TFM MARTA ORTEGA Document 1-Report and Annexes

Escola Superior D’enginyeria Industrial, Aeroespacial I
Audiovisual De Terrassa (Universitat Politècnica De Catalunya)
Master’s Degree in Management Engineering (MUEO)
Student: Marta Ortega Góngora
Study of the factors influencing the

adoption of social media in SMEs
Master’s Thesis Supervisor: Silvia Rodríguez Donaire
Call: Spring 2016

Degree:
Master‟s Degree in Management Engineering (MUEO)
Student:
Marta Ortega Góngora
Master’s Thesis Title:
Study of the factors influencing the adoption of social media in SMEs.
Master’s Thesis Supervisor:
Silvia Rodríguez Donaire
Call:
Spring 2016
Content of the volume:
DOCUMENT 1.- REPORT AND ANNEXES

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................... 3
LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................... 4
LIST OF ACRONYMS ............................................................................... 5
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 6
1.1. AIM OF THE STUDY ........................................................................... 7

1.2. GAP .............................................................................................. 8
1.3. RESEARCH QUESTION ..................................................................... 9
1.4. JUSTIFICATION ................................................................................ 9
1.5. REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................ 11
1.6. SCOPE ......................................................................................... 11
2. STATE OF THE ART ........................................................................ 13
2.1. ABOUT SMES ............................................................................... 13

2.1.1. Definition of SME .......................................................................... 13
2.1.2. Differences between SMEs and Large Organisations ................... 14
2.2. ADOPTION OF IT BY SMES ............................................................. 16
2.2.1. Innovation theories ....................................................................... 16
2.2.2. Factors affecting the adoption of IT by SMEs ............................... 17
2.3. ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA ................................................................... 20
2.3.1. Definition of Social Media ............................................................. 20
2.3.2. Use of Social Media by SMEs....................................................... 21
2.3.3. Purpose of Social Media Adoption by SMEs ................................. 24
2.3.4. Benefits of Social Media Adoption by SMEs ................................. 26
2.3.5. Challenges of Social Media Adoption by SMEs ............................ 28
3. RESEARCH MODEL ........................................................................ 31
4. METHODOLOGY .............................................................................. 36
4.1. SAMPLE CRITERIA .......................................................................... 36

4.2. VARIABLES MEASUREMENT ............................................................ 38
4.3. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE ...................................................... 41
5. DATA ANALYSIS & RESULTS ........................................................ 44
5.1. SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS ............................................................ 44
1
5.2. DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................ 48
5.3. RESULTS ...................................................................................... 52
6. CASE STUDY ANALYSIS & RESULTS ........................................... 56
6.1. DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTICIPANTS ............................................... 56

6.2. CASE STUDY ANALYSIS .................................................................. 59
6.3. RESULTS ...................................................................................... 62
7. LIMITATIONS & FURTHER RESEARCH ......................................... 65
8. CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 67
9. REFERENCES .................................................................................. 69
ANNEX I. QUESTIONNAIRE: FACTORS INFLUENCING THE USE OF

SOCIAL MEDIA BY SMES ...................................................................... 80
ANNEX II: INTERVIEW GUIDE ............................................................... 85
ANNEX III: SPSS STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ......................................... 86
2
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Literature evolution in terms of Social Media and SMEs. (Source:

by the author) ............................................................................................. 6
Figure 2: Comparison between literature about "Social Media in SMEs"

and "Social Media in Large Organisations" (Source: by the author) .......... 8
Figure 3: Use of Social Media by Spanish and European SMEs (Source:

by the author) ........................................................................................... 10
Figure 4: Research Model (Source: by the author) .................................. 34
Figure 5: Definition of SME (Source: “Use of Social Media by European

SMEs”, European Commission) ............................................................... 37
Figure 6: The New Thresholds (Source: “Use of Social Media by European

SMEs”, European Commission) ............................................................... 38
Figure 7: Social Media Adoption Distribution (source: by the author) ...... 44
Figure 8: Gender Distribution (source: by the author) .............................. 45
Figure 9: Sector Distribution (source: by the author)................................ 46
Figure 10: Social Media Platforms Use (source: by the author) ............... 47
Figure 11: Frequency of Social Media Use (source: by the author) ......... 47
Figure 12: Final Research Model (Source: by the author) ....................... 55

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Differences between SMEs and Large Organisations (Source: by

the author) ............................................................................................... 16
Table 2: Factors affecting the adoption of IT (source: by the author) ....... 19
Table 3: Purpose of Social Media (Source: “Report about use of social

media by companies”, Adigital, in Spanish) ............................................. 26
Table 4: Items Description (source: by the author) .................................. 39
Table 5: Reliability Analysis (source: by the author) ................................ 48
Table 6: Factor Analysis (source: by the author)...................................... 49
Table 7: Pearson Correlation Matrix (source: by the author) ................... 51
Table 8: Discriminant analysis (source: by the author) ............................ 52

LIST OF ACRONYMS
SME: Small and Medium-sized Enterprise
IT: Information Technology
SEO: Search Engine Optimization
WOM: Word-of-mouth
ROI: Return on Investment

1. Introduction
Fast technological evolution and intensity of competition oblige companies to
constantly seek for new ways to differentiate themselves and offer added value to
their customers. With the increasing popularity of social media, companies have
started to consider this means as a new way to communicate with their
customers and increase their brand reputation.
In 2013, 28.6% of small businesses in Europe deployed some form of social

media for business purposes, and by 2014 this percentage had increased up to
61% (Batikas, van Bavel, Martin, & Maghiros, 2013). By looking at these
statistics, it is easy to realize the fast-pace growth that social media is
experimenting in the context of business, businesses know that social media is
not going anywhere, and they realize that if they wish to reach their customers,
their online presence in social media is a foundation of their overall marketing
strategy.
Due to the importance that social media is acquiring in the context of business,
there have also been an increasing interest in this topic by researchers and
academics. In Figure 1 we can see the evolution of literature that mention the
terms “Social Media” and “SMEs” throughout the years, from the beginning of
2000 until the end of 2015.
Figure 1: Literature evolution in terms of Social Media and SMEs. (Source: by the author)
Social media enables companies to better communicate with their customers, to

build relationships and become more personal, and, at the same time, to attract

the attention of potential customers (Michaelidou, Siamagka, & Christodoulides,
2011). The rise of social media has led to a fundamental shift in the way
businesses engage with their customers (Nadeem, 2012), companies are starting
to use social technologies in order to form meaningful, on-going relationships that
involve frequent interactions with their customers. This new definition of customer
engagement allows companies to build loyal relationships with their customers
that extend and last.
For SMEs, their ability to innovate is even more important because it improves
their own competitiveness. Small businesses are characterized by limited
resources: capital, human and technology (Davis & Vladica, 2006).
Consequently, they face more barriers to adoption of IT and are less likely to
adopt IT than large businesses (Ein-Dor & Segev, 1978), which prevents them
from improving their efficiency and effectiveness, and from gaining competitive
advantage (Benjamin, Rockart, Scott-Morton, & Wyman, 1984; Earl, 1989; Ives &
Learmonth, 1984; Porter & Millar, 1985).
Previous research has developed a long list of factors that affect the adoption of
IT by small businesses. These factors have usually been categorized either as
internal or external factors (Lefebvre & Lefebvre, 1996), having internal factors
demonstrated to be more significant in the adoption of IT than external ones
(Fink, 1998). CEO‟s characteristics, such as innovativeness, IT knowledge
(Thong,1995) and age (Fosso Wamba & Carter, 2014) have been proved to have
a great influence in the adoption of IT, as well as other organisational factors,
such as perceived benefits (Rogers, 1991; Mehrtens, Cragg, & Mills, 2001), ease
of use (Iacovou, Benbasat, & Dexter, 1995; Igbaria, Zinatelli, Cragg, & Cavaye,
1997), firm size (Thong & Yap, 1995; Bridge & Peel, 1999; Premkumar &
Roberts, 1999) and organisational readiness (Iacovou et al., 1995; Mehrtens et
al., 2001). External pressure (Iacovou et al., 1995; Premkumar & Roberts, 1999)
is the only external factor that has proved to be significant when adopting IT.
1.1. Aim of the study
This study aims to shed some light over the factors that influence Spanish SMEs
in the adoption of social media for business purposes, by contrasting the results
obtained from our research with the factors that affect IT adoption and have been
previously mentioned in the existing literature, as well as to study how this
adoption affects their businesses, by trying to identify the problems and
challenges that SMEs face and the benefits that they experiment once they have
adopted social media.

1.2. GAP
Despite the recent increase in the adoption and use of social media tools by
companies, most of the literature existing about the use of social media for
business purposes is focused on large organisations (Ali, Jiménez-Zarco, &
Bicho, 2015; Kilgour, Sasser, & Larke, 2015; Colleoni, 2013; Arora & Predmore,
2013), and very little research exists about the adoption of social media by SMEs
(Dahnil, Marzuki, Langgat, & Fabeil, 2014; Öztamur & Karakadilar, 2014; Sarosa,
2012). In Figure 2 , we can see a comparison between the existing literature
about “Social Media in SMEs” and “Social Media in Large Organisations”.
Figure 2: Comparison between literature about "Social Media in SMEs" and "Social Media in
Large Organisations" (Source: by the author)
Because of the unique characteristics of small businesses, the literature existing

about large organisations is not necessarily applicable to SMEs (Kuan & Chau,
2001; Cohn & Lindberge, 1972; Dandridge, 1979; Welsh & White, 1981). Small
businesses are not only characterised by lower sales, smaller assets and fewer
employees, but also by resource poverty (Storey, 1994). Because of this
particular feature, SMEs are more heavily influenced by external forces than
large organisations and are usually less willing to take risks (Welsh & White,
1981), since they lack the financial safety of big companies. Between an SME
and a large organisation, the factors that motivate the adoption decision, and the
way social media influence their business, might differ. There is, therefore, the
need to study this adoption, and its influence within the business, for the

particular case of SMEs.
Moreover, the majority of the research (Pentina & Koh, 2012; Dahnil et al., 2014;
Sarosa, 2012) existing about the adoption of social media by SMEs is focused on
Asia and United States, with very little research existing about the use of social
media by European SMEs.
1.3. Research Question
This research aims to answer the following research question:
“Which existing factors in the literature about IT adoption affect the Spanish
SMEs in the adoption of social media and how does this adoption affect SMEs
businesses?”
1.4. Justification
SMEs are considered the backbone of the European economy, due to their
contribution to job creation and innovation. SMEs account in Europe for more
than 98% of all enterprises, out of which a 92.7% are firms with fewer than ten
employees, and they generate a 67% of total employment (Batikas et al., 2013).
If we focus specifically in Spain, in 2015 there were 3.182.321 companies

registered, of which 3.178.408 were SMEs (equivalent to 99,88%), and these
companies accounted for 66% of the total employment in Spain. Within this
percentage, 95,9% of these companies were microbusinesses (with less than ten
employees). These statistics are useful to give us an idea of the importance that
SMEs have for the Spanish economy.
In Europe, just 61% of SMEs claim to be making formal use of social media
(Figure 3a). This percentage varies depending on the country. In Spain, just half
of the SMEs (54%) are users of social media (Figure 3b), being the leading
countries United Kingdom (90%), the Netherlands (78%) and Latvia (75%)
(Figure 3c). Of the overall 61% of SMEs that claim to be using social media, 72%
of firms agreed on their importance for external activities, such as developing the
enterprise‟s image, while only 33% agreed on their importance for internal
activities, such as enhancing collaboration and communication (Batikas et al.,
2013).

Figure 3: Use of Social Media by Spanish and European SMEs (Source: by the author)
Social media is even more important for SMEs than for large organisations, as
they often face greater difficulties in reaching the market (Batikas et al., 2013).
Like mentioned before, social media is one of the most interesting ways for
companies to engage with customers and to promote their business, at a much
lower cost than traditional marketing. SMEs should embrace the opportunities
that social media offers them, as it is more frequent for small businesses to be
constrained by factors such as time and money.
The results obtained from this research might benefit other businesses that are
struggling with the same issues and have the intention of adopting social media,
and it might help them to overcome the problems that most companies face when
adopting social media. At the same time, it might give a different perspective to
other businesses that have not decided yet to adopt social media, or even that
had previously decided not to adopt this strategy, to consider/reconsider its
implementation.
The results may also be useful for government organisations. Given the
importance that SMEs have for the economy in all countries, it is important for the
government to understand the use of social media by these small businesses. A
10

deeper understanding of the problems that SMEs face when implementing social
media strategies might help government organisations to design the appropriate
and necessary policies so that European business activity can improve and,
therefore, European economy can continue growing.
1.5. Requirements
The study will have the following characteristics:
 The study will be constituted by two parts: a quantitative part, developed in

order to study the factors that affect the adoption of social media by SMEs;
and a qualitative part, aiming to identify which are the benefits derived from
this adoption and the challenges faced during this adoption.
 Due to time and resource constraints, this study will only cover SMEs that
develop their activities in the province of Almería (Andalusia, Southeast of
Spain).
 Within the field of SMEs, this study will be focused only on micro retailers,
which have a maximum number of nine employees.
 Online business will not be included in this study, as we consider that there
are too many differences between the business model of an online business
and the one of a physical business.
 The quantitative part of the study can be considered a pilot study, with further
research needed, due to time constraints to get a sufficiently large sample.
 The qualitative part of the study (interviews) will only cover businesses that
have successfully implemented social media within their business, and that
are active in the social media platforms adopted.
1.6. Scope
After having introduced the aim and justification of this research, the next step in
the development of this study will be the state of the art. In this section, we will
describe what constitutes an SME and we will review the main literature existing
about the adoption of IT by SMEs, in order to evaluate the main factors that have
been found to influence this adoption decision in previous research. In addition,
we will review the main literature existing about social media and its use by
SMEs, as well as the literature about the benefits that SMEs can obtain through
the adoption of social media and the challenges that they can face during this
adoption.
Once we have reviewed the existing literature, a research model with its
correspondent hypothesis will be developed with the factors chosen from this
previous step, in order to evaluate whether these factors equally affect the
11

adoption of social media by Spanish SMEs. In this section, we will define and
explain each of the variables that will compose our research model.
Based on this research model, a questionnaire will be developed, in close

consultation with this thesis‟ supervisor, and delivered to the SMEs that satisfy
the requirements previously stated (see Section 1.5). In addition, several
interviews will be carried out with SMEs that have successfully implemented
social media within their business and that are active users of the social media
platform(s) implemented. An in-depth description of the sample criteria and of the
procedure for collecting the questionnaires and performing the interviews will be
made.
Once the questionnaires have been collected and, after verifying that they have
been correctly filled and can be therefore considered valid, an analysis of the
main characteristics of our sample will be performed. The SPSS software will be
used in order to perform the statistical analysis. In this analysis, we will verify
whether the data obtained can be considered valid and reliable and, after having
done so, we will test the hypothesis stated in the research model. Moreover,
once the interviews have been carried out, the analysis of these interviews, with a
brief description of the companies participating in the study, will be performed.
We will, after performing these analyses, state the main results found from both
the questionnaires and the interviews, we will analyse the limitations of this
research and we will provide some recommendations for further research.
Eventually, conclusions will be drawn from the study and the results found during
the study.
12

2. State of the Art
Since our study will be focused on SMEs, it is important to define what
constitutes an SME. Moreover, there is also the need to explain why it is
necessary to make a distinction between SMEs and large organisations.
In the first part of this chapter, we will define what is considered to constitute an
SME in Europe. We will also identify the most common features of SMEs and,
more specifically, the particular features that distinguish them from large
organisations.
The study aims to analyse whether the factors mentioned in the existing literature
about IT adoption by SMEs are also applicable to explain the adoption of social
media by Spanish SMEs. Therefore, in the second part of the chapter, we will
review the existing literature about adoption of IT by SMEs, identifying and
analysing these factors in order to use them as a base for our research.
The last part of the chapter will be dedicated to social media. We will define
social media and explain the purpose of social media use by SMEs, as well as
the most commonly used social media platforms. We will also try to identify the
benefits and challenges of social media implementation by SMEs, analysing
existing literature in order to identify the most frequently mentioned problems and
advantages and contrast them later with the results obtained from our research.
2.1. About SMEs
In this section we will explain what is considered in Europe to be an SME, and we

will identify which are the main characteristics that help to distinguish between
SMEs and large organisations.
2.1.1. Definition of SME
Since there is no agreement in the definition of what constitutes am SME, we will

use the new European definition of an SME, as established in the Commission
Recommendation 2003/361/EC. This new definition entered into force on 1
January 2005, and was developed in order to promote innovation and foster
partnership, and to ensure that support measures are granted only to those
enterprises that truly need them.
This new definition states that “the category of micro, small and medium-sized
enterprises (SME) is made up of enterprises which employ fewer than 250
persons and which have an annual turnover not exceeding 50 million euro,
13

and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding 43 million euro”.
The definition also introduces three different categories of enterprises

