2007) and Liang, Ho, Li, and Turban (2011) believe that s-commerce is affected by the
expansion of social networks. The research work of Hajli (2012) mentioned that s-commerce is the
resent development in e-commerce that using social technologies in order to create a new environment
for social interactions. These social interactions can push online social support in e-commerce, and
increase the trust, and as a result, the intention to use s-commerce will be increased. In the s-commerce
context, there were a few theoretical or empirical researches on the measurement of user satisfaction
of the s-commerce, and measuring the success of such systems in general (Alshibly, 2014; Huang and
Benyoucef, 2013). Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the influence of the enjoyment factor
Volume 14 • Issue 2 • April-June 2018
77
toward the acceptance of the s-commerce and the satisfaction from using it. It revised the unified
theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) that was developed by Venkatesh, Morris,
Davis, and Davis (2003) by adding the enjoyment factor in the form of enjoyment expectancy to the
model′s structure in order to personalize it to be more suitable to measure the technology acceptance
of s-commerce within the Jordanian society.
In general, the majority of the technology acceptance theories and models do not discuss the
impact of the enjoyment factor on the behavioral intentions and usage behavior of the technology,
because these theories were designed to explain the usage behavior and assess the acceptance of
adopting information systems in organizations with the mandatory style of usage. S-commerce is
a web-based, social-commercial, and voluntary-usage application, and the enjoyment is one of the
key-reasons from using it.
Since 1940′s, many theories resulted from motivation research (Momani and Jamous, 2017). Self-
Determination Theory (SDT) which developed by Deci and Ryan in 1985 is one of them. SDT
proposed that self-determination is a human quality. Deci and Ryan (1985) and Ryan and Deci (2000a)
explained the psychological innate human needs which are: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
These human needs are directly affecting on individuals′ motivations. The need to autonomy refers to
self-determination that causes freedom of action, mainly being self-initiating, and to self-regulating
one′s own actions. The need to relatedness refers to developing secure and satisfying connections
with others in same social environment (de Brabander, Rozendaal, and Martens, 2009; Hsu and Lin,
2008). According to Deci et al. (1991), these needs are necessary for individuals to be self-determined
rather than controlled.
Motivational theories have supported the researches in psychology as an explanation to behavior.
These researches resulted that the motivational theory contains two major factors of motivations:
extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation was defined as: “the perception
that users will want to perform an activity because it is perceived to be instrumental in achieving
valued outcomes that are distinct from the activity itself” (Davis, Bagozzi, and Warshaw, 1992, p 1112;
Venkatesh et al., 2003, p 448). While Intrinsic motivation was defined as: “the perception that users
will want to perform an activity for no apparent reinforcement other than the process of performing
the activity per se” (Davis et al., 1992, p 1112; Venkatesh et al., 2003, p 456). SDT represents the
extrinsic motivation that consists of four types of self-determinations, which are: external, introjected,
identified, and integrated form of regulation (Deci and Ryan, 1985; Deci et al., 1991; Ryan and Deci,
2000b). While the intrinsic motivation refers to intrinsic regulation. It also represents how the social
environment influencing on motivated behaviors. Davis et al. (1992) tested the extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation to use technology in workplaces and found that they are key drivers of an individual′s
intention to perform the behavior of technology usage. They explained the extrinsic motivation to
use technology as perceived usefulness from using the technology, and intrinsic motivation to use
technology as perceived enjoyment of using the technology (Ryan, Patrick, Deci, and Williams, 2008).
They noted the relation between usefulness and enjoyment. Enjoyment strongly effects on intentions
when information systems are perceived to be more useful, which means that the enjoyability of the
information system is enhancing the acceptance of useful systems, but in the same time, it has less
effect on acceptance of useless systems (Davis et al., 1992).
The same concept was discussed in several technology acceptance theories besides the motivational
theory such as: Model of PC Utilization (MPCU) and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). These theories
are sharing the same features of intrinsic motivation in the motivational theory (Venkatesh et al., 2003).
Shen and Eder (2011) examined the factors that influence the user acceptance of social shopping
websites which are designed specifically to support social interactions with shoppers. Their study
utilized the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with specific constructs that may enhance the
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