The impact of social presence in the tnterface on customers purchase intention toward online store

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Dang Thi Tuong Vi

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL PRESENCE IN
THE WEB INTERFACE ON
CUSTOMER’S PURCHASE INTENTION
TOWARD ONLINE STORE

MASTER OF BUSINESS

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Dang Thi Tuong Vi

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL PRESENCE IN
THE WEB INTERFACE ON
CUSTOMER’S PURCHASE INTENTION
TOWARD ONLINE STORE
ID: 22120080.

MASTER OF BUSINESS
SUPERVISOR: Dr. VO NGOC THUY

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This thesis could not be finish without the help and support of many people who
are gratefully acknowledged here.
At the very first, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,
Dr. Vo Ngoc Thuy. With their guidance, I could have worked out this thesis. They had
offered me valuable suggestions and criticisms with his profound knowledge in rich
research experience.
I am grateful to express my sincere to Prof. Nguyen Dinh Tho. I have learned
from him a lot not only about research design, but also data analysis technique. I am
also extremely to give thankful to UEH – International School of business (ISB)
supported me in all process.
I would like to extent my sincere thanks to all my classmates and friends. Their
kindness and supports have contributed very much in my working process. Most
important, I would like to express my most sincere thanks to my family for their
continuous encouragement and support.


Declaration
I hereby declare that this thesis, to the best of my knowledge and belief, is my own
work and effort and that is has not been submitted, either in part or whole, anywhere for
any award.
Information and ideas taken from other sources as cited as such. This work has not
been published.

Signature

Dang Thi Tuong Vi

Date: 09/03/2015


Table of Contents
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................................
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Research Background .................................................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Problematic of Research............................................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Research Objectives ..................................................................................................................................... 3
1.4 Significance of Research .............................................................................................................................. 3
1.5 Scope of Research........................................................................................................................................ 4
1.6 Structure of thesis ........................................................................................................................................ 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................... 6
2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 6
2.2 Theoretical background ................................................................................................................................ 6
2.2.1 Social presence .................................................................................................................................. 6
2.2.2 Perceived usefulness .......................................................................................................................... 8
2.2.3 Trust in an online environment .......................................................................................................... 9
2.2.4 Enjoyment ....................................................................................................................................... 10
2.2.5 Attitude and its determinants ........................................................................................................... 12
2.2.6 Purchase intention ........................................................................................................................... 13
2.3 Research Model and Hypotheses Development .......................................................................................... 14
2.3.1 Social presence and Perceived of usefulness .................................................................................... 15
2.3.2 Social presence and trust in an online shopping ................................................................................ 15
2.3.4 Perceived of usefulness and attitude’s customer ............................................................................... 16
2.3.5 Trust in an online shopping and attitude’s customer ......................................................................... 16


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2.3.6 Enjoyment and attitude’s customer .................................................................................................. 17
2.3.7 Perceived usefulness and Purchase intention .................................................................................... 17
2.3.8 Enjoyment and purchase intention ................................................................................................... 18
2.3.9 Attitude and purchase intention........................................................................................................ 18
2.4 Conclusion................................................................................................................................................. 18

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHOD............................................................................................................ 20
3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 20
3.2 Research process ........................................................................................................................................ 20
3.3 Qualitative research ................................................................................................................................... 21
3.4 Measurement Scales................................................................................................................................... 22
3.5 Quantitative research.................................................................................................................................. 24
3.5.1 Sample method ................................................................................................................................ 25
3.5.2 Questionnaire administration ........................................................................................................... 25
3.6 Data analysis method ................................................................................................................................. 25
3.6.1 Contruct reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha) .......................................................................................... 25
3.6.2 Contruct validity - Exploratory factor analysis (EFA). ..................................................................... 26
3.6.3 ANOVA .......................................................................................................................................... 26
3.6.4 The structural equation model (SEM) .............................................................................................. 26

CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND RESULTS ................................................................................................... 27
4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 27
4.2 Respondents demographic .......................................................................................................................... 27
4.3 Scale validation.......................................................................................................................................... 29
4.3.1 Construct reliability ......................................................................................................................... 29
4.3.2 Construct validity ............................................................................................................................ 31