(autonomous, partner and linked enterprises), corresponding to each type of
relationship that an enterprise might have with another. Depending on the
category, the enterprise may have to include data from other enterprises in order
to verify whether it satisfies the requirements to constitute an SME.
2.1.2. Differences between SMEs and Large Organisations
SMEs differ from large organisations in many different ways, and these
differences affect the way these companies adopt technologies (Iacovou et al.,
1995).
Despite the increased availability and affordability of IT, many SMEs are still
reluctant to adopt the technology that could enhance their operations. This is
because SMEs face different challenges in the adoption and diffusion of IT than
large organisations (Lee & Runge, 2001). The most important challenges faced
by SMEs are regarding their limited financial, human and technological resources
(Iacovou et al., 1995; Kuan & Chau, 2001).
SMEs tend to be clustered in highly fragmented industries, like the retailing

industry. These industries are characterized by a high intensity of competition,
obliging companies to cut prices as a way to build revenues, which leads to a
reduction in their profits. In addition, changes in government regulations, tax
laws, labor and interest rates have a bigger impact on SMEs than on large
businesses and usually affect a great percentage of their expenses (Welsh &
White, 1981).
Also, because the owner-manager‟s salary in an SME represents such a large

fraction of the company‟s revenues, there is often little left over to pay for
additional personnel or to invest in IT. Similarly, SMEs cannot afford to pay for
the kind of accounting they need, and new employees cannot be adequately
tested and trained in advance (Welsh & White, 1981). This is a reason why,
typically, SMEs are lacking in specialized IT knowledge and technical skills
(DeLone, 1981; DeLone, 1988; Gable, 1991; Lees, 1987).
SMEs are, because of this resource poverty, characterized by a high firm failure
rate (Storey, 1994). About 11% of SMEs fail to survive in any given year, which
represents a failure rate six times higher than the one for large organisations
(Storey & Cressy, 1996). SMEs are, therefore, less willing to take risks than large
organisations, since they can seldom survive mistakes or misjudgments (Welsh &
14

White, 1981).
Apart from the previously mentioned characteristics, other elements also help
differentiating SMEs and large organisations, such as their organisational
structure and the reasons why SMEs adopt innovation.
Despite of their limited resources, SMEs enjoy a flatter hierarchy than larger
organizations, which can help enhancing their innovativeness (Hausman, 2005).
Because of this flat structure and their absence of bureaucracy (Gupta &
Cawthorn, 1998), SMEs are also more flexible and are able to make decisions
and respond to customers‟ changing needs more rapidly than large organisations
(Levy & Powell, 1998).
Business ownership is also one of the most important factors of what

characterises and differentiate an SME, and it is probably the key feature of
difference between small and large firms (Stanworth & Curran, 1973; Curran,
Stanworth, & Watkins, 1986; Stanworth & Grey, 1991; Storey, 1994). The
literature suggests that flexibility in SMEs is enhanced by a visionary CEO with
knowledge of IT (Levy & Powell, 1998). In an SME, the CEO, who is often the
company‟s owner, is commonly the person who determines the direction of the
SME (Levy & Powell, 2008; Thong, Yap, & Raman, 1996; Thong & Yap, 1995)
and, therefore, his/her skills and preferences have a major impact on the extent
to which an SME adopt an innovation (Thong & Yap, 1995).
The last important difference between SMEs and large organisations is based on
the business objectives. Unlike in large organisations, few owner-managers of
SMEs make financial gain their primary goal (Stanworth & Curran, 1973). This is
because, for SMEs, management decisions are usually made in the context of
survival and operational necessity, rather than growth and business development
(Beaver & Prince, 2004). Therefore, the adoption of IT by an SME will not be a
strategic decision, but will be based on a need to survive.
A summary of all the differences between large organisations and SMEs

mentioned in this section can be seen in Table 1.
15

Table 1: Differences between SMEs and Large Organisations (Source: by the author)
From these differences, we can see that SMEs are not simply scaled-down
versions of large ones and that they have special characteristics that differentiate
them from their larger counterparts, making it necessary to study them as a
separate sector.
2.2. Adoption of IT by SMEs
In this section, we will introduce the theories about diffusion of innovation, and we
will review the most commonly mentioned factors about IT adoption by SMEs
throughout the existing literature.
2.2.1. Innovation theories
In this study we will consider social media to be a technological innovation.

Therefore, it might be interesting to use technological innovation theories as a
reference to study the adoption of social media by SMEs. An innovation is an
idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of
adoption (Rogers, 1983). This suggests that the innovation does not have to be
something recently invented, but rather something perceived as new by the
adopting unit (Zaltman, Duncan, & Holbek, 1973).
Adoption means the decision to make physical acquisition of technical artifacts or

a commitment to implement innovation with the emphasis being on the decision
to adopt (Aiken, Bacharach, & French, 1980; Fichman & Kemerer, 1993). The
adoption of IT can be defined as using IT to support business (Thong & Yap,
1995). Following the same reasoning, the adoption of social media can be
defined as the use of social media to support a business.
The innovation adoption process in a firm can be divided in two phases: initiation
and implementation (Damanpour, 1991). In the phase of initiation, the firm
considers the need to introduce the innovation. For this, the firm searches for the
16

necessary information, the process is evaluated and, finally, the decision to adopt
the innovation is made. In the phase of implementation, the first use of the
innovation is made and, subsequently, organizational routines are modified
appropriately.
2.2.2. Factors affecting the adoption of IT by SMEs
The technological innovation literature has identified many variables that are
possible determinants of organizational adoption of an innovation. There is,
therefore, the need to do more research in order to identify the most important
ones (Rothwell, 1977). Moreover, some researchers question the possibility of
developing a unifying theory of innovation adoption that can apply to all types of
innovations, due to the fundamental differences existing between types of
innovations (Downs & Mohr, 1976; Fichman & Kemerer, 1993; Kimberly &
Evanisko, 1981). Therefore, there is a need to identify whether the factors that
affect IT adoption equally affect the adoption of social media.
Previous research has evidenced the existence of many drivers of adoption of IT.
These factors can be grouped in different categories: environmental or external,
technological and internal or organizational (Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990). Within
these categories, external factors have proven to be less important than internal
or technological ones (Fink, 1998; Teo, Tan, & Buk, 1997).
In Table 2, a summary of the most relevant literature and the factors about IT
adoption mentioned by the authors can be seen.
The most commonly mentioned external factors are:
 External pressure, either from competitors or from customers.

 Support and Incentives from the government.
 Social Expectations.
From these factors, external pressure is the only factor that has demonstrated to
be significant when adopting IT, especially if this pressure comes from the
customers. Literature has shown that, in the decision of adopting Internet,
businesses are influenced by their customers‟ expectations, who are usually
Internet users (Mehrtens et al, 2001).
The most important technological factors are regarding the ease of use of the
technology and the perceived benefits by the adopter. When adopting a new
technology, the owner of the firm must be able to perceive its potential value
(Vadapalli & Ramamurthy, 1997).
17

The organizational factors more frequently mentioned are:
 CEO characteristics:
 Age.
 IT Knowledge.
 Innovativeness.
 Business size.
 Organisational culture.
 Internal resources.
 Employees‟ IT knowledge.
Among these factors, CEO characteristics, such as innovativeness and IT

knowledge, have demonstrated to be the most significant determinants in the
decision to adopt IT in SMEs (Thong, 1999). The age of the CEO have also
demonstrated to be significant in the adoption of a new technology, as older
managers are usually more committed to routines and, therefore, less willing to
change them (Damanpour & Schneider, 2009).
Business size has also demonstrated to be one of the most significant

discriminator between adopters and non-adopters of IT among SMEs. This is
logical, since larger businesses will have more resources available and only
businesses that have the necessary organizational and financial resources would
consider adopting a new technology (Thong & Yap, 1995).
Finally, the level of IT knowledge within the organisation has also been found to
be a significant determinant of IT adoption by SMEs. This makes sense since in
general, a business will be more willing to adopt an innovation if they have the
personnel to understand that technology (Brancheau & Buckland, 1996).
18

Table 2: Factors affecting the adoption of IT (source: by the author)
19

2.3. About Social Media
In this section, we will introduce the concept of social media and we will describe
the way in which SMEs can use the different social media platforms in order to
obtain the most of them for their business. We will also explain the purpose and
most important reasons for social media adoption by SMEs. Eventually, we will
analyse, based on the existing literature, the most frequently mentioned benefits
that SMEs experiment after social media adoption, and the challenges that they
face during and after social media implementation.
2.3.1. Definition of Social Media
O‟Reilly (2007) was the first person to introduce the concept Web 2.0 as the
understanding of the website as a platform, in which the main rule is that users
are important, and businesses should focus on building databases that get better
the more people use them. For a platform to be considered Web 2.0, it must meet
the following requirements:
 Delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more

people use it
 Trusting users as co-developers
 Harnessing collective intelligence
 Lightweight user interfaces, which deliver rich user experiences
In addition, social media can be defined as “a group of Internet-based

applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web
2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content” (Kaplan
& Haenlein, 2010, p.61). For a site to be considered social media, it must have all
or most of the following characteristics (Saxena, 2013):
 Free web space for the user to upload content.

 A unique web address for each user.
 The possibility for the user to build a profile.
 The option of posting personal and professional updates, since the site must
be a platform to connect people.
 Users must be provided the tools to post content in real time.
 Members must be able to comment on posts uploaded by other users.
 Posts must be time stamped.
Taking into account these two definitions, we can refer to social media as a Web
2.0 innovation, because it centers on easy-to-use platforms that allow users to
generate content. But what makes social media unique among all Web 2.0
innovations is the simplicity of web-based sharing, allowing users to instantly
20

share content among their networks by just clicking a button (Beattie, 2011).
2.3.2. Use of Social Media by SMEs
Social media offers the opportunity for a high number of social interactions for
businesses (Fischer & Reuber, 2011). However, despite the growth in consumers
using social media and the identified advantages of using social media (Andzulis,
Panagopoulos & Rapp, 2012), SMEs have been found to be slower in adopting
social media than consumers (Ashworth, 2011).
Currently, most common social media marketing practices among SMEs involve
creating and operating a company‟s fan page, managing promotions, maintaining
public relations, and conducting market research. Other activities include
providing customer support and encouraging customer reviews and discussions
(Bettiol, Di Maria & Finotto, 2012; Chua, Deans & Parker, 2009; Gligorijevic &
Leong, 2011; Newman, 2013).
Nowadays, there is a wide variety of social media platforms, each of them having
some particular features that allow SMEs to use them in different ways and for
different purposes. These are the most utilized used social media platforms for
business purposes:
Facebook
Facebook is, as of 2016, the largest and one of the most powerful social media
platforms in the world, with more than 1,55 billion active users. Just because of
its size, Facebook is already an interesting option for business purposes, since it
gives the company the chance to reach almost everybody (Geoff, 2014).
Facebook requires long-term commitment and it is focused on building

relationships (Levy, 2013). Of all social networks, Facebook is the best in order to
spread conversations, because answers to a post then appear in respondents‟
friends.
Companies can also consider advertising or paying to promote their page on

Facebook, and have the option to track the success of their content and sort it by
date and time, in order to find out the best times for engaging customers
(Chitwood, 2014).
21

Twitter
Twitter, with 320 million active users in 2016, is an ongoing conversation that, like
text messaging, has become widely popular. Unlike Facebook, users in Twitter
cannot choose what to look at, or even respond later, it is more “in the moment.”
(Geoff, 2014).
Twitter is an interesting platform for businesses that want to reach out to people
now and expect readily for people to reply. Twitter is the way to reach out to
people for businesses that have things to say frequently and prefers to reach
people directly (Levy, 2013). When using Twitter, businesses must focus on
relevancy, personality and brevity in order to make their voice heard.
In Twitter, it is possible to stockpile and schedule content in advance, so that

companies can post around-the-clock and increase the likelihood of engaging
followers beyond their country or time zone (Chitwood, 2014).
LinkedIn
LinkedIn counts, as of 2016, with 240 million active users and offers the strongest
penetration among people aged 35+. This social media platform is the online
analog to old fashioned networking, mostly used for growing connections in the
business world and utilizing them as necessary (Levy, 2013).
LinkedIn is more interesting for service providers than for manufacturers or

retailers, because it is easier to talk about what the business does, and because
it is not a very visual medium. Companies must focus on keeping a company
description and profile page mindful of keyword SEO, but their network of
employees and contacts is their most valuable (and potentially damaging) content
on LinkedIn (Chitwood, 2014).
LinkedIn also includes groups and discussions where users can discuss their
interests, show their transparency, request for advice, and ask and answer
questions.
Pinterest
Pinterest is the “visual” platform by excellence, allowing members to pin or post
photos, videos, and other images to their pinboards. As of 2016, it counts with 70
22

million active users, being its audience mostly women (68%) (Geoff, 2014).
Pinterest is most suitable for businesses for which visual imagery is a main
feature or selling point, such as fashion, cooking or home décor (Levy, 2013). In
this platform, users pin and re-pin posts to Pinterest Boards, which pushes the
content on Pinterest into categories. This makes easily-categorized content most
apt for sharing, and wisely-chosen keywords essential to successful post
captions.
Pinterest differs from other popular search engines because it gives more
importance to recent content. This means that pinning and re-pinning frequently
is necessary to appear within current results for a given search term, regardless
of how popular the content is (Chitwood, 2014).
Google +
Google+, with its 400 million active users in 2016, is the fastest growing social
platform at the moment (Geoff, 2014). As Google‟s proposed alternative to
Facebook, keywords and SEO are central to its appeal.
Google + is suitable for any business where SEO is crucial for acquiring
customers. Companies should link often to content on their website in order to
boost search engine rankings, since everything they put on Google+ will help
their business get more visibility on Google, the world‟s most popular search
engine (Chitwood, 2014).
More than any particular feature of Google+, integration with other Google
platforms (Gmail, YouTube...) is one of the most important tools that this platform
has to offer (Honigman, 2014).
Instagram
Instagram, with its 400 million active users as of 2016, represent the largest
image-oriented community on the Internet. Instagram, like Pinterest, is a visual
social media platform based entirely on photo and video posts (Helmrich, 2016).
Instagram is a platform where more artistic niches excel, which makes it not
suitable for every sector. This platform, almost entirely mobile, is distinguished by
its unique filters and photo and video editing options. While hashtags are
clickable and useful for search purposes, links in comments and captions are not.
23

