Who Do You Think You Are? Common and Differential Effects of Social Self-Identity on Social Media Usage

Abstract

Intense competition requires that social media service providers execute two major business strategies: exploiting current functions while simultaneously exploring incremental innovation. Realization of these strategies is related to two types of member behavior: reinforced use and varied use. Drawing on identity theories, we examine the common and differential effects of two levels of social self-identity—relational identity and social identity—on reinforced and varied use and the moderating role of inertia on their effects on social media usage. Our results reveal that, although both identities have similar effects on usage behavior, users with higher social identities are more oriented toward variety seeking, while those with stronger relational identities are more oriented toward reinforcement. Inertia negatively moderates the impacts of social identity on social media use, but not the relationships between relational identity and social media use. The current research contributes to theory by decomposing social media usage into reinforced and varied use and reveals the common and differential influences of two levels of social self-identity on user behavior. Social media service providers should focus more on social identity to promote varied use and focus more on relational identity when they want to enhance reinforced use.

Key words and phrases:

• reinforced use
• relational identity
• self-identity
• social identity
• social media
• social media use
• varied use

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (71602063, 71332001) and by the Modern Information Management Research Centre at Huazong University of Science and Technology (HUST). Bin Wang thanks the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Summer Writing Group Program for partial support.

Supplemental File

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at 10.1080/07421222.2017.1296747

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (71602063, 71332001) and by the Modern Information Management Research Centre at Huazong University of Science and Technology (HUST). Bin Wang thanks the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Summer Writing Group Program for partial support.

Notes on contributors

Zhao Pan

Zhao Pan ([email protected]) is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Management at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China. He obtained his Ph.D. there in 2015. His research focuses on social commerce, social networks, and social computing. His work has been published in Computers in Human Behavior and other journals.

Yaobin Lu

Yaobin Lu ([email protected]; corresponding author) is a Huazhong Professor and a specially appointed professor in information systems at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China. He obtained his Ph.D. from that university. His research interests include social commerce and social networks, information management and electronic commerce, and related topics. He is the author of more than 50 publications in various international journals, such as the Journal of Management Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, Information Systems Journal, Information and Management, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, International Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, Journal of Business Research, and others.

Bin Wang

Bin Wang ([email protected]) is a professor of information systems at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her research focuses on social media and social commerce, crowdfunding, electronic commerce, mobile commerce, information technology (IT) adoption, and performance of IT-focused firms. She has published over 40 refereed articles in journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, Information and Management, Computers in Human Behavior, and others.

Patrick Y.K. Chau

Patrick Y.K. Chau ([email protected]) is Padma and Hari Harilela Professor in Strategic Information Management at the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. His research interests include information systems/information technology (IT) adoption and implementation, information presentation, knowledge management, and IT outsourcing. He has published in the Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, Journal of the AIS, Communications of the ACM, and Decision Sciences, among others.