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4.3.4 Manipulating validity ...................................................................................................................... 33
4.4 Modified research model ............................................................................................................................ 34
4.5 Model fitness ............................................................................................................................................. 35
4.5.1 Test of mediating effects.................................................................................................................. 36
4.5.2 SEM ................................................................................................................................................ 37
4.5.3 Bootstrap ......................................................................................................................................... 39
4.6 Hypotheses testing ..................................................................................................................................... 39
4.8 Conclusion................................................................................................................................................. 41

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS ................................................................................... 42
5.1 Discussion and conclusions ........................................................................................................................ 42
5.2 Implications ............................................................................................................................................... 45
5.3 Limitations and future research .................................................................................................................. 47

REFERENCES
APPENDICES


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.3: Conceptual model ............................................................................................... 14
Figure 3.2: Research process ................................................................................................. 21
Figure 4.4: Modified research model .................................................................................... 35
Figure 4.5.2: SEM result of research model (Standardized) ................................................. 38


LIST OF TABLE
Table 4.2: Demographic Table .............................................................................................. 28
Table 4.3.1: Cronbach’s alpha result ..................................................................................... 30
Table 4.3.2: Rotated Component Matrix ............................................................................... 33

Table 4.3.4: Multiple Comparisons ....................................................................................... 34
Table 4.5.1: The mediator test ............................................................................................... 36
Table 4.5.2: Relationship between constructs in research model (standardized) .................. 38
Table 4.5.3: Bootstrap estimate result with N = 1000 ........................................................... 39
Table 4.6: Result of hypotheses testing ................................................................................. 40


LIST OF ABBREVIATION
ANOVA

Analysis of variance

AVE

Average Variance Extracted

B2C

Business to customer

CFA

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

CFI

Comparative fit index

CR

Composite Reliability

EFA

Exploratory Factor Analysis

E-commerce Electronic commerce
GFI

Goodness-offit

KMO

Kaiser-Myer-Olkin

ML

Maximum Likelihood

OSAM

Online Shopping Acceptance Model

SEM

Structural Equation Model

SPSS

Statistical software package

SRMR

Standardize root mean square residual

RMSEA

The Root mean square of approximately

TAM

Technology Acceptance Model

TLI

Tucker & Lewis index ()

TPB

Theory of Planned Behavior

TRA

Theory of Reasoned Action

VECITA

Vietnam E-commerce and Information Technology Agency

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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the impact of social presence in the web
interface on the purchase intention of customer in online store.
In framework of e-commerce, many previous researchers have been conducted to test
the influence of social presence on online buyer. To date the expansion of information systems
in the way friendlier and closer to human feeling, however, some elements of social cue are
still not studies. For this reason, the author decided to test further social cues in web interface,
with the aim of evaluating the manipulation of these social elements to purchase intention for
further development.
This thesis first presented discussion of previous literature in order to identify the
definition of concepts in research model included social presence, perceived usefulness,
enjoyment, trust, attitude and purchase intention. EFA method was used with 22 original
observed variables but only build up five constructs because “Trust attitude” formed a concept.
With modified model, SEM test showed the significant relationship between the factors of
model, social presence was infused through perceived usefulness and enjoyment then directly
affected to purchase intention and indirectly through attitude. Besides that, the statistic results
of Anova test proved the difference influences in manipulation of social cues such as social rich
picture, text, customer rating and recommendation in turn of three levels web interface. An
interesting discussion disclosed adding social rich picture and text are supported to push a
higher purchase intention, the customer rating and recommendation does not work.
The results of the experiment reveal that social presence is effective elements to enhance
purchase intention. The findings contribute to confirm the earlier theories and supply a
significant implication in form selection of web design which support e-business has
effectively investment in marketing and better customers approach.