Businesses can use the integrated sharing functions for Facebook or Twitter in
order to repurpose their Instagram posts for more shareable media. Another
possibility is to include a relevant hashtag to become more discoverable on
Instagram and to track engagement across sites where they share the content
(Chitwood, 2014).
2.3.3. Purpose of Social Media Adoption by SMEs
As most of the existing research shows (Berthon, Pitt, Plangger & Shapiro, 2012;
Ashworth, 2011; Barnes, 2010), SMEs that decide to adopt social media use it
mainly for sales and marketing purposes. Within this framework, the following
reasons are frequently mentioned by companies that have decided to implement
social media:
 Build brand awareness: With every profile being unique, businesses can give
brands a personality on social networks. The way they interact, the way their
profile looks and feels, they are all part of the characteristics of their brand.
Besides, for SMEs getting started in marketing, social media is an easy and
affordable way to build brand awareness, being an Internet connection and a
computer the only thing they need (Torr, 2015).
 Increase website traffic: Social referrals are an extremely important source of
traffic for most websites. With 93% of consumers turning to social media to
help make buying decisions, and 90% of them saying that they trust products
recommended by their peers, it is essential for companies to attract
consumers to their sites through social media (Magento Marketing Team,
2015).
 Sell products and/or services: Social media helps companies to know what
people are saying about their brand and about their competitors, which can
help them to know their needs. At the same time, social media can help
companies to build deeper relationships with their current costumers, which
will probably drive them to purchase again (Smith, 2014).
 Engage potential customers: In the era of the always-on customer, social
media is a primary channel for customer engagement. Social media channels
are a key way to interact with customers and build human relationships.
Engaged customers tend to reward consistently strong service by spending
more and becoming influential brand advocates on social channels (Sklar,
2013).
 Improve SEO: When making a search about a brand, one of the first things
that users will see is the brand‟s social profile, since social media profiles are
often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names. Besides,
search engines like Google heavily rely on social media activity to list and
24

rank pages that are relevant to a keyword search (Lyngbo, 2013).
 Observe competition: Competitive analysis, the process of checking out what
a company‟s competitors are doing, is a way for companies to measure their
strengths and weaknesses and gain insight into their own. By liking or
following their competitors‟ social profiles, companies can see how their
competitors position themselves, how individuals interact with them and the
special promotions that they release on their social networks (Stewart, 2012).
Besides, some social networks count with tools that allow companies track
their competitors‟ engagement, follower growth and number of posts for the
week.
 Collect customers feedback: When running a business, customer feedback
can be one of the greatest sources of learning. When customers have a
complaint, question or compliment, many of them go directly to social media.
Monitoring all the social media accounts is important for companies in order
to know what their customers are saying about them, which will help them
learn and, therefore, improve (Telio, n.d.).
 Build customer loyalty: Customer loyalty is established and re-established at
each interaction a company makes with its customers, being these
interactions vital to building and maintaining strong customer relationships.
Social media serves as an active venue for conversations, giving companies
an unparalleled opportunity to support and assist customers, which makes
them the ideal platform for developing a strong customer loyalty program
(Relander, 2015).
 Promote products and/or services: Using social media as a way to promote
products and/or services is a lot cheaper than traditional marketing and
advertising methods. In addition, the amount of people that companies can
reach by promoting a product through social media, together with the limited
amount of resources needed, makes them the ideal platform for this purpose.
Some interesting ways for companies to promote their products/services
through social media is by organising contests, by providing special deals and
promotions or by simply uploading visual content, such as videos and/or
photos (Ajmera, 2014).
The two most important reasons to adopt social media mentioned by companies,
common to every platform, are the improvement of brand image and the building
of brand awareness (Adigital, 2014). In addition to these two reasons, depending
on the platform that the company decides to use, other reasons are also
frequently mentioned (Table 3: Purpose of Social Media (Source: “Report about
use of social media by companies”, Adigital, in Spanish)).
25

Table 3: Purpose of Social Media (Source: “Report about use of social media by
companies”, Adigital, in Spanish)
It is used for… And also for…

Promoting products and/or Increasing website
services traffic
Promoting products
Increasing website traffic
and/or services
Contacting potential
Attracting talent
customers
Promoting products
Increasing website traffic
and/or services
Increasing website
Improving SEO
traffic
Promoting products and/or Increasing website
services traffic
2.3.4. Benefits of Social Media Adoption by SMEs
Because of its simplicity and accessibility, SMEs can obtain great benefits from
implementing social media tools (Zeiller & Schauer, 2011). SMEs have the
advantage, in spite of being usually characterized by limited resources, of
enjoying a flatter hierarchy than large organisations, making them more suited to
utilize social media, due to their greater flexibility and higher need to contain
marketing communications costs (Pentina, Koh & Le, 2012).
Social Media can give many benefits to SME owners: they facilitate
communication over large distances with ease, breaking down geographical
barriers, and they overcome time constraints for information and interaction
purposes (Chen & Wellman, 2009; Schwartz-DuPre, 2006). Social media
provides a way to be closer to consumers with the added benefit of not needing
to go through „„gate keepers‟‟ to transmit information, making it an easy and
accessible way to communicate (Hennig-Thurau, Malthouse, Friege, Gensler,
Lobschat, Rangaswamy & Skiera, 2010).
Social Media can also directly benefit the business, if it is used correctly. In a
study developed by Nobre and Silva (2014), all the companies using social media
tools stated that they had noted an increased traffic in their website, and three
out of four companies stated that they had experienced increased knowledge
about their company. At the same time, two companies were able to translate
26

these benefits into increased sales. Roberts (2012) also found that 47% of the
SMEs that he studied noticed that a “significant” amount of traffic to their website
came from their Facebook page.
Although, as specified in the previous section, social media is often seen as a

means for sales and marketing, several studies have found that SMEs also
appreciate the benefits of using social media for other business purposes, such
as customer satisfaction (Kietzmann, Silvestre, McCarthy & Pitt, 2012). As
Mangold and Faulds (2010) state, social media gives SMEs‟ owners the
opportunity to talk to their consumers and discover new ways of improving their
products. In a research into social media use by small retailers, Ashworth (2011)
found that gaining knowledge through gathering information on customers and
building stronger relationships was seen as one of the main benefits of social
media use.
As a marketing means, SMEs can benefit greatly from easy-to-use and easy-to-
implement social media applications (Zeiller & Schauer, 2011). Moreover, the
adoption of social media applications is rather less complicated and less costly
due to its wide diffusion and technological advances (Kim, Lee & Lee, 2011).
Social media adoption offers tremendous power to the marketers to do precise
targeting in a very cost efficient way. The best part of social media tools is that
they offer excellent reporting and analytic, which might help SMEs to “level the
playing ground” with large firms (Kim, Lee & Lee, 2011).
In a study conducted by Deloitte (2012), Facebook was found to enable

companies to focus advertising towards a specific group of users once they had
become fans of the firm. Through monitoring the communication between
consumers and engaging visitors, companies can promote their brand in a more
effective and meaningful way, in order to generate awareness and new sales.
Social networks also seem to be an exceptional tool for companies to
communicate with consumers, due to the speed with which information circulates
and the low costs associated compared to traditional marketing. The power of
social media lies in its viral nature: one consumer relates to another and,
eventually, the marketing message quickly spreads throughout the Internet
(WOM). Regarding WOM marketing, Facebook mentions the following benefits of
using this platform for business purposes (Facebook, 2013):
1. Customized news feed based on users‟ personal information and interactions,

which indicates what they may like.
2. Brand recognition, meaning that companies stand on a huge public platform,

where every eye can be focused on them, resulting in image building of their
27

brand or service.
3. Facebook fan box is a persuasive tool through which e-mail recipients or

website visitors can easily become a company‟s fan and follow the business
page.
4. Effective brand monitoring allows the firm to counter misconceptions or

negative comments or opinions about the company by directly addressing them.
5. Increase search engine rankings, because all data can be made public so, by
using major brand key words, a company page can come up on top on Google or
Yahoo search engines.
The phenomenon of WOM, with its correspondent benefits, can also be observed
in other social media platforms, such as Twitter (Deloitte, 2013) or Google+
(Brogan, 2012).
In conclusion, social media can benefit SMEs in many different ways, either in the
fields of marketing and sales or in other different fields, such as customer
relationship (Capgemini, 2011). SMEs are starting to recognize that social media
tools represent a new way to communicate with consumers and improve
customer relationships, allowing their company to extend its communications,
develop a reputation, and promote firm image (Becker, Nobre & Vijay, 2013).
2.3.5. Challenges of Social Media Adoption by SMEs
Kuikka and Äkkinen (2011) developed a study in order to identify internal and
external challenges related to the adoption and use of social media. Results of
their study revealed that companies face internal challenges such as resources,
ownership, authorization, attitudes and economic issues, as well as external
challenges associated with company reputation, legal issues and public/private
network identity.
In the case of SMEs these challenges are even more difficult to overcome, since,
as Gilmore, Carson, and Rocks (2006) suggested, SMEs have several particular
characteristics and constraints, such as lack of time, lack of marketing expertise,
lack of market information and lack of planning. SMEs are, moreover, always
constrained when marketing themselves and gaining visibility, due to their limited
budgets.
Adoption of social media requires resources and demands a comprehensive

managerial strategy, which cannot be easily provided by SMEs. It is therefore not
surprising that, when adopting social media, several aspects related to resources,
28

such as “high maintenance efforts”, “the need to have someone keeping it
running” or “the need to keep information up to date”, are one of the most
commonly mentioned aspects, like the study of Meske and Stieglitz (2013)
revealed. Lack of staff resources was also found to be a barrier to social media
use in businesses by Ashworth (2011) and Barnes (2010).
Another aspect related to social media adoption that has been frequently
mentioned is the difficulty when measuring and monitoring the impact that social
media has in the business. In a study developed by Carter (2014), three out of six
businesses highlighted the difficulties of monitoring the impact of social media.
Other research (Aral, Dellacrocas, & Godes, 2013; Fischer & Reuber, 2011) has
also confirmed that there is little guidance available to businesses regarding
monitoring and measuring social media impact.
In order to successfully implement a social media marketing strategy, SME‟s

owner-managers must recognise social media‟s limitations and opportunities,
specifically in terms of performance measurement. Many social media studies
have emphasised the need and importance of measurement when evaluating
social media (Green, 2000; Henning-Thurau et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2011),
since monitoring results provides input for future strategic planning and allows an
opportunity to review objectives.
In addition, social media is not free, it requires time to develop relationships,

commitment, people and finance, conditions that, like previously mentioned, are
easy for large companies to achieve, but very difficult for SMEs. Since SMEs do
not count with the necessary resources to monitor and measure the impact of
social media in their business (Persaud, Spence, & Rahman, 2012), their owners
are usually not convinced of its strategic viability (Bulearca & Bulearca, 2010).
Another issue raised by some studies is the SMEs‟ owners‟ lack of knowledge
about social media. In a study developed by Hywel, Carr, Gannon-Leary, Fuller-
Love and O‟Gorman, (2014), the interviewees explained that the reason why
social media had previously failed in their business was the fact that they were
not used to that kind of communication and lacked the required technical and
strategic skills to implement social media effectively. Another issue highlighted
was the number of choices of social media tools available and the lack of
information or advice about which is the best one for their particular business
purposes.
Lack of time may be another important challenge to overcome when

implementing and using of social media. It is widely recognised that an
investment of time for social media to work effectively is required, with some
29

businesses seeing the management of social media as a full-time role, but not
being able to afford it because of their resource poverty (Carter, 2014).
The last challenge that SMEs may face when using social media is regarding
negative communications. As we have seen before, social media can be an
excellent tool for users to learn about companies and their products through the
sharing of information and the interaction that the site enables. However, it must
also be taken into consideration that users may generate negative
communications about the company, making it necessary for firms to monitor the
sites carefully, so that they can take the content down quickly and/or respond to it
effectively (Nobre & Silva, 2014).
30

3. Research model
Like we have mentioned in the introduction of this document, our study is aimed
to answer the research question:
“Which existing factors in the literature about IT adoption affect the Spanish
SMEs in the adoption of social media and how does this adoption affect SMEs
businesses?”
Based on the literature previously analysed (Section 2.2.2), and taking into
account that it is not possible to study all the factors mentioned in the innovation
literature, we will develop our research model with the factors that we have
considered to be more applicable to the adoption of social media by SMEs. Since
our objective is to identify primary relationships between the independent
(Business size, employees‟ social media knowledge, CEO‟s age, CEO‟s
innovativeness, CEO‟s knowledge about social media, ease of use of social
media, perceived benefits of social media, external pressure from the customers,
external pressure from competitors) and dependent (Adoption of social media)
variables, we have decided to use a one-stage model relating them, without
intermediate variables in between. The variables that constitute our research
model are discussed below:
Dependent Variable: Adoption of Social Media
The adoption of Social Media is defined in this research as the use of social
media for business purposes. This factor is measured as a binary variable:
whether the SME has adopted or not social media. This kind of measure is used
because the first part of our research question has the aim of differentiating the
SMEs that have adopted social media from those that have not.
Organisational factors:
Independent Variable: Business size
As we have mentioned in previous sections, SMEs face important challenges

regarding their limited financial, human and technological resources (Iacovou et
al., 1995; Kuan & Chau, 2001). SMEs are characterized by a very special
condition- resource poverty- that is caused by various factors, such as the
competitiveness of their environment, their financial constraints and their
sensibility to external changes. This condition makes it very difficult for SMEs to
survive a mistake (Welsh & White, 1981), which has an impact in their willingness
to take risks. Since the implementation of a new strategy always entails a risk, it
is then reasonable to think that the smaller the business, the less willing it will be
31

to take risks and, therefore, the less likely it will be to adopt social media.
Independent Variable: Employees’ social media knowledge
Usually, SMEs lack employees with technical skills (DeLone, 1988; Gable, 1991;
Lees, 1987), such as knowledge about social media. Because of their barriers to
develop the necessary technical skills and knowledge, SMEs tend to postpone
the adoption of an innovation until they have the necessary internal expertise
(Thong, 1999). Literature has shown that, in general, a business will be more
willing to adopt an innovation if they have the personnel to understand that
technology (Brancheau & Buckland, 1996). Therefore, SMEs that count with
employees that are knowledgeable about social media will be more willing to
adopt social media.
CEO characteristics
Within SMEs, the CEO is usually the main decision maker. Because of this, CEO
characteristics have demonstrated to be significant determinants in the decision
to adopt an innovation (Thong, 1999; Thong & Yap, 1995; Fosso Wamba &
Carter, 2014).
Independent Variable: CEO’s age
Throughout the literature it is possible to see evidences of the link between the
age of the CEO and the decision to adopt an innovation. For example,
Damanpour and Schneider (2009) argued that “older managers have been
socialized into accepting prevailing organizational conditions and routines and
have greater psychological commitment to them: hence, they will be less willing
to commit to changing them” (p.499). It is reasonable, therefore, to think that
younger managers will be more willing to adopt social media.
Independent Variable: CEO’s innovativeness
According to Rogers (1983) there are five different categories of individuals with
respect to the adoption of an innovation: innovators, early adopters, early
majority, late majority and laggards. With respect to this classification, a CEO
who is an innovator would be willing to take risks and be the first one to try out an
innovation, while a CEO who is a laggard would show an aversion to change and
would stick to the traditional means rather than adopting that innovation. It is
possible to assume, therefore, that a CEO who is more innovative would be more
willing to adopt social media.
32

Independent Variable: CEO’s knowledge about social media
Businesses that have CEOs who are more knowledgeable about an innovation
are more likely to adopt it (Thong & Yap, 1995). In a study developed by
Mehrtens et al. (2001) about the adoption of Internet by SMEs, they found
evidence that SMEs who had an owner that was knowledgeable about Internet
and its advantages, were more likely to adopt it. Therefore, we could think that
SMEs whose owners are knowledgeable about social media will be more willing
to adopt it.
Technological factors
Independent Variable: Ease of use of social media
Ease of use can be defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using
a particular system would be free of effort” (Davis, 1989, p.320). According to
Rogers (1983), the decision to adopt or reject an innovation will be made once an
individual has formed an opinion about that innovation. The decision to adopt an
innovation will depend on the CEO‟s perception of how easy that innovation is to
use. A CEO will, therefore, be more likely to adopt social media if he/she
considers it easy to use.
Independent Variable: Perceived benefits
CEOs that are aware of the benefits and advantages that an innovation can
report to their businesses are usually more willing to adopt it (Mehrtens et al.,
2001). If the CEO has the opinion that the adoption of an innovation will improve
his/her business‟s current situation, he/she will be more likely to adopt this
innovation (Thong, 1999). Therefore, if the CEO thinks that the adoption of social
media will increase his/her sales or will help him to stay competitive, he/she will
more likely adopt social media.
External factors
Independent Variable: External pressure from the customers
Literature has shown that, in the decision of adopting an innovation, businesses

are influenced by their customers‟ expectations, especially if they are users of
this innovation (Mehrtens et al, 2001). SMEs will be more likely to adopt social
media if their customers demand them to have social media.
Independent Variable: External pressure from competitors
Literature has also shown that competition increases the likelihood of a business
33

to adopt an innovation (Kimberly & Evanisko, 1981; Link & Bozeman, 1991).
When the competition is very intense, SMEs have to look for a way to obtain
competitive advantage. In order to obtain this advantage over their competitors,
it is more likely that SMEs will consider adopting an innovation: it is possible to
say that competition can push businesses to innovate (Levin, Levin & Meisel,
1987). Additionally, when the competitors of an SME adopt a certain technology,
it is more likely that the SME starts feeling pressure and decide to adopt this
technology (Grandon & Pearson, 2004). Based on this reasoning, we
hypothesize that an SME will be more likely to adopt social media when it is
operating in a highly competitive environment and its competitors are also using
social media, i.e., when the SME is feeling pressure coming from its competition.
Organisational Factors
H1
Business Size
Employees Social H2
Media Knowledge
CEO Characteristics
CEO Age H3a
CEO Innovativeness H3b
CEO Social Media H3c

