Exploring the boundary conditions of social influence for social media research

Abstract

Along with the proliferation of social networking sites (SNS), people around the world have gained the ability to influence each other in terms of many aspects of lives may it be a political interest or a simple purchase decision. However, most of the SNS studies have employed social influence constructs that were established prior to the advent of SNS to understand the nature and impact of social influence. Even though the application of such theories for SNS has generated a wealth of knowledge, it is vital to acknowledge the necessity of a new perspective that is specific to the current context. Therefore, we conducted a review of 65 studies to explore which social influence constructs have been employed by previous SNS studies and introduced five boundary conditions that should be taken into consideration when employing social influence theory for future SNS studies.