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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background
E-commerce has been becoming an effective trading channel for many companies, beside
traditional stores, to sell their products and services, and to interact with customers. That are
stores open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year, a sales person who doesn’t
need breaks or holidays. With low running cost, online stores create opportunity to reach the
new markets because of unlimitedness for any customer who wants to find the products over
the world.
Increasing of internet users, extend to over the world, has been predicted for a tremendous
development of e-commerce. According to Tran (2014), head of VECITA (Vietnam Ecommerce and Information Technology Agency), cites that Vietnam is one of the potential
markets of growth e-commerce in South Eastern Asia. Vietnam is the highest internet user in
area of South East Asia with 16.1 million users by the time of July 2013. The internet users in
Vietnam gain 36 percent of population, relevant to 32 million users. Company with increment
of internet user, e-commerce also makes a strong and effective growth. Survey of VECITA in
2013 in two big cities of Vietnam (Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City), 57 percent Internet users
purchase items through online channel, and the business to customer e-commerce sales are
estimated USD 2.2 million. Forecasting by 2015, goes along with the increment of 40-45
percent of Internet users in Vietnam, the rate of Internet user purchasing item online is
predicted to reach around USD 4 million. This is “a delicious pancake” for any companies who
want to raise their revenue and expand their market.
Aim to foster the possibility of rising profit and growth of business, many companies are
more and more interested in e-commerce and identify it take a critical role in strategy of most
enterprises over the world. Therefore, none of business can ignore this idea if they want to exist
and develop in future. However, the key point is how businessman to apply e-commerce
effectively as well as suitable with model and strategy of company.


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1.2 Problematic of Research

E-commerce in Vietnam, however, is still earlier market, not reach its full potential yet.
Some companies have been successful in building an online shopping channel or thriving in
business by attracting more and more customers. While the other just pause at install and
experiment a website, revenue from selling online is still low. In accordance to VECITA report,
survey result in Vietnam in 2013, 41 percent of businesses only announce their increased
through the e-commerce channel, 13 percent is decrease and 46 percent almost is unchanged.
In framework of B2C e-commerce, no mention to software transaction, hardware and
travel service, online shopping is still not widely and familiar with internet users. Although,
buying product or service through internet, customers have benefit due to opportunities of
assessment of the global market and various choices from difference of e-retails, customers
often do not trust on the vendors who supply product and services.
Explain for this issue, Gefen and Straub (2003) believe that lack of human interaction or
at least the belief that system has characteristics of social presence is the main reason. This is
one of the major different between physical store and its electronic counterparty (Suki, 2007).
Going to the physical store, customer can touch the real product and communicate directly with
the seller. Meanwhile, online shopping is impersonal, anonymous, and automated because
computer controls it, in result consumer cannot feel human warmth, physical face-to-face
contact and sociability (Gefen and Straub, 2003). In fact, most of e-commerce website space
tends to display the product and exhibit little emotional or social appeal (Hassenein and Head,
2005). Hence, a challenge for businessperson is to indentify how to design and adopt online
transaction to as close as traditional store and provides for a socially rich. Finding solution for
this issue requires a deeply understanding attitude, intention, and behavior of customer.
This study investigates how social presence, which is one of factors enhance human
warmth of e-commerce, through the web interface influence to consumer attitudes and purchase
intention towards online shopping store. Numerous of prior researches (Gefen and Straub,
2003; Hassanein and Head, 2007, Shen, 2012) find out the impact of social presence on trust,


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perceived usefulness and enjoyment as “a catalyst” to increase the positive attitude of online
shopping customer. These studies also show the different results when analysis the impact of
each factor in various character product and diverse cultural country (Hassanein and Head,
2005; Hassanein et al., 2009). However, these researches still do not examine the potential
impact of social presence on purchase intention, which implies promise to one’s self to buy the
product again whenever one makes next trip to the market (Hassanein et al., 2009; Tarig et al.,
2013). Besides that, in perspective of social cue design, little researches detect the influence of
social media such as customer rating and customer recommendations. As such, this thesis
supplements these social elements in the website interface to investigate their impact to
attitude, and then explain to purchase intention of online customers in the end.
1.3 Research Objectives
This study is critically assessing the purchase intention of online buyer underlying the
impact of perceived social presence in website interface. As discussion in section 1.2, although
many empirically researches study about this matter, the widely implications and diversify of
information system still motivate the expansion approach to discovery. In view of Vietnam
market, this thesis aims:
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To identify the effect of social presence on purchase intention through perceived
usefulness, enjoyment, trust and customer’s attitude.

-

To evaluate how the elements of social presence contribute to enhance purchase
intention of online customers.

1.4 Significance of Research
This research is a review the theory related to social presence, particularly in the ecommercial website. Through testing the effect of perceived social presence on attitude and
purchase intention, this study would be beneficial to businessperson to recognize which the
element of social presence is the impact to the purchase decision of their customers.