Adoption of
Knowledge
Social Media
Technological Factors
H4a
Ease of Use
H4b
Perceived Benefits
External Factors
External Pressure H5a
from the customers
External Pressure H5b

from competitors
Figure 4: Research Model (Source: by the author)
34

Based on the variables previously identified and described, the research model
has been developed (Figure 4). Like we have mentioned at the beginning of this
section, the figure represents a one-stage model relating the independent
variables (Business size, employees‟ social media knowledge, CEO‟s age, CEO‟s
innovativeness, CEO‟s knowledge about social media, ease of use of social
media, perceived benefits of social media, external pressure from the customers,
external pressure from competitors) and the dependent variable (Adoption of
social media), without any intermediate variable in between. From each
independent variable, a hypothesis establishing the relationship between that
independent variable with the dependent variable has been developed:
Hypothesis 1: Business size will be positively related to the adoption of social

media.
Hypothesis 2: Employees‟ social media knowledge will be positively related to

the adoption of social media.
Hypothesis 3a: CEO‟s age will be negatively related to the adoption of social
media.
Hypothesis 3b: CEO‟s innovativeness will be positively related to the adoption of

social media.
Hypothesis 3c: CEO‟s knowledge about social media will be positively related to
Hypothesis 4a: Ease of use of social media tools will be positively related to the
adoption of social media.
Hypothesis 4b: Perceived benefits coming from the use of social media will be
positively related to the adoption of social media.
Hypothesis 5a: External pressure from the customers will be positively related to
Hypothesis 5b: External pressure from the competition will be positively related
to the adoption of social media.
35

4. Methodology
In this section, we will describe the requirements that companies must meet in
order to constitute an SME and, more specifically, a micro enterprise, being these
ones the requirements for companies to be selected for this study. We will also
analyse the way in which we have decided to measure the variables chosen in
order to study the factors affecting the adoption of social media and, eventually,
we will describe the way the questionnaires have been distributed and collected,
and the way the interviews have been conducted.
4.1. Sample criteria
Our study only covers micro enterprises from the retail industry and, more
specifically, autonomous enterprises, which are companies that are either
completely independent or have one or more minority partnerships (each less
than 25%) with other enterprises. This means that, to verify that our sample
enterprises are SMEs, there was no need to study their relationships with other
companies. Therefore, to choose our sample, we focused on the following data:
 Staff headcount: this requirement is compulsory; meaning that surpassing the

threshold stated in the definition (250 employees) means that the enterprise
loses automatically its SME status. It covers full-time, part-time and seasonal
staff, and it must be measured in Annual Work Units (AWU).
 Annual Turnover: this is the income that the enterprise received during the
year from its sales and services, without including the Value Added Tax
(VAT) or other indirect taxes.
 Annual Balance Sheet: it refers to the value of the company‟s main assets.
In Figure 5, a summary of the factors to take into account when assessing

whether a business constitutes an SME can be seen.
36

Figure 5: Definition of SME (Source: “Use of Social Media by European SMEs”, European
Commission)
As stated before, it is compulsory that the company satisfies the staff headcount
threshold, but it is possible for the company to choose whether they meet the
Turnover Ceiling (50 million euro) or the Balance Sheet Ceiling (43 million euro).
At the same time, within the category of SMEs there are three different
categories:
 Medium-sized enterprises: these are defined as enterprises that employ

fewer than 250 people and whose annual turnover does not exceed 50 million
euro or whose balance sheet does not exceed 43 million euro.
 Small enterprises: these are defined as enterprises that employ fewer than 50
people and whose annual turnover or balance sheet does not exceed 10
million euro.
 Micro enterprises: these are enterprises that employ fewer than 10 persons
and whose annual turnover or balance sheet does not exceed 2 million euro.
A summary of these categories and their characteristics can be seen in Figure 6.
37

Figure 6: The New Thresholds (Source: “Use of Social Media by European SMEs”, European
Commission)
Since our study is only focused on micro enterprises, the sample chosen for the
first part of this study had to satisfy the requirements stated in “Figure 6”, i.e., to
have less than 10 employees and, either an annual turnover smaller or equal
than €2 million, or an annual balance sheet total equal or smaller than €2 million.
For this part of the study, both SMEs that had adopted social media and that had
not adopted social media could be selected.
Moreover, for the second part of this study, we chose only companies that had
already successfully adopted social media, in order to be able to properly identify
the benefits that they had experimented with this implementation and the
challenges that they had faced.
4.2. Variables Measurement
For the first part of the research, a questionnaire (Annex I) was developed in
order to study the factors mentioned in the research model, and was handed out
38

to micro retailers, both adopters and non-adopters of social media. The majority
of the measures for these variables have been specifically developed for this
research, in close consultation with the supervisor of this thesis, due to the lack of
standard instruments for these factors. Business size was measured by number
of employees, a measure widely used by other researchers when studying this
factor (Cragg & King, 1992; DeLone, 1981; Thong & Yap, 1995). CEO‟s age
(numerical variable) had to be subjected to a logarithmic transformation in order
to reduce the variance, because the values were highly skewed. The rest of the
variables, especially developed for this study, were measured by five-point Likert
scales representing a range from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. Some of
the items were adapted from previously used scales. A detail of the measures for
these variables are summarized in Table 4. The dependent variable, adoption of
Social Media, was measured as a binary variable: whether the business has
adopted social media (1) or not (0). This measure was chosen because the
objective of this study is to identify the factors that distinguish SMEs that have
adopted social media from those that have not. As previously mentioned, we
understand that an SME has adopted social media if it uses social media for
business purposes.
Table 4: Items Description (source: by the author)
Category Variable Item Description

Organisational Employees’ Social My employees know how to use the most
Media knowledge common social media tools.
My employees know how to use more advanced
tools.
My employees have a high level of knowledge
about social media.
Organisational CEO’s I like to experiment with new technologies.
Innovativeness I consider that I have original ideas.
I usually think that everything was easier when
there were not so many technologies.
I always try to be up to date with respect to
technological evolution.
I like to take risks and do things differently.
I consider that, when things work, it is better not
to change them.
(continued)
39

Organisational CEO’s Social I frequently check my profile/s in social media.
Media Knowledge I consider myself very active in social media.
I know how to use the most common tools in
social media.
I know how to use almost all the tools of the
social media platforms that I use.
I am familiar with the privacy section and the
settings of my profile in social media.
Technological Ease of Use I learnt to use social media in one day.
I believe the use of social media is very intuitive.
I usually find out quickly how to use the different
tools of social media.
Sometimes I take a long time to find how to
change the settings in my account.
It was easy for me to create a profile in social
media.
Technological Perceived Benefits Social media can help me to increase my sales.
Social media can help me to get more loyal
customers.
Social media can help me to engage new
customers.
Social media can help me to promote my
products in a more economical way.
Social media can help me to forecast more
easily my sales.
Social media can help me to increase the visits
in my website.
External External Pressure My customers look for me in social media.
from the customers My customers usually ask me whether my
business has a social media profile.
My customers ask me through social media.
My customers comment the products through
social media.
My customers use social media to make their
complaints.
My customers look for information about the
product in social media or in forums.
(continued)
40

External External Pressure Rivalry between companies within my sector is
from competitors very intense.
It is very easy for my customers to find products
similar to mines in other companies.
There are many products in the market that are
different to mines but satisfy the same need.
In my city/town, there are not many businesses
that offer products similar to mines.
Most of my competitors use social media.
My competitors are very active in social media.
4.3. Data collection procedure
The questionnaire designed for the first part of this research (Annex I) was
divided into measurement instruments, related to organisational, technological
and external factors, and some demographics questions, such as industry sector,
owners‟ characteristics, social media platforms adopted, and frequency of use of
these platforms. In order to avoid geographic/cultural characteristics, and partly
due to resource and time constraints, we concentrated only on firms located in
the province of Almería (Andalusia, Spain). As we have mentioned before, the
firms had to satisfy two requirements: a) they needed to have less than 10
employees and b) they needed to have either an annual turnover or an annual
balance sheet total of less than € 2 million.
In order to ensure that firms satisfied the requirements specified, the author
handed out the questionnaires personally. The questionnaire was only handed
out to those businesses willing to participate and after asking, in each business,
whether they satisfied those requirements. In addition, the author asked in each
business whether the person she was speaking to was the owner of that
business and whether he/she had been the decision maker in the adoption of
social media. The questionnaire was only handed out in case these questions
were answered affirmatively, which turned out to happen in the majority of the
cases, since, in micro-enterprises, the owner is usually the one making all the
decisions. In some exceptional cases, the questionnaire was handed out to one
of the employees, who committed to personally deliver it to the owner of the
business. A total of 40 questionnaires were handed out.
The questionnaires were personally picked up, various days later, by the author.
When picking them up, the author asked whether they had had any
difficulty/problem when filling out the questionnaire. In the majority of the cases,
respondents assured that there were no difficulties, but, in some cases,
respondents did not completely understand one or several questions. In this
41

case, the author proceeded to explain them in more detail and, after making sure
they had properly understood it, the questionnaire was left one day more for the
respondents to have enough time to complete it.
Eventually, 36 out of the 40 questionnaires were correctly filled and returned to

the author, giving an effective response rate of 90%. This is considered to be a
very high response rate, probably obtained because of the face-to-face nature of
this data collection procedure.
For the study of the benefits derived from social media adoption and the
challenges faced during its implementation and use, a case study approach was
selected, due to the contemporary nature of social media. This approach is
considered to be particularly appropriate in cases in which the theory in the area
is not well developed (Eisenhardt, 1989) since they allow to conduct an in-depth
and longitudinal observation of phenomena and processes that are not yet clear
in literature in order to single-out variables and relationships among them and to
orient further analysis and exploration (Bettiol et al., 2012).
Since the aim of a qualitative research is to study the phenomenon in its context,
it is advisable that the method selected for collecting the data enables interaction
with the research participants (Crotty, 1998). In this study, the data comes from
the small businesses‟ owners who made the decision to implement social media
and who were, and currently are, in charge of its implementation and use. One of
the most commonly used methods for the collection of these data, and the one
selected by the author for this part of the research, is the semi-structured
interview (Creswell, 2003; Gillham, 2000). The semi-structured interview allows
the researcher to explore participants‟ experiences and to focus on the main
issues, yet allowing the interviewer to explore participants‟ responses further or to
clarify issues emerging during the interview (Gillham, 2000).
For the second part of this research, of the businesses that filled the
questionnaires, the most active companies in social media (according to their
answer in the questionnaire about “frequency of social media use within their
company”) were selected as candidates for the interviews. Even though the
previous part of the research does not consider the extent of use of social media,
the author considered this factor to be important for this second part of the
research, as benefits and challenges of social media will more probably arise in
case those companies are active in these platforms.
Once the criterion was established, the author personally informed about the
purpose of the interview to all the businesses satisfying this criterion. Eventually,
four of these businesses were willing to participate in the research, and the
42

interviews were scheduled with each participant. The interviews were recorded
with a mobile phone, previously asking the participants whether they gave their
consent to publish their names and information about their business. None of the
four participants mentioned a desire to stay anonymous; therefore, the author will
use the real names of these businesses in the following chapter. Eventually, once
the interviews were recorded, transcriptions were manually made by the author,
due to the small amount of information to transcribe, and companies were
compared to each other in order to evaluate the similarities and differences
existing in their social media experience and the benefits and challenges that
were most mentioned by them.
43

5. Data Analysis & Results
In this section, we will provide an insight of the main characteristics of the sample
studied, and we will analyse the data obtained through the questionnaires. To
conclude the section, we will provide the results found from this data analysis.
5.1. Sample Characteristics
As we have mentioned in the previous section, a total of 36 questionnaires were

collected. The main characteristics of this sample are:
 From the 36 questionnaires that were answered, 19 owners (53%) said to be

using at least one social media platform (in particular, Facebook) within their
business and 17 (47%) had decided not to implement social media within
their business. This distribution (Figure 7) is in accordance with the study
developed by Batikas et al. (2013), which found that in Spain just 54% of the
SMEs are using social media within their business.
Figure 7: Social Media Adoption Distribution (source: by the author)
 From the 36 respondents, 24 (67%) were women, from which 16 (67%) had
decided to adopt social media and 8 (33%) had decided not to adopt it; the
remaining 12 respondents (33%) were men, from which just 3 (25%) had
decided to adopt social media, and the remaining 9 (75%) had decided not to
adopt it. This gender distribution can be seen in Figure 8.
44

Figure 8: Gender Distribution (source: by the author)
 From the 36 companies that returned the questionnaire, 19 of them were

operating within the fashion/beauty sector, from which 14 (74%) had decided
to adopt social media and the remaining 5 (26%) had decided not to adopt it.
At the other end, 7 of the companies that returned the questionnaire belonged
to the food sector, from which just 1 of them (14%) had decided to adopt
social media and 6 of them (86%) had considered it not to be necessary for
their businesses. From the sector of decoration, 5 companies returned the
questionnaire, of which 2 had decided to adopt and 3 had not adopted).
Similar is the case of the leisure sector, of which 2 out of the 4 companies
that returned the questionnaire had adopted social media and the other 2 had
not adopted it. The last company that returned the questionnaire was a
hardware store, which had not adopted social media. The sector distribution
can be seen in Figure 9.
45

Figure 9: Sector Distribution (source: by the author)
 The 19 owners that had decided to adopt social media were using Facebook.
In addition, 8 (42%) of them had decided to implement more than one social
media platforms: 2 of them (25%) had decided to complement Facebook with
Twitter, another 2 (25%) had decided to use Instagram and another 2 (25%)
had decided to use Google +. Moreover, one of the owners (13%) had
decided to use both Instagram and Twitter, and another one (13%) had
decided to use Twitter and Google +. This distribution can be seen in Figure
10.
46

Figure 10: Social Media Platforms Use (source: by the author)
 Finally, from the 19 owners that decided to implement social media, 8 of them
(42%) published content in their business‟ social media page once or more
times per day, 8 of them (42%) published one or more times per week and 3
(16%) published content with less frequency. This distribution can be seen in
Figure 11.
Figure 11: Frequency of Social Media Use (source: by the author)
47

5.2. Data Analysis
For the data analysis of the questionnaires, the SPSS software was used. In
order to prepare the data for the analysis, the first thing that had to be done was
to convert the CEO‟s age to a logarithmic scale in order to decrease the variance,
since the values were highly skewed. In addition, several items of the
questionnaire had to be applied a correction key, for them to be pointing at the
same direction (in these cases, the answers were changed to the inverse of their
value, i.e., “5” was changed to “1”, “4” was changed to “2”, and so on…). This
was the case of the items 3 and 6 of “CEO‟s innovativeness” (“I usually think that
everything was easier when there were not so many technologies” and “I
consider that, when things work, it is better not to change them”), the item 4 of
“ease of use” (“Sometimes I take a long time to find how to change the settings in
my account”) and the item 4 of “External pressure from competitors” (“In my
city/town, there are not many businesses that offer products similar to mines”).
Once the data was prepared for the analysis, the psychometric properties of the
research variables were examined. For this, both the reliability and the validity of
the variables composed by more than one item were assessed. This was
necessary in order to verify whether the data that was obtained through the
questionnaire was reliable enough in order to provide useful and stable results.
The reliability, which is useful to verify the overall consistency of a measure, was
assessed by calculating the Cronbach alpha coefficient. Results of these
coefficients were as follows: for CEO‟s Innovativeness, a Cronbach coefficient of
0.837 was obtained; for CEO‟s knowledge about social media, the Cronbach
coefficient was 0.948; for Employees‟ knowledge about social media, it was
0.944; for Ease of use of social media, it was 0.912; for Perceived Benefits,
0.932; for External pressure from the customers, 0.935; and for External
Pressure from competitors, 0.849. As we can see, all the variables met the
generally accepted guideline of 0.70 (Hair, Anderson, Tatham & Black, 1995), so
they can all be considered as reliable measures. The values of the final reliability
test can be seen in Table 5.
Table 5: Reliability Analysis (source: by the author)
Non-adopter
Adopter ( n=19) (n=17) Global (n=36)
Variable Mean Std. Mean Std. Mean Std. Cronbach
Deviation Deviation Deviation Alpha
Business Size 1.711 1.004 1.500 0.685 1.611 0.863 NA
48

