چگونه قابلیت تجارت اجتماعی-IT به نفع عملکرد شرکت تاثیر می گذارد؟ شواهد تجربی How do social commerce-IT capabilities influence firm performance? Theory and empirical evidence

1. Introduction Contemporary digital technologies such as social media and e-commerce have become critical for a firm’s competitiveness and survival (Benitez et al., 2018a). Social media and e-commerce platforms can be used by customers to interact with firms and other customers for multiple purposes (e.g., searching product/service information, providing product/service reviews, encouraging other current/potential customers to engage with the firm). Contemporary firms simultaneously use social media and e-commerce platforms building the so-called social commerce initiatives. Social commerce provides new social information sharing, which has been considered as a fundamental role in firm-customer interactions. For example, Papa John’s (a leading firm in the pizza industry) simultaneously leverages social media and its e-commerce platforms to improve digital customer experience (Benitez et al., 2018a). Social commerce is thus a new concept and phenomenon characterized by the interplay of social media and e-commerce platforms influencing customers’ participation/engagement and decision-making behavior (e.g., decision to buy a product/service) (Zhang & Benyoucef, 2016). The firm’s usage of digital technologies (e.g., social media, e-commerce) can improve firm performance by increasing the opportunity to interact with customers (Froehle, 2006; Kiron, 2012a). Contemporary firms use digital technologies beyond commercial purposes (e.g., branding, sales), particularly to improve innovation (e.g., new product development), leadership (e.g., bolster recruitment and employee development), and operations (e.g., manufacturing, partner/supplier interaction) to create business value (Kane et al., 2014; Zhang & Benyoucef, 2016). But simply investing in digital technologies does not guarantee the firm’s success. Prior Information Systems (IS) literature has argued that the key in explaining information technology (IT)-based performance variation is how the firm leverages its IT resources (IT capabilities) instead of how much it invests in IT resources (Benitez et al., 2018a; Benitez et al., 2018b). Social media and e-commerce platforms are two IT resources whose degree of investment and deployment may be heterogeneous among firms. This study considers social media capability and e-commerce capability as two IT capabilities that refer to the firm’s ability in leveraging social media and e-commerce, respectively. Social media capability is the firm’s ability in using and leveraging social media platforms to execute business activities (Benitez et al., 2018a). Ecommerce capability refers to the firm’s ability in using and leveraging web technology to promote and sell its products (Zhu & Kraemer, 2002; Devaraj et al., 2007; Li et al., 2010). On the basis of the social commerce literature, this research specifically considers social media capability and e-commerce capability as two social commerce-IT capabilities because social media and e-commerce (and the firm’s capabilities associated with the leveraging of these IT resources) are the two pillars of the social commerce initiatives.