The purpose of this chapter is to examine the factors which influence the intention to use Facebook among Generation Y consumers and its influence on purchase decision making. A quantitative research methodology was used, and the data was collected from 404 respondents in Bangalore city. Partial least square structural equation model using R software was used to analyse data collected. The findings showed that perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, perceived credibility, and subjective norm have a significant influence on intention to use Facebook while perceived ease of use does not have a significant influence on intention to use Facebook. Perceived enjoyment has the highest influence on intention to use Facebook followed by subjective norm, perceived credibility, and perceived usefulness. The results of this study also indicated that intention to use Facebook has a significant positive effect on consumers. The findings of this study contribute to an understanding of the importance of the selected factors in affecting the intention to use Facebook.
TopIntroduction
Web 2.0 has become an integral part of today's individual. Several formats of social interactions taking place daily have been successful in creating a social movement. Hillman and Trier (2013) state that social influence “provides a wide array of inputs to understand how actions of people are influenced by other individuals as an outcome of interaction. “This indicates that social influence is a spontaneous process, which can be utilized by both companies and individuals to transform a persons' attitude or behavior.
The immeasurable potential of interacting with other users have led to the creation of online communities developed around special interests or demographics (Birdsall, 2007).
Godes and Mayzlin (2004) established that social media platforms are very economical and simple option to connect and collect consumer to consumer interaction. Research on consumer-to-consumer communication establishes that these interactions initiate significant results for firms. This online environment supports a distinct outlook for the contemporary social influence theories (Snijders and Helms, 2014). Social networking has gained high acceptance, particularly among younger generations. The efficacy of these groups as platforms for communication has been recognized by business men and politicians alike.
Social media sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are a result of the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies. These networks have provided a platform which is enabling users to create and share brand related information online in their social circuits consisting of family, classmates, friends and other people known (Hennig-Thurau, 2003). Previous research has demonstrated that such communications have influenced the purchase decisions of consumers (Muntinga et. al 2011), built brand attitudes and influenced marketing decisions.
Social networking sites are user generated, user centered and emerged as media platforms which are highly influential (Zhang and Daugherty, 2010).Though social networks have gained popularity among different age groups, they have particularly gained immense acceptance and usage among young social groups (Lin and Lu, 2011).Among the existing social networking sites Facebook is the most visited, largest and most popular site. It is one of the online social platforms that was developed and designed to promote active social engagements real time (Alomoush, Yaseen and Alma’aitah,2012).
In the information technology literature behavioral Intention is a very important variable which influences the adoption of any new technology. Hence it is very crucial to identify the factors which influence the intention to use Facebook and how this influences purchase decision making.The next section presents the theoretical framework of the study followed by research methodology, analysis of results, discussion, implications and conclusion.