Gaining Trust in the Digital Age: The Potential of Social Media for Increasing the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises

Borislav Rajković, Ivan Đurić, Vlade Zarić and Thomas Glauben
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Borislav Rajković: Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany
Ivan Đurić: Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany
Vlade Zarić: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, 11080 Belgrade, Serbia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: Trust in information originating from a company is becoming essential, as consumer preferences are increasingly versatile and oriented towards credence attributes. Social media, which emerged as a dominant means of online communication, might help increase consumers’ trust in companies. The paper empirically investigates a conceptual trust-building mechanism that could occur on companies’ social media pages. A survey was conducted among social media users in Belgrade (Serbia). The collected data were analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modeling. It confirmed that in an interactive environment of companies’ social media pages, trust can be built towards two objects. The first one is trust among consumers, and the second one is trust towards a company. The results also confirm a connection between trust and an intention to purchase, both being also related to a consumer’s willingness to obtain information. Therefore, the result can serve as a basis for creating more effective marketing campaigns where a company is the source of information regarding credence (added-value) attributes of its products.

Keywords: consumer behavior; purchase intention; trust; social media; small and medium enterprises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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