Can “Liking” Behavior Lead to Usage Intention on Facebook? Uses and Gratification Theory Perspective

Md. Alamgir Hossain, Minho Kim and Nusrat Jahan
Additional contact information
Md. Alamgir Hossain: Department of International Trade, College of Commerce, Chonbuk National University, Baekje-daero 567, Korea
Minho Kim: Department of International Trade, College of Commerce, Chonbuk National University, Baekje-daero 567, Korea
Nusrat Jahan: Department of Business Administration, College of Commerce, Chonbuk National University, Baekje-daero 567, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: The “like” feature on Facebook has emerged as a commonly used paralinguistic tool for communicating, and its importance as an indication of positive feelings toward the posts of others is likely to increase. Comprehensive research is needed into why and how users are motivated toward ‘liking’ behavior, and whether this behavior generates an intention to continue using Facebook over time. This study combines the theory of uses and gratification and a subjective norm perspective to create an integrated model that predicts liking behavior and usage intentions on Facebook. The research model is tested with data collected from online users of Facebook and the proposed model is supported by a measurement and structural model analysis based on empirical data collected from 267 Facebook users. The findings indicate that the most salient motivations for users to liking behavior are enjoyment, information seeking, social interaction, and subjective norms, and that they subsequently reinforce their continuous intention toward the Facebook. The results also revealed that subjective norms contribute strongly to the projections of liking behavior and continuous usage intention. The proposed research model contributes to global marketing research and information-technology service management by integrating personal and social motivators to understand the acceptance of social networking technologies by users in Asia. In particular, the outcomes stand to enhance the current state of knowledge of social networking site developers, managers, and organizations to improve acceptance of their services or products, development of customer support, advertising, and/or product development. The present results lay the foundation for uses and gratification theory and subjective norms model that have important theoretical and practical implications and may guide future research efforts in this context.

Keywords: uses and gratification; subjective norms; liking behavior; usage intentions; Facebook (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1166/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1166/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1166-:d:208249

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().