Employees‟ social
3.579 0.105 2.843 0.148 3.231 0.114 0.944
media knowledge
CEO‟s age 1.628 0.100 1.665 0.076 1.645 0.090 NA
CEO‟s
3.851 0.130 2.843 0.438 3.375 0.251 0.837
Innovativeness
CEO‟s social
4.095 0.327 2.165 0.331 3.183 0.311 0.948
media knowledge
Ease of Use 3.453 0.302 2.412 0.232 2.961 0.228 0.912
Perceived
4.053 0.552 3.049 0.339 3.579 0.432 0.932
Benefits
External pressure
3.905 0.084 2.129 0.295 3.067 0.100 0.935
from customers
External Pressure
3.737 0.686 3.382 0.379 3.799 0.167 0.849
from competitors
Besides being reliable, the measurement of the variable also has to be valid, i.e.,
it must measure what was intended to measure. The construct validity was
measured using factor analysis, and, for them to be valid, all the factor loadings
had to be bigger than 0.5, as recommended by Nunnally (1978). All the factor
loadings scored over this cut-off value, except for item “5” of the variable
“External pressure from the customers” (“My customers use social media to make
their complaints”) and items “5” and “6” of the variable “External pressure from
competitors” (“Most of my competitors use social media” and “My competitors are
very active in social media”). Therefore, these items were eliminated and both the
validity and reliability of “External pressure from competitors” and “External
pressure from customers” had to be reassessed. Final results of the validity test
can be seen in Table 6.
Table 6: Factor Analysis (source: by the author)
Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor Factor

Items
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Employees_Knowledge1 0.936
CEO_Innovativeness1 0.774
CEO_Knowledge1 0.897 (continued)
49

CEO_Knowledge2 0.875
Ease_of_Use1 0.897
Ease_of_Use2 0.801
Ease_of_Use3 0.911
Ease_of_Use4 0.904
Ease_of_Use5 0.784
Perceived_Benefits1 0.943
Pressure_Customers1 0.942
Pressure_Competitors1 0.834
It can be observed that all the final Cronbach coefficients (Table 5) are larger
than 0.70 and all the factor loadings (Table 6) are larger than 0.50. Therefore, our
data satisfies the requirements to be considered reliable and valid. For the
following statistical analysis, the factors obtained from the factor analysis were
used to represent their respective composite variable.
In order to assess whether multicollinearity problems existed among our

independent variables, the Pearson Correlation Matrix was examined (Table 7).
The highest squared correlation was 0.587, between “Ease of Use” and “CEO‟s
social media knowledge”. Therefore, none of the squared correlations among
independent variables were close to 0.80, which would suggest a problem with
multicollinearity (Hair et al., 1995).
It is worth to mention, however, that there seem to be certain correlation between

“CEO‟s social media knowledge” and “CEO‟s innovativeness”, and between
“CEO‟s social media knowledge” and “Ease of Use of social media”. Since the
square of these values do not reach 0.80, we consider them valid to carry on with
this study. However, in case further research with a larger sample would be
50

developed and the same behaviour in these variables would be observed, it
would be necessary to study the type of correlation existing between these
variables, in order to test whether the research model would have to be modified.
Table 7: Pearson Correlation Matrix (source: by the author)
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
(1) Business_Size 1.000
(2) Employees_Knowledge 0.146 1.000
(3) CEO_age 0.137 -0.279 1.000
(4) CEO_Innovativeness 0.027 0.259 -0.398 1.000
(5) CEO_Knowledge 0.097 0.331 -0.299 0.760 1.000
(6) Ease_of_Use 0.144 0.291 -0.386 0.693 0.766 1.000
(7) Perceived_Benefits 0.148 0.332 -0.143 0.556 0.635 0.590 1.000
(8) Pressure_customers 0.020 0.265 -0.380 0.624 0.648 0.410 0.685 1.000
(9) Pressure_Competitors 0.024 0.040 -0.026 0.303 0.337 0.140 0.069 0.206 1.000
For the hypothesis testing, the discriminant analysis was the method selected.
The purpose of discriminant analysis is to identify the existing differences
between two groups within a sample (in our case, the differences between
adopters and non-adopters of social media) and with respect to more than two
independent variables. This technique is most appropriate when the dependent
variable is measured as a nominal variable and the independent variables are
measured on intervals (Hair et al., 1995).
The results for the discriminant analysis can be seen in Table 8. According to our
Wilk‟s Lambda of 0.232 (chi-square= 43.136, df= 9 and significance=0.000), the
overall model can be considered significant. Some interesting values that are
given in the table are:
 The classificatory accuracy of the model. This measure is also very useful as
an indicator of the effectiveness of the calculated discriminant function. As
can be seen in the table, the discriminant function of our model was able to
correctly classify a 97.2% of our sample (100% for non-adopters and 94.7%
for adopters), much higher than the accuracy that could be expected due to
chance, which was 50.2% (calculated with the formula p2 + (1-p)2, where p is
the proportion of the sample in the first group).
 The significance of the F-values for each independent variable. This value
identifies which independent variables are most significant when
discriminating between the two groups (social media adopters and non-
adopters). From the table, we can see that “Employees‟ social media
knowledge” (significant in the level p<0.05), “CEO‟s Innovativeness”, “CEO‟s
social media knowledge”, “Ease of Use”, “Perceived Benefits” and “External
51

Pressure from the customers” (all of them significant in the level p<0.01) are
important discriminators between adopters and non-adopters of social media.
 The discriminant loadings. This value measures the linear correlation
between each independent variable and the discriminant function, evaluating
therefore how significant each variable is for the discriminant function.
According to Hair et al. (1995), any variable with a discriminant loading larger
than 0.3 is considered to be significant. From the table we can see that
“CEO‟s Innovativeness”, “CEO‟s social media knowledge”, “Ease of Use”,
“Perceived Benefits” and “External pressure from the customers” can be
considered significant in the decision to adopt or not social media.
Table 8: Discriminant analysis (source: by the author)
Wilk’s Discriminant
Variable Lambda F-value Significance Loading
Business_Size 0.985 0.527 0.473 0.068
Employees_Knowledge 0.846 6.189 0.018 0.234
CEO_age 0.959 1.449 0.237 -0.113
CEO_Innovativeness 0.597 22.911 0.000 0.451
CEO_Knowledge 0.460 39.919 0.000 0.595
Ease_of_Use 0.754 11.098 0.002 0.314
Perceived_Benefits 0.744 11.673 0.002 0.322
Pressure_customers 0.427 45.607 0.000 0.636
Pressure_Competitors 0.932 2.467 0.125 0.148
Classificatory accuracy of the model
Predicted Group Membership
Non-adopters Adopters Total
Original Count Non-adopters 17 0 17
Adopters 1 18 19
% Non-adopters 100 0 100
Adopters 5.3 94.7 100
Classificatory accuracy: 97.2%
Chance accuracy: 50.2%
The complete statistical analysis, obtained from SPSS, can be seen in Annex III.
5.3. Results
From the previous analysis, the following hypotheses have been verified:
Hypothesis 3b: CEO‟s innovativeness will be positively related to the adoption of

social media.
52

Hypothesis 3c: CEO‟s knowledge about social media will be positively related to
Hypothesis 4a: Ease of use of social media tools will be positively related to the
adoption of social media.
Hypothesis 4b: Perceived benefits coming from the use of social media will be
positively related to the adoption of social media.
Hypothesis 5a: External pressure from the customers will be positively related to
From these results, we can see that CEO characteristics, more specifically,
CEO‟s Innovativeness and CEO‟s social media knowledge, are important factors
for SMEs to adopt social media. This result confirms the theory of Thong and Yap
(1995), who also found that the characteristics of the CEO were important factors
in the decision of IT adoption. Since the CEO is the main decision maker in an
SME, only SMEs with CEOs who are knowledgeable about the use and
advantages of social media, and who are willing to take the risk of implementing
social media, will be likely to implement social media. As we have seen in
previous sections, according to Rogers (1983), risk-taking is an important feature
of innovators. In addition, the importance of the CEO‟s knowledge about social
media in the decision to adopt it confirms the theory of Dewar and Dutton (1986),
who also found that for a CEO to be willing to adopt an innovation, extensive
knowledge about that innovation was required.
Technological factors, i.e., ease of use and perceived benefits of social media,
have also proven to be important factors for adopting social media. This results
support Rogers‟ (1983) innovation theories, which states that the characteristics
of an innovation, such as its complexity or the advantages that it can offer to the
business, are important factors for the CEO to adopt this innovation. In an SME,
the CEO will be more willing to adopt social media if he/she thinks that this
adoption can improve the business‟ current situation and if he/she considers that
social media will be easy to use and to understand. At the same time, it is logical
to think that a CEO who is knowledgeable about social media will perceive its use
as easier (as explained by the high correlation coefficient between these two
factors seen in Table 7), which would also provide support for the theory of
Dewar and Dutton (1986) about the importance of the CEO‟s knowledge about
the innovation.
The last factor that has been found to influence social media adoption is the
external pressure when it comes from the customers. This result confirms the
53

theory of Mehrtens et al. (2001), who also found that businesses are influenced
by their customers‟ expectations, especially if they are users of the innovation to
adopt. Therefore, this result proved that an SME is more likely to adopt social
media if the majority of its customers are also users of social media.
From the model proposed (Section 3), we can see that the following hypotheses
have not been confirmed:
Hypothesis 1: Business size will be positively related to the adoption of social

media.
Hypothesis 2: Employees‟ social media knowledge will be positively related to

Hypothesis 3a: CEO‟s age will be negatively related to the adoption of social
media.
Hypothesis 5b: External pressure from the competition will be positively related
to the adoption of social media.
Further research about these factors with a larger sample would be necessary in
order to test whether they really do not influence social media adoption among
SMEs or this is just a result of the small sample tested during this study.
However, we will try to shed some light over why these factors have not been
found to influence social media adoption:
The fact that all SMEs from our sample were micro enterprises, i.e., they all had
less than 10 employees, might explain why business size did not influence social
media adoption among our sample, since there is not enough difference in
business size for these companies to behave differently from each other.
Employees‟ social media knowledge not influencing social media adoption in this
study might also be related to the size of the participating SMEs. In micro
enterprises, the CEO is not only the main decision maker, but he/she is most
likely the person that will be in charge of managing the business‟ social media,
since they often do not have the necessary resources to hire someone for
managing their social media. This would also explain why CEO‟s social media
knowledge has been found to influence social media adoption in this study, and
employees‟ social media knowledge has not.
External pressure from competition also does not seem to influence social media
adoption in our sample. This might also be related to the fact that they are all
micro enterprises. Despite of the competitiveness of their environment, usually
54

the aim of micro enterprises is more focused on surviving than on growing as a
company. Therefore, owners of micro enterprises tend not to feel the pressure of
being better than their competitors as long as their business is surviving.
Finally, and maybe the most surprising result, is the fact that CEO‟s age does not
seem to influence social media adoption in our study. Although there might be a
reason for this, the author suggests further research to study the influence of this
factor on a larger sample, since it would be logical to think that a younger CEO
would have a broader experience with social media and would more likely make
the decision to adopt social media within his/her business.
To conclude this section, the research model is modified in order to include the
results found during this study (Figure 12):
Organisational Factors
Business Size
Employees Social
Media Knowledge
CEO Characteristics
CEO Age
CEO Innovativeness 0.451
0.595 Adoption of
CEO Social Media
Knowledge Social Media
Technological Factors
0.314
Ease of Use
0.322
Perceived Benefits
External Factors
0.636
External Pressure
from the customers
External Pressure
from competitors
Figure 12: Final Research Model (Source: by the author)
55

6. Case Study Analysis & Results
During this section, we will describe the SMEs whose owners have been
interviewed for this part of the study. We will also analyse the interviews,
comparing the answers of all the respondents with regard to the benefits that they
have experimented after adopting social media and the challenges that they have
faced. Eventually, we will state the results found from this analysis.
6.1. Description of the participants
The author selected, based on the criteria specified during the description of the
data collection procedure (Section 4.3), the following four businesses for the
second part of this research, i.e., benefits and challenges of social media use and
implementation:
Participant 1: Cerezas Moda y Complementos
“Cerezas Moda y Complementos” is a small fashion shop located in the center

area of the city of Almería. The company opened its doors in September 2012
and has since then offered its clients a wide variety of modern clothes and
accessories at a very reasonable price. The company is focused on young and
middle-aged women looking for exclusive clothing without giving up the idea of
spending little money on it. In addition, “Cerezas” is one of the few fashion
businesses of Almería that sells modern, young clothing from size 36 to size 54
(European Size). María José, the owner, takes care of ordering any size that the
customer requires, offering like this a more personal and conscientious attention
to her customers. The shop is small, yet has everything at display, and
meticulously organized by María José, who enjoys creating the outfits for her
customers so that they do not have the complication of thinking what would fit
with the garment they want to purchase. The shop provides a friendly, cozy
atmosphere, just like María José, who instantly makes her customers feel like
friends from the moment they walk through the door, offering them a personal
attention and, of course, free fashion advice about the latest trends if they so
require.
María José started using Facebook from the moment she started her business.
She uses this platform mainly to upload pictures of the new collections that she
receives in her shop and to solve the doubts that the customers have about her
products or about her business. Even though her business does not count with
an online store, she also sends her products outside the city of Almería, receiving
the orders through private messages in Facebook and using this means to reach
56

an agreement with her customers.
Participant 2: Quiere-té.
“Quiere-té” is the only commerce in the city of Almería completely specialized in

tea. The company was born in September 2011 and it is, nowadays, a renowned
company for the tea lovers of the city. In order to ensure the quality of the tea that
they sell, and to be able to properly advise their customers according to their
preferences, they count with the advice of an external “International Tea
Sommelier”. “Quiere-té” imports a wide variety of tea from China and Japan, from
the most commercial to the most luxurious ones, and always after making sure
the tea has followed the strictest quality controls. In addition, they sell all kinds of
accessories and complements for the proper consumption of this beverage, and
delicatessen such as cookies and different types of flavoured-sugar. The store is
a paradise for any tea lover, with uncountable shelves full of tea boxes, and the
owner, Ana María, with her kindness and professionalism, is there to make the
client feel at home: she personally advises all the clients about the tea, giving
always an honest personal opinion about her preferences, and lets the client
smell the boxes of tea. In addition, she prepares every morning and every
afternoon a different kind of tea, and publishes the information through social
media, inviting all her clients and potential clients to taste the quality of her
products.
Ana María started using social media from the moment she opened her shop.
Even though she has both a Facebook page and a Twitter account for her
business, she recognizes to mainly use Facebook, as, according to her, it is more
difficult to properly use Twitter for business purposes. In addition, “Quiere-Té”
also counts with a website and an online store. Ana María uses Facebook to
upload information about her product and to invite her customers to pay her a
visit and taste it, since, like we have previously mentioned, she prepares every
day various different teas to offer to her customers. In addition, she uses
Facebook to improve her customer relationships and to establish collaborations
with other business from her area, such as restaurants or bars. Since her
business also collaborates with different events, such as fairs or markets, she
uses also Facebook as a means to promote these events.
Participant 3: Aires de Feria
“Aires de feria” is a company located in Alhama de Almería; a village situated

around 30 km from the city of Almería. The company, born in May 2012, is
specialized in “flamenco” fashion, selling flamenco dresses and all kinds of
complements to wear with these dresses, always from well-known brands in
57