Accordingly, they could be effective investment strategy in website design to engage more and
more customer to visit and buy product from their website.


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1.5 Scope of Research
Jewelry is selected as the online product to sell on the website. As the customer can be
easily to identify the materials such as diamond, gold, silver, other metal materials… so that the
exhibition of product in website is close to the real product without the need for tactile
evaluation. The component materials of the jewelry are quietly familiar to and specific identify
with user. Moreover, product is a meaningful present or a luxurious fashionable grocery, which
shows out the presentation of users to the other. Selling this product online has potential to
develop strongly if businessperson building an effective website. According to Hassanein et al.
(2009) socially description related to product is foster a positive attitude also to online store.
Therefore, a fictitious website containing social cues is designed for selling jewelry. Survey is
conducting in the experienced online customers in Ho Chi Minh.
1.6 Structure of thesis
This research is constructed in five parts. The first is the introduction of the study. The
second is the literature review and hypotheses. Following is the research method. The next part
is the results and limitations of the findings. The conclusion comprises the final section of this
research.
Chapter 1 – Introduction
This chapter reflects the current situation of e-commerce in Vietnam and discusses about
the social presence in website interface. It leads to propose the research problem, research
objectives and significance of this study also presented in this section.
Chapter 2 - Literature review
Chapter 2 presents the theoretical foundation of the research, including the definition of
each concept in research model and their relationship in literature. From that, the hypotheses
are argued and proposed for this research.

Chapter 3 - Research method


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Research method describes the way of establishment of the measures and conducting the
survey. This part includes two main sections, qualitative research to review draft measurement
scale and quantitative research design to test the hypotheses.
Chapter 4 – Analysis and results
Chapter 4 exhibits the outcomes of this research. The results are evaluated
corresponding to each step of the data analysis. According that, the research hypotheses are
tested.
Chapter 5 – Discussions, Implications and Limitations
The last chapter of this study discusses the research results by affirming the exploratory
values as well as connecting to the realistic conditions to suggest the practical implication.
Finally, the limitations arouse the direct for further research in the future.


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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
In framework of investigation of the relationship between social presence and
antecedent of customer attitude, and their impact to purchase intention, author heritages
research model built by the previous research (Gefen and Straub, 2003; Hassanein and Head,
2007). On purpose discovery and thoroughly aware of conceptual, author synthesizes the
knowledge from various sources in different fields of electronic technology system to define
each construct and discuss its relationship hypotheses among the constructs.
2.2 Theoretical background
2.2.1 Social presence

In psychological respect, Argyle and Dean (1965) interpret the meaning of social
presence in concept of “immediacy behavior” which is used to create “intimacy”, which is a
fundamental supporting for the later related research to find out the way to explain clearer the
definition of social presence. Some researchers characterize the social presence of a medium as
its capacity to transmit information about facial expression, posture, dress and non-verbal cues
(Short et al., 1976). Its definition has clarified as the extent to which a medium allows users to
experience others as being psychologically present (Fulk et at, 1987). Social presence is as a
“mediated communication” in relation of property of a medium and the perception behavior or
attitudes of participants in a “mediated interaction” (Gunawardena, 1995). Hence, social
presence is considered as the degree to which users can feel others' presence in the result of
interpersonal interactions during the communication process. In other words, it regards as the
level of awareness of the co-presence of another human being or intelligence (Biocca and
Nowak, 2011).
Many researchers explain social presence on its close relationship to information richness
(Rice et al., 1989; Straub, 1994; Straub and Karahama, 1998), which centers on the interactivity
of the media (Sproull and Kiesler, 1986). Gefen and Straub (2003), however, emphasize the
psychological connection, where social presence is concerned about “human warmth”. Thus,


