Social Media Marketing Signals and Customer Engagement Behaviors(CEBs): Does Cultural Orientation Matter?

摘要

Although research shows that utilitarian and hedonic values are the two broad purposes for consuming products and information,the effect of utilitarian and hedonic contents on customer engagement behaviors(CEBs)lacks adequate research.In an extension of the customer engagement literature,this study argues that social media marketing contents(utilitarian vs.hedonic)influence CEBs and how this relationship is moderated by cultural orientation.The results of an experiment offer additional evidence in support of CEBs as a behavioral concept that can be differentially influenced by social media marketing contents and cultural orientation.The study further finds that when exposed to hedonic content,collectivists were more likely to undertake CEBs than individualists,but the opposite effect was detected when participants were exposed to utilitarian content.Results are consistent with the reasoning that CEBs transcend transactions and customers can be spurred into CEBs through external marketing stimuli.