order to ensure the quality of the products. Since the fashion of flamenco is very
specific, and is mostly sold in certain periods of the year, the company decided to
diversify and offer a wider range of products, selling also day-to-day clothing,
both for men and women, and other complements, such as bags, scarfs, shoes
and wallets. In addition, they count with a broad catalogue of all kinds of products
for babies and children. Even though the company is not located in a commercial
area of the village, it has become a reference not only for the people from
Alhama, but also for people from villages nearby, who decide to take the car in
order to purchase good brand products at very competitive prices. Noelia, the
owner, with her willingness to help her clients and her sympathy, helps to offer a
casual and enjoyable shopping experience, in which the client can comfortably
look around without being bothered, always knowing that Noelia will be there to
advise them and guide them in case they require so.
Noelia started using Facebook in May 2012, the moment in which she started her
business. She uses this social media platform to upload pictures of the new
products that she receives in her shop or of the products that were sold out and
are back again in stock. In addition, she uses Facebook to answer her customers‟
questions, both about her products or about her business. Even though her
business does not count with an online store, she also carries out online sales,
using Facebook as a means to reach an agreement with her customers and
confirm the sale.
Participant 4: D‟ Paula Moda y Complementos
D‟Paula is a small fashion shop located in the center of the city of Almería. The
company was created by Maica, its owner, in 2011. The shop is focused on
women on a budget looking for good quality clothing and complements, most of
them made in Spain, both for every day and for more special occasions. Maica
only brings to her shop clothing and complements different to the ones that can
be found in most of the shops, in order to give the shop an air of exclusivity. The
shop is wide and spacious, giving the customer the appropriate space to feel free
and look around through the extensive variety of products offered. In addition, if
the customer likes a product, but they do not have the size that she needs,
Maica, always willing to help and make her customers happy, offers the
possibility of ordering the product for her, offering this way an unparalleled
personal attention to her customers.
Maica started using Facebook in 2014, three years after she had started her
company, following the advice of some of her customers. She uses this platform
to upload pictures of the new products that she receives in her shop, trying to
58

publish at least once a day. In addition, she uses Facebook to answer her
customers‟ questions about her products and about her business. For this, Maica
checks her Facebook page at least three times a day, in order to answer her
customers‟ questions as soon as possible. Just like participant 1 and 3, Maica
has also started to carry out online sales, even though her business does not
count with an online store, using Facebook‟s private message to receive the
orders and reach an agreement about the terms of the sale with the customer.
6.2. Case study analysis
We analysed the information obtained through the interviews with the four
participants regarding the purpose of social media adoption, the benefits
experimented and the challenges that they faced.
Purpose and Use of Social Media
The four participants selected Facebook as the most appropriate platform for
their business. In addition, participant 2 created also a Twitter account for her
business, but admitted not to be very active in this platform due to a lack of
knowledge about which strategy is best to follow. The reason to select Facebook
for participant 1 and participant 2 was the fact that they had previous experience
with this platform, since they used this social media in their personal life and
considered it would be easier for them to use it. Participant 3 and participant 4
selected Facebook following the advices of their customers, who knew about
other businesses that were using it and were satisfied with the results obtained.
All the companies agreed that their reason to adopt social media was to make
their business more widely known and to reach more customers, taking
advantage of the fact that social media does not have geographical limitations. In
addition, they all agreed that social media was the best and cheapest way to
promote their products. Like participant 1 (who was a marketing professional
before starting her own business) said, “social media is a way of free advertising,
I could have chosen to advertise my business through billboards or through the
press, but with Facebook you reach many more people and for free”.
The four participants use Facebook to promote their products (uploading pictures
and information about the products that they sell or of the new collections that
they receive) and to upload information about their business (location,
timetables…). In addition, they all use Facebook in order to improve their
customer relationships, by answering the questions that their customers pose in
their Facebook page. Participant 2 also uses Facebook in order to promote the
events in which her business participates and the restaurants with whom she
59

collaborates, where customers can consume her products. In addition, she uses
the Facebook page of her business to give additional information about tea in
order to “instruct people in the world of tea”.
Benefits of Social Media
The four participants agreed that Facebook had helped them to get more people
to know their business, which translated for them in an increase of sales. They all
have in common the fact of not being located in a commercial area, which might
be a reason for them to be able to notice more the benefits of Facebook in this
aspect, since they have experienced that many customers ask them through
social media where their shop is located. Participant 4 commented that “you
realize of how many people get to know you through Facebook because most of
the people that come to the shop tells you: I didn’t know that this shop was here,
but I saw in Facebook that you have nice things and I decided to pay you a visit”.
Also, with respect to the sales, participants 1, 3 and 4 have realised that
Facebook helps them to sell more easily, since “people come with the picture of
the product in their phone and that way you know what they are looking for, so
you can offer them that or, if you don’t have it any more, something similar”. In
addition, participant 1 has noticed that “people don’t pay attention to some of the
products when they are in the shop, but then I upload a picture in Facebook
combining them with other products and people come to buy the whole outfit!”
With respect to online sales, the four participants commented to have also
noticed an improvement thanks to Facebook. In the case of participant 2, the only
business that counts with a website and online shop, she admitted to have
noticed that many of the people that reach their website do it through Facebook.
In addition, the other three participants, even though they do not count with an
online shop, have also started to sell products to people from different parts of
Spain that see the products through Facebook and order them by private
message. In the case of participant 4, for instance, she realised that by
organising contests she could reach a great amount of people, like she
commented, “everybody shares the post to participate in the contest, so
eventually people from everywhere in Spain see the page of my shop and ask me
if I can send them the products”.
Finally, for participant 2, Facebook has also helped her to network with other
businesses, from which she has established several collaborations with bars and
restaurants of the same area. This way, she promotes the businesses where they
offer her products, and, at the same time, they promote her business and her
60

products, helping her to reach more people and make her product known.
Challenges of Social Media
With respect to the challenges that they have experienced during the use of
social media, even though the four participants agreed that, in order to
experience the benefits, the use of social media requires time and dedication, just
participants 3 and 4 pointed it as a negative aspect. As participant 4 commented,
“you want to answer to the customers the fastest possible, so in the morning I
answer to the comments of the previous evening, then at midday I answer to the
comments of the morning, and in the evening I answer to the ones of the
afternoon, so in the end I spend the whole day in Facebook…”.
Lack of experience was also an issue for participants 3 and 4 when implementing
social media. Participant 4 stated: “at the beginning I was reluctant to use
Facebook because I have certain aversion to technologies, I have not been
raised with them and I am not so good at using them, but nowadays you have to
do anything if that means improving the things…”. Both, participants 3 and 4,
declared not having created the page of their business themselves and said that
they had struggled at the beginning with learning how to use it. Participant 4 also
confessed to still struggle sometimes with certain Facebook options and to have
had to ask for external help in these occasions.
Participants 1 and 4 also declared to have started using Facebook with a wrong
strategy. They both stated that, when they started using Facebook, they
uploaded the pictures of all the products that they received the same day, so
there were many days that they did not publish any content. After noticing that
this strategy was not working, they decided to change the strategy and upload
one picture every day, in order to have updates every day and appear more
frequent in their customers‟ news. They both agreed that this strategy works
much better, allowing them to better experience the benefits of social media.
Moreover, participant 2 declared having created a Facebook profile instead of a

page at the beginning, and admitted it to be a mistake: “I realised it was better to
create a page, because with a profile people has to request for friendship, which
many people prefer not to do, and also you start seeing in your business’ wall
every news about your friends, like that they went out for dinner or went on a trip,
so it’s not a business page any more”. After deleting the profile and creating a
page for the business, she declares that the Facebook page looks more
professional and she has been able to reach more people than when she had a
profile.
Finally, the four participants pointed out as a negative aspect of social media the
61

ease with which their competitors can monitor what they do and copy their
strategy. Participant 1, for instance, confessed to only tell the price of her
products by private message when her customers asks for it, “because you can
never know when the shop next to you is checking your Facebook page”.
6.3. Results
To summarize the previous information, the main findings of this analysis are:
 The main purpose of social media adoption is to reach more people, taking
advantage of the inexistence of geographical barriers. Social media allows
companies to reach not only customers within their area, but also potential
customers that are outside their geographical area and that would otherwise
not know about the existence of these businesses. The participants of this
study use social media mainly to promote their products and keep customers
up to date, regarding both the arrival of new products and other relevant
information about the business such as location, opening times…In addition,
social media is also used to improve their customer relationships and,
therefore, increase customers‟ loyalty.
 Regarding the benefits experienced with the use of social media, companies
seem to agree with the fact that social media helps them to attract new
customers and increase their sales, both physical and online. The only
participant with a website had experienced increased website traffic through
Facebook, which was translated into more online sales, but it is also
interesting the fact that social media can help improving online sales even
when companies do not count with a proper online store, as mentioned by the
other three participants without a website. Participants also mention the
benefit of social media helping them to improve their service, since they can
better know what the customer is looking for, making sales easier for them.
One of the participants also stated that Facebook had helped her to network
with other businesses from her sector and that she had, due to this,
established several collaborations with businesses from her area.
 Regarding the drawbacks of social media, the participants mention the ease
with which their competitors can monitor and copy their strategy. This might
also increase the chance of getting into a price war with their competition,
especially for companies that publish all the information about their products.
Lack of knowledge about the use of social media, as well as the lack of
knowledge about which is the most appropriate strategy to follow when
implementing social media, seem to be also one of the most common
challenges that companies face when adopting social media. Finally, the time
and dedication that social media requires in order to experience its benefits,
62

is also considered by some participants as a negative aspect of its
implementation.
Some of these results can be easily related to the theory mentioned in Section
2.3 about benefits and challenges that SMEs experience when implementing
social media.
As we can see, most of the participants decided to implement social media in

order to reach more people and make their business known, which confirms the
study developed by Adigital (2014) that states that one of the main reasons why
businesses implement social media is to increase brand awareness. In addition,
this study also mentions that companies use Facebook mainly to promote their
products, which can also be observed in these results, as all the participants use
Facebook to upload pictures and information about their products.
With respect to the benefits experienced, all the participants have agreed that,
because of social media, more people know their business, even outside their
geographic area, and they have increased their sales. Moreover, the only
participant with a website also noticed an increase in the website traffic because
of Facebook. This provides further evidence for the results obtained in the studies
developed by Nobre and Silva (2014) and by Roberts (2012), whose participants
experienced these same benefits after having implemented social media within
their business. In addition, all the participants agreed that Facebook has helped
them to improve their customer relationships, increasing their customers‟ loyalty,
benefit that has also been mentioned by Relander (2015) and Hennig-Thurau et
al. (2010).
Finally, with respect to the challenges faced when implementing social media, the
most noticeable challenges mentioned by the participants is that regarding the
lack of knowledge about social media and about which strategy is best to follow,
which provides support for the study developed by Hywel et al. (2014), in which
participants explained that social media had failed in their business due to their
lack of technical and strategic skills to implement social media effectively.
In addition, from these results, it is also interesting to notice that several factors
that have proved to influence social media adoption in the first part of our study
have also been mentioned in the interviews:
The participants mention the fact that they decided to adopt social media
because it would help them get to more people and, that way, get more
customers and increase their sales. We can deduce from this information that the
factor “perceived benefits” influenced them in their decision to adopt social
63

media, which supports the results obtained from the first part of this study.
At the same time, two of the participants (participants 3 and 4) commented that
they had decided to create a Facebook page for their business following the
advice of some of their customers. This comment would support the results
obtained from the first part of this study regarding the factor “external pressure
from the customers”, which had proved to influence the adoption decision when
implementing social media.
Following the same reasoning, participant 1 commented that the reason why she
decided to start a Facebook page and not another social media platform was the
fact that she already knew how to use Facebook and would, therefore, be easier
for her to learn. We can relate these comments to the factors “CEO‟s social
media knowledge” and “ease of use of social media”, which have both proved to
affect the social media adoption decision.
From these results, it is also possible to notice that the participants, to a certain
extent, perceive the use of social media as a threat for their business regarding
the factor “external pressure from the competition”, since they believe that social
media makes it easier for their competitors to monitor them and copy their
strategy. This would suggest that SMEs might understand this pressure from the
competition as a burden to adopt social media, which would be interesting to
further study in a future research. In addition, other factors like the time and
dedication or the growth strategy for social media seem to also be understood as
barriers to social media adoption and, therefore, they could be studied in the
future as factors that might affect the decision to adopt social media in SMEs.
To conclude with, from these results it is not possible to perceive the influence on
social media adoption of factors like the employees‟ social media knowledge, the
business size or the CEO‟s age, which have in our study proved not to influence
the adoption decision. However, due to the reduced sample of this study, these
results cannot be assured and further research with a larger sample would be
necessary in order to verify whether these factors affect or not social media
adoption.
64

7. Limitations & Further research
The study performed during this Master‟s Thesis has several limitations:
 Like we commented in the requirements of this study (Section 1.5), this study
must be considered a pilot study, since it does not cover a sufficiently large
sample. For a study to be representative of a larger sample, a minimum of 5-
10 respondents per item is advisable, being at least 10 the ideal number for
performing a factorial analysis. Since the questionnaire designed for this
study consists out of 37 items, a minimum sample of 370 respondents would
be necessary to affirm that the factors found to influence social media
adoption are representative for other samples. Therefore, further research
with a larger sample is required in order to verify the results found in this
study.
 Due to resource constraints, the study has only been performed in the
province of Almería (Spain). Further research with a sample covering different
regions of Spain would be advisable in order to study whether these factors
equally affect SMEs across Spain.
 The study only covers micro businesses (SMEs with less than ten
employees). Research covering SMEs with a larger number of employees
can be conducted in the future in order to analyse whether the factors found
in this research equally affect larger SMEs. In addition, the study is only
focused on micro businesses belonging to the retail industry. Therefore,
further research with SMEs from other industries can be performed to study
whether these factors are equal for all the sectors.
 The study has been performed with SMEs that have already implemented
social media within their business. Therefore, we cannot be sure that the
respondents were able to backtrack in their mind to the moment when they
decided to implement social media, and it is possible that they have
answered the questions influenced by their experience after adopting social
media. In addition, for this study, we have only asked whether they have
implemented or not social media within their business. In the future, further
research could explore the category of businesses that have not implemented
yet social media, but have decided to implement it in short term.
 Moreover, like we have stated before, the study only cover SMEs that have
either adopted or not adopted social media, without measuring the extent of
use of social media. Further research in order to explore the differences
between SMEs that have adopted social media but do not use it frequently
and those that have adopted social media and use it frequently can be
performed in the future.
65

 With respect to the study of the benefits and challenges of social media
adoption, three (out of four cases studied) of the participants of this study
belong to the fashion sector. A quantitative study with a larger sample can be
conducted in the future in order to study whether the benefits and challenges
identified in this study can also be observed in SMEs from different sectors.
 The four participants of this study decided that Facebook was the most
appropriate platform to use within their business. Further research exploring
the use of other social media platforms can be conducted in order to find out
whether the benefits and challenges observed after social media adoption
differ depending on the platform adopted.
 This study does not measure the impact that adoption of social media might
have on the financial and market performances of the SMEs. It can be
interesting to conduct future research to measure the ROI and sales revenue
improvement generated by social media adoption.
66

8. Conclusion
The study began with the fundamental question of which existing factors in the
literature about IT adoption affect also social media adoption by Spanish SMEs,
and how does the adoption of social media affect these businesses.
In order to answer the first part of the question, a quantitative research, using a
questionnaire as a method to answer this question, was proposed. Results of this
study have revealed that several factors that affect IT adoption by SMEs equally
affect social media adoption by Spanish SMEs. This way, we have found that an
SME will more likely adopt social media if the owner is a very innovative person
and he/she already has knowledge about social media. In addition, he/she will
more likely decide to implement social media within the business if the use of
social media is perceived as easy and beneficial for the business, i.e., if he/she
considers that the business‟ situation can improve with the use of social media.
Finally, the owner of an SME will more likely decide to adopt social media if the
customers also use it and talk about it with the SME‟s owner, making him/her feel
the pressure to implement it in order to satisfy the customers.
For the second part of the question, a case study analysis was the approach
selected. Four businesses were interviewed in order to study the benefits and
challenges that they had experimented with the use of social media. After
analysing the content of these interviews, the author found that the four
businesses agreed on the fact that social media was worthy to implement, its
benefits surpassing the few negative aspects of its implementation. The four
businesses used social media mainly to promote their products and maintain their
customer relationships, and they all agreed that, by doing this, social media had
helped them to increase their sales, both physical and online, and had improved
their customer relationships. For the participants that did not know how to use
social media, they both agreed that, even though they struggled at the beginning
to learn how to use it, it did not take them a long time to get used to using them.
The only negative aspect that all the participants commented was the ease for
their competition to monitor them and copy their strategy, and the time and
dedication required for social media to work. Despite of this, they all insisted that
the benefits of implementing social media had proven to be much greater than its
drawbacks.
This study has shed some light over the under-researched topic of social media
adoption by SMEs and it can be considered an important contribution to the
scarce literature existing about this topic in Europe and, more specifically, in
Spain.
67