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the determinant of social presence relies on a medium convey sociable, warm, sensitive,
personal or intimateis (Shen and Khalifa, 2009)
Especially, Karimov et al. (2011) have a summary research which comprises thousands of
the previous researches related to the website design dimension; indicate that the “social cue
design” measured via human like, assistive interface and social media. In detail, human like
cues is manipulated social presence by facial photo of shop representation, product worn by
people in emotion setting and text evoke positive emotion. Assistive interface features transfer
social presence via avatar, recommendation agent, and these elements are not much noticed in
the research. Social media cues such as non-experimental information from others (including

from the other website and site searchers), objective source rating, customer or viewer ratings,
and social network (facebook, youtube, Twitte online blogs and forum etc), all are infusing
components boost social presence as well. Research has shown that increase sense of social
presence can be achieved through stimulating the imagination of interaction with other humans.
Studies have shown that technologies such as personalization, recommendation, and consumer
reviews can enable the feeling of a place where people interact, thus increasing the social
presence of websites (Kim and Benbasat, 2003) through socially rich text and picture content,
personalized greetings, human audio and video, intelligent agents, or by providing means for
actual interaction with other humans (Hassanein and Head, 2007)
Social presence has significance in connecting user to online store. According to Shen
and Khalifa (2009), it is a major design principle and important concept in explaining the
relationship between online community artifact and online behavior in multidimensional of
psychology including awareness, affective and cognitive social presence. These dimensions
form the overall sense of social presence. Rajasekhar and Vijayasree (2012) confirm the
emotions and sociability plays vital role in psychological perspectives, they are a potential
factor to influence the making decision process while in making and correcting the process
effectively.


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2.2.2 Perceived usefulness
TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) has been widely used to study online shopping
environments. It has been explained how users of acceptance and use technology base on two
mainly factors perceived of usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU). Usefulness is
explained as the individual’s perception that using the new technology enhances or improves
user performance which supports to increase the outcome of the online shopping experience
(Davis, 1989). TAM predicts individual adoption and attitude willing use technology (Rauniar
et al., 2014). Applying to online environment, high of PU and PEOU motivate users to visit or
participate interaction in website. For example, some social website like facebook, twitter etc

are attracting millions of participant due to its usefulness as it supply a tool for people to
communicate with others, and its ease of use when innovate website as the way make simple
manipulations.
Developing from the theory of TAM (Chen et al., 2002; Davis, 1989), Zhou et al. (2007)
building model of OSAM (Online Shopping Acceptance Model) which predicts and explains
consumer acceptance of online shopping by extending the belief-attitude intention behavior
relationship in TAM from the perspectives that are specific to online shopping. The research
captures the characteristics of the perceived usefulness, not just only perceived a generic
information systems but also deep into the ultimate goal of an online shopping which show off
the potential benefits such as term of convenience, search ability, and rich product information
environment as concept of “perceived gain” (Bhatnagar and Ghose, 2004a, p.765), which
underlies the importance of reducing online shopping uncertainty and risks.
Growth of Internet shopping primarily is attributed to the advantages the Internet provides
over other traditional forms of retailing. Its powerful utilities empower consumers with the
ability to access and perform the entire shopping process anytime, anywhere. Thus, each
commerce website, anyway, contributes to improve user performance in shopping or
information seeking by save money and save time. Furthermore, attending online shopping


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allow user to get the best deal or find out adequate information effectively related to the
products, such that enhance the usefulness of internet shopping (David, 1989).
2.2.3 Trust in an online environment
Trust is a complex concept that has been widely studied (Hassanein and Head, 2007).
However, it remains a difficult concept to describe due to its dynamic, evolving and multifacered nature (Ambrose and Johnson, 1998; Lewicki and Bunker, 1996). According to
Rousseau et al. (1998), although there many ways to describe this concept, the most commonly
cited definition of trust in various contexts is the “willingness of a party to be expectations that
the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor” (p.394), as proposed by
Mayer et al. (1995). It is also, “The more trusting we are, the more willing we may be to take

the risk of engagement/interaction” (Hassanein and Head, 2007, p. 692). For instance,
consumers are more willing to purchase products from a vendor if they can trust that the
vendor’s word can be relied upon and the vendor will not take advantage of the consumer’s
vulnerabilities (Geyskens et al., 1996).
Following to the above perceived of trust definition, application to the online
environment, many researchers define concepts of trust or consumer trust in online shopping.
For instance, Lee and Turban (2001) identify consumer trust in Internet shopping as “the
willingness of a consumer to be vulnerable to the actions of an Internet merchant in an Internet
transaction, based on the expectation that the Internet merchant will behave in certain agreeable
ways, irrespective of the ability of the consumers to monitor or control that Internet merchant”
(p.79). Trust can be seen as reliability and trustworthiness of the e-vendors supplying products
or services (Hassanein and Head, 2007). More specifically, it is a series of specific beliefs
including belief of ability, belief of benevolence and belief of competence of the online vendor
(Gefen, 2000).
Trust is generally important in the adoption of new technologies (Fukuyama, 1995),
including web (Gefen, 1997) and e-commerce (Gefen, 2000). Trust is an important aspect in
commerce, in general, because of the inherent uncertainly created by the need to depend upon


