Restaurant adoption of social media: an extension of the technology, organisation and environment model

Abstract

The aims of this study examine factors that affect restaurants’ adoption of social media platforms by utilising the technological, organizational, and environmental (TOE) framework, and market orientation and marketing intelligence from the business perspectives. This article utilises the TOE framework to make an empirical analysis of the adoption of social media by restaurants for their businesses. Online and offline surveys were conducted to examine the proposed social media adoption model. This research analyses the data using independent sample t-test and logit regression techniques. The results show that government support, market orientation and marketing intelligence affect the adoption of social media significantly. The emergence of social media has given huge potential for restaurant businesses to become more developed, with more intimate buyer and seller interactions. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the restaurant business need to utilise the power of social media through the implementation of social commerce, where social media is used beyond social interaction. Social commerce is an important driver of electronic commerce transactions, since more people are more comfortable using it as a medium of trading. This study’s findings could be relevant for future comparative analysis between countries within the same emerging digital economies, as well as the developed countries.