Finally, we can conclude that this study can also help owners of SMEs to finally
make the decision to implement social media within their business, and can help
them see that, with the right strategy and very little investment, social media can
be of great benefit to their business. In addition, the study can serve as a guide to
help them avoid other people‟s mistakes during social media implementation,
making it easier for them to implement the right strategy from the beginning, so
that they can sooner start enjoying the benefits that social media can provide to
their business.
68

9. References
Adigital. Asociación Española de la Economía Digital. (2014). Informe sobre el
uso de redes sociales en empresas (in Spanish). Retrieved from:
https://www.adigital.org/emailing/2014/rrss/informe.pdf.
Aiken, M., Bacharach, S.B., & French, J.L. (1980). Organizational Structure,
Work Process, and Proposal Making in Administrative Bureaucracies, Academy
of Management Journal, 23 (4), 631-652.
Ajmera, H. (2014, November 19). 5 ways to promote your products on social

media without being too salesy. Retrieved from:
http://www.business2community.com/social-media/5-ways-promote-products-
social-media-without-salesy-01069778#ou0l8QdPdwwO8FAD.97.
Ali, I., Jiménez-Zarco, A.I., & Bicho, M. (2015). Using Social Media for CSR
communication and engaging stakeholders, Developments in Corporate
Governance and Responsibility, 7, 165-185.
Andzulis, J. M., Panagopoulos, N. G. & Rapp, A. (2012). A Review of Social

Media and Implications for the Sales Process. Journal of Personal Selling &
Sales Management, 32 (3), 305-316.
Aral, S., Dellacrocas, C. & Godes, D. (2013). Social Media and Business
Transformation: A Framework for Research. Information Systems Research, 24
(1), 3-13.
Arora, P., & Predmore, C.E. (2013). Social media as a strategic tool: Going
beyond the obvious, Advanced Series in Management, 11, 115-127.
Ashworth, C. (2011). The Impact of Social Media on SME Online Retailing in the
Fashion Sector. Liverpool, UK: Patterson, A. and Oakes, S.: Academy of
Marketing.
Barnes, N. G. (2010). Tweeting and Blogging to the Top How do the most
successful companies use social media?. Marketing Research, 22 (1), 8-13.
Batikas, M., van Bavel, R., Martin, A., & Maghiros, I. (2013). Report on Use of
Social Media by European SMEs: Prepared for the European Commission DG
Communications Networks, Content and Technology. Retrieved from
http://www.europski-
fondovi.eu/sites/default/files/dokumenti/KK0113565ENN_002.pdf
Beattie, A. (2011, November 29). What is the difference between social media
69

and Web 2.0?. Retrieved from:
https://www.techopedia.com/2/27884/internet/social-media/what-is-the-
difference-between-social-media-and-web-20
Beaver, G., & Prince, C. (2004). Management, strategy and policy in the UK
small business sector: a critical review, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise
Development, 11 (1), 34-49.
Becker, K., Nobre, H., & Vijay, K. (2013). Monitoring and protecting company and
brand reputation on social networks: When sites are not enough. Global Business
and Economics Review, 15 (2/3), 293–230.
Benjamin, R.I., Rockart, J.F., Scott-Morton, M.C., & Wyman, J. (1984).

Information technology: a strategic opportunity. Sloan Management Review, 25
(3), 3-10.
Berthon, P. R., Pitt, L. F., Plangger, K. & Shapiro, D. (2012). Marketing meets
Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers: Implications for international
marketing strategy. Business Horizons, 55, 261-271.
Bettiol, M., Di Maria, E., & Finotto, V. (2012). Marketing in SMEs: The role of
entrepreneurial sensemaking. International Entrepreneurship and Management
Journal, 8 (2), 223-248.
Brancheau, J.C., & Buckland, B.K. (1996). Adoption of Information Technology

among Small Businesses: Comparing Classical and Knowledge-Based Diffusion
Models. Unpublished Paper, p. 38.
Bridge, J., & Peel, M.J. (1999). Research Note: A Study of Computer Usage and
Strategic Planning in the SME Sector, International Small Business Journal, 17
(4), 82-88.
Brogan, C. (2012). Google+ for Business: how Google’s Social Network Changes
Everything (2nd ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Que Publishing.
Bulearca, M., & Bulearca, S. (2010). Twitter: A viable marketing tool for SMEs?.
Global Business and Management Research: An International Journal, 2(4), 296-
309.
Capgemini. (2011). Social Business Transformation: How customers change your

entreprise DNA. Retrieved from: https://www.capgemini.com/resources/social-
business-transformations.
Carter, J. (2014). Report on Social Media Strategies in Small Businesses:
70

Prepared for Centre for Enterprise MMU. Retrieved from:
http://www.nemode.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Carter-Social-media-in-
SMEs.pdf.
Chen, W., & Wellman, B. (2009). Net and jet. Information, Communication and
Society, 12 (4), 525-547.
Chitwood, L. (2014, March 5). Which social media platform is best for your
business?. Retrieved from: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2014/03/05/social-
media-platform-best-business/#gref.
Chua, A.P.H., Deans, K.R., & Parker, C.M. (2009). Exploring the types of SMEs
which could use blogs as a marketing tool: A proposed future research agenda.
Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 16(1), 117-136.
Cohn, T., & Lindberge, R.A. (1972). How Management is Different in Small
Companies. New York: American Management Association.
Colleoni, E. (2013). CSR communication strategies for organizational legitimacy

in social media, Corporate Communications, 18 (2), 228-248.
Creswell, J.W. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed

Methods Approaches (2nd ed,). Thousand Oaks, California (CA): Sage
Publications.
Crotty, M. (1998). The Foundations of Social Research. London, U.K: Sage

Publications.
Curran, J., Stanworth, J., & Watkins, D. (1986). The Survival of the Small Firm.
Gower.
Dahnil, M.I., Marzuki, K.M., Langgat, J., & Fabeil, N.F. (2014). Factors Influencing
SMEs Adoption of Social Media Marketing, Procedia, Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 148, 119-126.
Damanpour, F. (1991). Organizational innovation: a meta-analysis of effects of

determinants and moderators, Academy of Management Journal, 34 (3), 555-
590.
Damanpour, F., & Schneider, M. (2009). Characteristics of Innovation and

Innovation Adoption in Public Organizations: Assessing the Role of Managers,
Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory, 19 (3), 495-522.
Dandridge, T.C. (1979). Children are not 'little grownups': small business needs
its own organizational theory. Journal of Small Business Management, 17 (2), 53-
71

57.
Davis, F.D. (1989). Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User
Acceptance of Information Technology. MIS Quarterly, 13 (3), 319-340.
Davis, C. H., & Vladica, F. (2006). Use of internet technologies and e-business
solutions: a structural model of sources of business value among Canadian
micro-enterprises. Paper presented at the 39th Annual Hawaii International
Conference on System Sciences. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2006.519.
Deloitte. (2012). Measuring Facebook‟s economic impact in Europe Final Report

(January 2012). Retrieved from:
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/DcomUnitedKingdom/Local%20Assets/Document
s/Industries/TMT/uk-tmt-media-face book-europe-economic-impact.pdf
Deloitte. (2013). Tweets for Sales Gaming. Retrieved from:

http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/technology-media-
telecommunications/deloitte-uk-tmt-tweets-for-sale-tmt.pdf
DeLone, W.H. (1981). Firm Size and Characteristics of Computer Use, MIS
Quarterly, 5 (4), 65-77.
DeLone, W.H. (1988). Determinants of success for computer usage in small

business, MIS Quarterly, 12 (1), 51-61.
Dewar, R.D. & Dutton, J.E. (1986). The adoption of radical and incremental
innovations: an empirical analysis. Management Science, 32(11), 1422-1433.
Downs, G.W., Jr., & Mohr, L.B. (1976). Conceptual issues in the study of
innovation, Administrative Science Quarterly, 21 (4), 700-714.
Earl, M. (1989) Implementation: Management Strategies for Information

Technology. Prentice-Hall, New York.
Ein-Dor, P., & Segev, E. (1978). Organizational context and the success of
management information systems. Management Sciences, 24, 1064-1077.
Eisenhardt, K.M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of
Management Review, 14 (4), 532-550.
Facebook. (2013). World of mouth marketing. Retrieved from:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/World-of-
MouthMarketing/146462498731131?v=app_7146470109
Fichman, R.G., & Kemerer, C.F. (1993). Adoption of Software Engineering
72

Process Innovations: The Case of Object Orientation. Sloan Management
Review, 32 (4), 7-22.
Fink, D. (1998). Guidelines for the successful adoption of Information Technology

in Small and Medium Enterprises. International Journal of Information
Management, 18 (4), 243-253.
Fischer, E. & Reuber, A. R. (2011). Social interaction via new social media:
(How) can interactions on Twitter affect effectual thinking and behavior?. Journal
of Business Venturing, 26,1-18.
Fosso Wamba, S., & Carter, L. (2014). Social Media Tools Adoption and Use by
SMEs: An Empirical Study. Journal of End User and Organizational Computing,
26 (1), 1-16.
Gable, G.G. (1991). Consultant engagement for first time computerization: a pro-
active client role in small businesses. Information Management, 20, 83-93.
Geoff. (2014, January 20). Choosing the right social media platform. Retrieved
from: http://wersm.com/choosing-the-right-social-media-platform/.
Gillham, B. (2000). Case study research methods. London, U.K: Continuum.
Gilmore, A., Carson, D. & Rocks, S. (2006). Networking in SMEs: Evaluating its
contribution to marketing activity. International Business Review, 15 (3), 278-293.
Gligorijevic, B., & Leong, B. (2011). Trust, reputation and the small firm: Building
online brand reputation for SMEs. Proceedings of the Fifth International AAAI
Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, pp.494-497.
Grandon, E. E., & Pearson, J. M. (2004). Electronic commerce adoption: an

empirical study of small and medium US businesses. Information & Management,
42(1), 197–216. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2003.12.010.
Green, J. S. (2000). E-Media: How to use electronic media for effective marketing
communications, Admap Publications.
Gupta, M., & Cawthorn, G. (1996). Managerial Implications of Flexible

Manufacturing for SMEs. Elsevier Advanced Technology, Technovation 16(20),
77–83.
Hair, J.F., Jr., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L., & Black, W.C. (1995). Multivariate
Data Analysis with Readings, 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prenttice-Hall.
Hausman, H. (2005). Innovativeness among small businesses: Theory and
73

propositions for future research. Industrial Marketing Management, 34 (8), 773-
782.
Helmrich, B. (2016, January 29). Social Media for Business: 2016‟s Marketer‟s
Guide. Retrieved from: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7832-social-media-for-
business.html.
Hennig-Thurau, H. T., Malthouse, E. C., Friege, C., Gensler, S., Lobschat, L.,
Rangaswamy, A., & Skiera, B. (2010). The impact of new media on customer
relationships. Journal of Service Research, 13(3), 311–330.
Honigman, B. (2014, June 3). The pros and cons of using Google +. Retrieved
from: http://www.iacquire.com/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-using-google.
Hywel, G., Carr, J., Gannon-Leary, P., Fuller-Love, N. & O‟Gorman, B. (2014). An
investigation into the use of social media by SME owners. Retrieved from:
http://www.academia.edu/3999245/An_investigation_into_the_use_of_Social_Me
dia_by_SME_owners.
Iacovou, C.L., Benbasat, I., & Dexter, A.S. (1995). Electronic data interchange
and small organizations: Adoption and impact of technology. MIS Quarterly,
19(4), 465-486.
Igbaria, M., Zinatelli, N., Cragg, P., & Cavaye, A.L.M. (1997). Personal
Computing Acceptance Factors in Small Firms: A Structural Equation Model. MIS
Quaterly, 21 (3), 279-305.
Ives, B., & Learmonth, G.P. (1984). The information system as a competitive
weapon. Communications ACM, 27, 1193-1201.
Kaplan, A.M. & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges
and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53 (1), 59-68.
Kietzmann, J. H., Silvestre, B. S., McCarthy, I. P., & Pitt, L. F. (2012). Unpacking
the social media phenomenon: towards a research agenda. Journal of Public
Affairs, 12, 109-119.
Kim, H.D., Lee, I., & Lee, C.K. (2011). Building Web 2.0 enterprises: A study of
small and medium enterprises in the United States. International Small Business
Journal, 29, 1-19.
Kimberly, J.R., & Evanisko, M.J. (1981). Organizational innovation: the influence
of individual, organizational and contextual factors on hospital adoption of
technological and administrative innovations. Academy of Management Journal,
74

24 (4), 689-713.
Kilgour, M., Sasser, S.L., & Larke, R. (2015). The social media transformation
process: Curating content into strategy. Corporate Communications, 20 (3), 326-
343.
Kuan, K. K. Y., & Chau, P. Y. K. (2001). A Perception-Based Model for EDI

Adoption in Small Businesses Using a Technology Organisation-Environment
Framework. Information and Management, 38 (8), 507-521.
Kuikka, M., & Äkkinen, M. (2011). Determining the Challenges of Organizational

Social Media Adoption and Use. In: ECIS 2011 Proceedings, 248.
Lee, J., & Runge, J. (2001). Adoption of Information Technology in Small

Business: Testing drivers of Adoption for Entrepreneurs. Journal of Computer
Information Systems, 42 (1), 44-57.
Lee, J., Runge, J., Baek, S., & Shek, S. (2001). Adoption of Internet
Technologies in Small Businesses. PACIS 2001 Proceedings, 71, Retrieved from
http://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2001/71.
Lees, J.D. (1987). Successful development of small business information

systems. Journal of Systems Management, 38 (9), 32-39.
Lefebvre, E., & Lefebvre, L.A. (1996). Factors Affecting Adoption‟, Information
and Telecommunication Technologies: The Impact of Their Adoption in Small and
Medium-sized Enterprises. IDRC, Retrieved from
http://www.idrc.ca/books/focus/807.
Levin, S.G., Levin, S.L., & Meisel, J.B. (1987). A dyamic analysis of the adoption
of a new technology: the case of optical scanners. Review of Economics and
Statistics, 69 (1), 12-17.
Levy, M., & Powell, P. (1998). SME flexibility and the role of Information Systems.
Small Business Economics, 11, 183-196.
Levy, M., & Powell, P. (2008). Strategies for Growth in SMEs: The Role of
Information and Information Systems. Portugal: Elsevier.
Levy, S. (2013, December 2). How to choose the best social media platform for
your business. Retrieved from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230020.
Lyngbo, T. (2013, January 2015). How to speed up SEO using social media.
Retrieved from: http://seonomics.com/social/how-to-speed-up-seo-using-social-
75

media/.
Link, A.N., & Bozeman, B. (1991). Innovative behaviour in small-sized firms.

Small Business Economics, 3, 179-184.
Magento Marketing Team. (2015, September 23). 12 social media tactics to drive
traffic to your ecommerce site. [Web log post]. Retrieved from:
https://magento.com/blog/best-practices/12-social-media-tactics-drive-traffic-
your-ecommerce-site.
Mangold, W., & Faulds, D., (2010). Social media: The new hybrid element of
the promotion mix. Business horizons, 52 (4), 357-365
Mehrtens, J., Cragg, P.B., & Mills, A.M. (2001). A model of Internet Adoption by
SMEs. Information & Management, 38, 165-176.
Meske, C., & Stieglitz, S. (2013). (2013). Adoption and Use of Social Media in
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. In Harmsen, F., & Proper, H. (Eds.),
Practice-Driven Research on Enterprise Transformation (pp. 61–75). Lecture
Notes in Business Information Processing: Vol. 151. Berlin: Springer.
Michaelidou, N., Siamagka, N. T., & Christodoulides, G. (2011). Usage, barriers

and measurement of social media marketing: An exploratory investigation of
small and medium B2B brands. Industrial Marketing Management, 40 (7), 1153-
1159.
Nadeem, M. (2012). Returning Customer: Was That A Planned Purchase?