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others in many types of commerce interactions (Fukuyama, 1995; Luhmann, 1979; Williamson,
1985) and the resulting possibility of encountering opportunistic behavior, such as vendor is
not candidly revealing all the appropriate risks (Williamson, 1985) or behaving in an
unpredictable manner (Luhmann, 1979). The same applies to e-commerce where consumers
need to depend upon often the unknown e-vendors who may resort to opportunistic behavior
(Frederick, 2000; Gefen, 2000).
In an online shopping context, consumers may be vulnerable themselves as dealing with
e-vendors who are not to engage in potential, but clearly undesirable, opportunistic behavior
such as the retailers to sell information about you to unknown others, (Miyazaki and

Fernandez, 2006), a product or service may not perform as expected and suffering the loss of
the desired benefits (Stone and Gronhaug, 1993), purchasing unfair price, unauthorized
tracking of transactions and unauthorized use of credit card and purchase information (Gefen
and Straub, 2003). Similarly, Bhatnagar et al. (2000) suggest that the likelihood of purchasing
on the Internet decreases with increases in product risk. At once perceived of these risks, econsumer becomes uneasy to accept the transaction, which mainly causes the fails of online
shopping. Therefore, building trust is especially important in the online environment to
positively impact consumers’ attitudes and purchasing intentions (Bart et al., 2005; Gefen &
Straub, 2003; Roy et al., 2001; van der Heijden et al., 2001; Wang and Emurian, 2005;
Hassanein and Head, 2007).
2.2.4 Enjoyment
Originating from the definition of “flow state” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990), which mental
state when one is completely focused, absorbed, and engaged in an activity, others researcher
extended by plus enjoyment. Clarke and Haworth (1994) state the enjoyment of the activity is
one of very important element of flow. These authors describe “flow” as an experience that is
totally satisfying beyond a sense of having fun and specific by a heightened sense of
playfulness. Therefore, enjoyment is results from the fun and playfulness of the online


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shopping experience, reflects consumers’ perceptions regarding the potential entertainment of
Internet shopping.
Participant online shopping, e-consumer expects to receive a satisfaction the human
demand with the application of the advantage of high technology. “Online shopping is a
voluntary and hedonic activity, and user participate because they are intrinsically motivated”
(Shen, 2012, p. 201). Beside the economic outcome, consumer voluntarily participates in a
relationship due to leisure activity, which is fun and enjoyable (Mathwich, 2002). This is a
positive psychology according to the theory flow which an experience that is so enjoyable
should lead to positive effect and happiness in the long run (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990). Lee et al.
(2003) found that shopping enjoyment and purchasing convenience are the factors

sociopsychological value which contributes significantly to attainment online customer
satisfaction. Relation to the technology adoption, the concept of perceived enjoyment has been
defined and measured as the extent to which activity of using a specific system is perceived to
be enjoyable in its own right, aside from any performance consequences resulting from system
use (Davis et al., 1992; Shen, 2012). Using system with fun is also link to perceived
entertainment value which reflects the website ability to enhance the experience of visitor to a
website.
Synthesizing the previous research, three latent dimensions of enjoyment concept are
escapism, pleasure, and arousal (Mathwick et al., 2001; Monsuwe et al., 2004) and each of
construct specifically impact to consumer attitude by offering an escape from the demand of
the day to day world, feeling of happiness, satisfaction and stimulation of action. Monsuwe et
al. (2004) states that:
“ If consumers are exposed initially to pleasing and arousing stimuli during their Internet
shopping experience, they are then more likely to engage in subsequent shopping behavior:
they will browse more, engage in more unplanned purchasing, and seek out more stimulating
products and categories” (p.109)


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2.2.5 Attitude and its determinants
Prominent psychologist Allport (1935) has been stated that attitudes is "the most
distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology"(p.798). It expresses
the favorable or disfavorable toward a particular object. Thus, it is changeable and affect to the
human emotion and behavior.
In this study, attitude is mainly examined as the endogenous construct rather than
behavioral intention based on three reasons. First, this research applies a controlled
experimental design with manipulated fictitious websites. Despite the fact that we design an
experimental website which looks and feels as real and professional e-commerce site, the
hypothetical and simulated nature of the experiment was clearly evident to participants.

