Title: Explaining user acceptance and usage of social networking sites: the role of trust, social connectedness and visibility in extending UTAUT2

Authors: K. Praveena; Sam Thomas

Addresses: SCMS School of Technology & Management, Prathap Nagar, Muttom, Cochin, Kerala, India ' School of Management Studies, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Ernakulam, Kerala, India

Abstract: Social Networking Sites (SNS) have become ubiquitous and the numerous sites popping up pose challenges to each site in retaining the user base. Different models like TAM, UTAUT, UTAUT2 etc. have explained the acceptance of different technologies and these models are extended using contextual variables with new technologies coming into force. This study aims to explain the acceptance and usage of social networking sites with the help of UTAUT2 by adding three variables: trust, social connectedness and visibility. The result shows that the proposed model explained 66% variation in the usage and 53% variation in explaining the behavioural intention to use social networking sites. Visibility was found to be the main predictor of usage while habit is found to be the main predictor of behavioural intention, followed by social connectedness. The model was found to be a better model than the base model UTAUT2 in explaining the usage of SNS.

Keywords: social networking sites; UTAUT2; nested model; trust; social connectedness; visibility.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMP.2018.092855

International Journal of Management Practice, 2018 Vol.11 No.3, pp.318 - 334

Received: 17 Jun 2017
Accepted: 29 Aug 2017
Published online: 01 Jul 2018 *

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