Measurement of behavioral intention of participants by survey as if they are likelihood to
purchase from or return to an artificial website, may not be realistic. It should solicit perception
of attitude, as a predisposition to influence behavior (Hassanein and Head, 2007). Second,
attitude has particularly connection to the consumer decision-making (Venkatesh and Brown,
2001). Research of Hsu and Bentler (2012) has been shown that consumer attitude have a
positive direct impact on online shopping intentions. In addition, a positive attitude leads to
ease online transactions and decrease barriers of online shopping (Jarvenpaa et al., 1999;
Pavlou and Chai, 2002). At last, attitude is closely influent to behavioral intention when
acceptance are voluntary (Davis et al., 1989; Hassanein and Head, 2007) and among
experienced users (Karahanna and Straub, 1999; Yu et al., 2005). As such, the participants in
this study are experienced users and online purchaser in voluntary context.
Theory of Reasoned Actions (TRA) mentions that there are relationship between
individual’s performance and behavioral intention, which is actually determined by the
individual’s attitude. Meanwhile, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) focuses on
explaining acceptance of information systems. Developing TAM theories, the empirical studies
have proven that user’s attitude toward high technology is influenced by the perceived of
usefulness and perceived ease of use.


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Studying psychology of consumer, Babin et al. (1994) suppose the motivation of
shopping initiate of utilitarian and hedonic dimensions. First factor is that customer pay
attention to how to purchase product in efficiency and timely manner to achieve their goals.
Then, customers care about the enjoyment that they seek fun, playfulness in online shopping,
and satisfaction with the service. Both of two respects are inside perceived person and “the
basic determinants of attitude” toward shopping in the internet (Monsuwe et al., 2004).
Meanwhile, many previous studies have summarized other significant factors that could
influence consumers’ attitude toward online shopping such as security, privacy, after- sales
service, marketing mix, and reputation. In this investigation, however, we focus on three

familiarly dimension of attitude within the web context: TAM constructs (perceived usefulness
and perceived ease of use); Trust; and Enjoyment. These factors are significantly influenced by
social presence as well (Hassanein and Head, 2007).
2.2.6 Purchase intention
Defining the online purchase intention, many authors agree that it attaches with the action
willing to pay and user behavior in making decision process. Pavlou (2003) defines online
purchase intention as a situation where a consumer does not object to pay and intends to make
online transactions. This term also is used by George (2004) in online process when customers
willingness to search, select and purchase products via the Internet. Similarly, Khalifa and
Limayem (2003), interpret internet purchase behavior as a process of purchasing products,
services and information via the Internet, base on earlier theories related to customer behavior
and intention. George (2004) expresses that many customers do not accept online shopping due
to psychology of customer care about personal information and privacy. This means that
processing of customers making their decisions on what product or services to purchase online
reveals the buying behavior of online customers. The way of decision-making behavior
interacting with online shopping is clarified in three stages of pre-purchase, purchase and post
purchase (Sheth and Mittal, 2004). Therefore, customer online purchase intentions in the web-


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shopping environment particularly decide the power of a consumer’s intention to do a
purchasing behavior via the Internet (Salisbury et al., 2001).
In the scope of e-commerce, Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Theory of Planned
Behavior (TPB), and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) are fundamental of knowledge in
explaining and predicting consumers’ intention towards adopting an online shopping behavior
in later research (Delafrooz et al., 2011). While TAM focuses on user with concept of
perceived usefulness as a determinant of attitude, the researches based on TRA and TPB
develop in extend to present cognitive processing and level of behavior change.
2.3 Research Model and Hypotheses Development

Heritage from model research of Hassenien and Head (2007), here author develops the
model by closer approach mental of internet user via purchase intention which is an important
step in making buying decision. The proposed research framework and hypotheses are
presented in figure 2.3

Perceived
Usefulness
H4

H1

Social
Presence

H2

Trust

H3

H5

H7

Attitude

H6

H8

Enjoyment

Figure 2.3: Conceptual model

H9

Purchase
Intention