Skyline Business Journal, 7 (1), 11-17.
Newman, J. (2013). Social Media for Internet Marketers: How to Take Advantage
of Facebook, Twitter and Google+. USA: Papaplus (e-book).
Nickell, G.S., & Seado, P.C. (1986). The Impact of Attitudes and Experience On
Small Business Computer Use. American Journal of Small Business, 10 (1), 37-
48.
Nobre, H., & Silva, D. (2014). Social Network Marketing Strategy and SME
Strategy Benefits. Journal of Transnational Management, 19, 138-151.
Nunnally, J. (1978). Psychometric Theory. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
O‟Reilly, T. (2007). What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for
the Next Generation of Software. International Journal of Digital Economics, 65,
17-37.
76

Öztamur, D., & Karakadilar, I.S. (2014). Exploring the role of social media for
SMEs: as a new marketing strategy tool for the firm performance perspective.
Procedia, Social and Behavioral Sciences, 150, 511-520.
Pentina, I., & Koh, A.C. (2012). Exploring social media marketing strategies in
SMEs. International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 7 (4), 292-310.
Pentina, I., Koh, A.C., & Le, T.T. (2012). Adoption of Social Networks Marketing
by SMEs: Exploring the role of social influences and experience in technology
acceptance. International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 7 (1), 65-
82.
Persaud, A., Spence, M., & Rahman, M. (2012). Social Media Implementation in
Small Service Firms. International Journal of E-Business Development, 2(2), 62-
65.
Porter, M., & Millar, V.E. (1985). How information gives you competitive
advantage. Harvard Business Review, 63 (4), 149-160.
Premkumar, G., & Roberts, M. (1999). Adoption of new information technologies

in rural small businesses. Omega, 27, 467-484.
Relander, B. (2015, January 20). How to tap the power of social media to forge
customer loyalty. Retrieved from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241257.
Roberts, S. (2012). How can Facebook Benefit SMEs?. Retrieved from:

http://www.unpackingpotential.com/content/how-can-facebook-benefit-smes.
Rogers, E.M. (1983). Diffusion of Innovation (3rd edition). New York: The Free
Press.
Rogers, E.M. (1991). The “Critical Mass” in the diffusion of interactive

technologies in organizations. In K.L. Kraemer (Ed), The Information Systems
Research Challenge: Survey Research Methods, Vol.3, Harvard Business School
Research Colloquium (pp. 245-271). Boston.
Rothwell, R. (1977). The characteristics of successful innovators and technically

progressive firms. R&D Management, 7 (3), 191-206.
Sadowski, B.M., Maitland, C., & van Dongen, J. (2002). Strategic use of the
Internet by small and medium-sized companies: an explanatory study.
Information Economics and Policy, 14, 75-93.
Sarosa, S. (2012). Adoption of social media networks by Indonesian SME: A
77

case study. Procedia, Economics and Finance, 4, 244-254.
Saxena, S. (2013, August 11). 7 Key Characteristics of Social Media. Retrieved

from: http://www.easymedia.in/7-key-characteristics-of-social-media/.
Schwartz-DuPre, R. L. (2006), Women in debate: From virtual to material.

Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, 27, 106-120.
Sklar, C. (2013, March 13). How to use social media to understand and engage
your customers. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/media-
network/media-network-blog/2013/mar/13/social-media-customer-engagement.
Smith, J. (2014, January 10). How to use social media to make sales. Retrieved
from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2014/01/10/how-to-use-social-
media-to-make-sales-2014/#21f870296f4c.
Stanworth, J., & Curran, J. (1973). Management Motivation in the Smaller

Business. Epping, U.K: Gower Press.
Stanworth, J., & Gray, C. (1991). Bolton 20 Years On: The Small Firm in the
1990s. London, U.K: Paul Chapman.
Stewart, S. (2012, September 23). 4 simple ways to monitor your competitors‟

marketing strategies. [Web log post]. Retrieved from:
http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/4-simple-ways-to-monitor-your-
competitors-marketing-strategies/.
Storey, D.J. (1994). Understanding the Small Business Sector. London, U.K:
Routledge.
Storey D.J., & Cressy, R. (1996). Small business risk: a firm and a bank
perspective. Working Paper, 39, CSME, Warwick Business School.
Telio, S. (n.d.). How to collect customer feedback using social media. Retrieved
from: https://community.uservoice.com/blog/customer-feedback-social-media/.
Teo. T., Tan, M., & Buk, K. (1997). A contingency model of Internet adoption in
Singapore. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 2 (2), 57-69.
Thong, J.Y.L. (1999). An integrated model of Information Systems Adoption in

Small Businesses. Journal of Management Information Systems, 15 (4), 187-214.
Thong,J.Y.L. (2001). Resource Constrains and Information Systems

Implementation in Singaporean Small Businesses. Omega: The International
78

Journal of Management Science, 29 (2), 143-156.
Thong,J.Y.L., & Yap, C.S. (1995). CEO Characteristics, Organizational

Characteristics and Information Technology Adoption in Small Businesses.
Omega: The International Journal of Management Science, 23 (4), 429-442.
Thong,J.Y.L., Yap, C.S., & Raman, K.S. (1996). Top management support,
external expertise and information systems implementation in small businesses.
Information Systems Research, 7 (2), 248-267.
Tornatzky, L.G., & Fleischer, M. (1990). The processes of technological

innovation. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Torr, D. (2015, 13 March). Why is Social Media Important? 7 reasons you can‟t
ignore. [Web log post]. Retrieved from: https://blog.hootsuite.com/why-is-social-
media-important-for-business/
Vadapalli, A., & Ramamurthy, K. (1997). Business use of the Internet: an

analytical framework and exploratory case study. International Journal of
Electronic Commerce, 2 (2), 57-69.
Welsh, J.A., & White. J.F. (1981). A small business is not a little big business.
Harvard Business Review, 59 (4), 18-32.
Zaltman, G., Duncan, R., & Holbek, J. (1973). Innovation and Organizations. New
York: John Wiley.
Zeiller, M., & Schauer, B. (2011). Adoption, Motivation and Success Factors of
Social Media for Team Collaboration in SMEs. Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Knowledge Management and Knowledge
Technologies, New York, NY.
Zhang, M., Jansen, B.J. & Chowdhury, A. (2011). Business engagement on

Twitter: a path analysis, Electronic Markets, 21 (3), 161-175.
79

ANNEX I. QUESTIONNAIRE: FACTORS INFLUENCING THE USE OF SOCIAL
MEDIA BY SMEs
Company characteristics:
1. For how long have your company existed? Please, write the number of
years/months. ...........................
2. Does your company use social media? Yes No
3. If your company uses social media, for how long? Please, write the number of
years/months. ………………..
4. In case your company uses social media, how often do you make publications
in your company’s profile?
 At least once every day  At least once a week
 Several times per week  Less frequently
5. In case your company uses social media, which social media platforms do you
use? You can choose more tan one option.
 Facebook  Twitter  Google +  Others
Please, if you have chosen the option “Others”, specify which one/s:
…………………………………………………………………………………………
6. To which sector does your company belong?
 Fashion/Beauty  Electronics  Food

 Decoration  Leisure/Free time  Others
Please, if you have chosen “Others”, specify which one/s:
………………………………………………………………………………………….
Company size:
7. How many employees (included yourself) work currently in your company?
a. ………… full time employees
b. ………… part time employees
c. ………… occasional employees
80

CEO Characteristics:
8. How old are you? ………............
9. What is your gender? Male Female
10. How would you describe your capacity to innovate? Please, select the option
that expresses your degree of conformity with each of these affirmations:
Strongly Disagree Neither agree Agree Strongly

disagree nor disagree agree
1. I like to experiment with new     

technologies.
2. I consider that I have original     

ideas.
3. I usually think that everything

was easier when there were not     
so many technologies.
4. I always try to be up to date with     

respect to technological evolution
5. I like to take risks and do things     

differently.
6. I consider that, when things work,     

it is better not to change them.
11. How would you describe your level of knowledge about social media
(Facebook, Twitter…)? Please, select the option that expresses your degree of
conformity with each of these affirmations:

1. I frequently check my profile/s in     

social media.
2. I consider myself very active in

social media (I publish frequently,     
create events, comment…).
81

3. I know how to use the most
common tools in social media:
private messages, upload     
pictures and videos, comment
and answer to comments…
4. I believe I know how to use

almost all the tools of the social     
media platforms that I use.
5. I am familiar with the privacy

section and the settings of my     
profile in social media..
Employees’ knowledge about social media:
12. How would you describe the level of knowledge about social media of your
employees (Facebook, Twitter…)? Please, select the option that expresses
your degree of conformity with each of these affirmations:
I consider that my employees…
Strongly Disagree Neither agree Agree Strongly agree

disagree nor disagree
1. …know how to use the most

common tools in social media:
private messages, upload     
pictures and videos, comment
and answer to comments…
2. …know how to use more

advanced tools: check the     
activity history, change pictures‟
visibility settings…
3. …have a high level of knowledge     

about social media.
Ease of use of social media:
13. How easy is it for you to use social media? Please, select the option that
expresses your degree of conformity with each of these affirmations:
82

Strongly Disagree Neither agree Agre Strongly
disagree nor disagree e agree
1. I learnt to use social media in one     

day.
2. I believe the use of social media is     

very intuitive.
3. I usually find out quickly how to use     

the different tools of social media.
4. Sometimes I take a long time to find

how to change the settings in my     
account.
5. It was easy for me to create a profile     

in social media
Advantages of social media use:
14. Which benefits would you expect to obtain if you decided to start using social
media within your business? In case you are already using them, think about
the benefits that you expected to obtain before starting implementing them
Social media can help me to…

1. Increase my sales.     
2. Get customers to be more loyal to my     

business.
3. Engage new customers.     
4. Promote my products more     

economically.
5. More easily forecast my sales.     
6. Increase the visits in my website.     
Impact of company’s environment:
15. What relationship do your customers have with social media?
83

Strongly Disagree Neither agree Agre Strongly
disagree nor disagree e agree
1. My customers look for me in social     

media
2. My customers usually ask me

whether my business has a social     
media profile.
3. My customers ask me through     

social media.
4. My customers comment the     

products through social media.
5. My customers use social media to     

make their complaints.
6. My customers look for information

about the product in social media     
or in forums.
16. How intense is competition within your sector?

1. Rivalry between companies within my sector     

is very intense.
2. It is very easy for my customers to find

products similar to mines in other     
companies.
3. There are many products in the market that

are different to mines but satisfy the same     
need.
4. In my city/town, there are not many

businesses that offer products similar to     
mines.
5. Most of my competitors use social media.     
6. My competitors are very active in social     

media.
84

ANNEX II: INTERVIEW GUIDE
Section 1: Use of Social Media within the business
1. Which social media do you use in your business?
2. Do you manage the social media profile/s yourself?
3. Why did you choose this social media?
4. Why did you decide to use social media?
5. Did you have experience with social media before deciding to implement it
in your business?
6. For which purposes do you use social media in your business?
Section 2: Social Media Experience
1. Did you have any difficulties when implementing social media?
2. Do you continue having this problem/s or have you solved it? Did it take
long to solve this problem?
3. Do you have any additional difficulties now that you have implemented
social media?
4. Which drawbacks would you say that social media has?
5. In which aspects has social media benefitted your company?
6. Would you consider it is worthy to implement social media?
85

ANNEX III: SPSS STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Reliability Analysis: Employees’ Social Media Knowledge
Case Processing Summary
N %
Cases Valid 36 100,0
a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
a. Listwise deletion based on all variables in the procedure.
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items N of Items
,944 ,946 3
Item Statistics
Mean Std. Deviation N
Employees_Knowledge1 3,36 ,990 36
Employees_Knowledge2 3,17 ,941 36
Employees_Knowledge3 3,17 1,056 36
Summary Item Statistics

Maximum / N of
Mean Minimum Maximum Range Minimum Variance Items
Item Means 3,231 3,167 3,361 ,194 1,061 ,013 3
Item Variances ,993 ,886 1,114 ,229 1,258 ,013 3
Item-Total Statistics
Scale Mean Scale Corrected Squared Cronbach's
if Item Variance if Item-Total Multiple Alpha if Item
Deleted Item Deleted Correlation Correlation Deleted
Employees_Knowledge1 6,33 3,771 ,857 ,743 ,939
Scale Statistics
Mean Variance Std. Deviation N of Items
9,69 8,047 2,837 3
86

Reliability Analysis: CEO’s Innovativeness

N %
a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
,837 ,840 6
Item Statistics
CEO_Innovativeness1 3,39 1,022 36
CEO_Innovativeness2 3,81 ,624 36

Maximum / N of
Item Means 3,375 3,028 3,806 ,778 1,257 ,063 6
Item 1,168 ,390 1,502 1,112 3,853 ,173 6
Variances
CEO_Innovativeness1 16,86 16,637 ,658 ,490 ,802
87

Scale Statistics
20,25 23,164 4,813 6
Reliability Analysis: CEO’s Social Media Knowledge

N %
a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
,948 ,949 5
Item Statistics
CEO_Knowledge1 3,36 1,588 36

Maximum /
Mean Minimum Maximum Range Minimum Variance N of Items
Item Means 3,183 2,806 3,611 ,806 1,287 ,097 5
Item Variances 2,132 1,873 2,523 ,650 1,347 ,073 5
CEO_Knowledge1 12,56 27,511 ,843 ,871 ,939
CEO_Knowledge2 13,11 28,673 ,813 ,743 ,944
CEO_Knowledge3 12,31 28,218 ,901 ,895 ,928
CEO_Knowledge4 12,81 29,533 ,852 ,912 ,937
88

CEO_Knowledge5 12,89 28,959 ,887 ,864 ,931
Scale Statistics
15,92 44,079 6,639 5
Reliability Analysis: Ease of Use of Social Media

N %
a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
,912 ,912 5
Item Statistics
Ease_of_Use1 2,64 1,199 36
Ease_of_Use2 2,94 1,145 36
Ease_of_Use3 3,00 1,287 36
Ease_of_Use4 2,94 1,218 36
Ease_of_Use5 3,28 1,256 36

Maximum / N of
Item Means 2,961 2,639 3,278 ,639 1,242 ,052 5
Item Variances 1,493 1,311 1,657 ,346 1,264 ,018 5
Scale Corrected Squared Cronbach's
Scale Mean if Variance if Item-Total Multiple Alpha if Item
Item Deleted Item Deleted Correlation Correlation Deleted
Ease_of_Use1 12,17 17,800 ,826 ,746 ,882
Ease_of_Use2 11,86 19,266 ,698 ,515 ,907
89

Ease_of_Use3 11,81 16,961 ,846 ,745 ,877
Ease_of_Use4 11,86 17,552 ,839 ,726 ,879
Ease_of_Use5 11,53 18,656 ,678 ,476 ,913
Scale Statistics
14,81 27,590 5,253 5
Reliability Analysis: Perceived Benefits

N %
a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
,932 ,934 6
Item Statistics
Benefits1 3,81 1,142 36
Benefits2 3,39 1,315 36
Benefits3 3,94 1,145 36
Benefits4 3,97 1,082 36
Benefits5 2,83 1,207 36
Benefits6 3,53 1,207 36

Maximum / N of
Item Means 3,579 2,833 3,972 1,139 1,402 ,187 6
Item Variances 1,405 1,171 1,730 ,560 1,478 ,037 6
90

Scale Corrected Squared Cronbach's
Scale Mean if Variance if Item-Total Multiple Alpha if Item
Item Deleted Item Deleted Correlation Correlation Deleted
Benefits1 17,67 26,000 ,901 ,891 ,907
Benefits2 18,08 25,336 ,811 ,754 ,919
Benefits3 17,53 25,971 ,901 ,921 ,907
Benefits4 17,50 27,857 ,768 ,714 ,924
Benefits5 18,64 28,466 ,611 ,551 ,944
Benefits6 17,94 25,997 ,841 ,766 ,915
Scale Statistics
21,47 37,799 6,148 6
Reliability Analysis: External pressure from the customers

N %
a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
,902 ,893 6
Item Statistics
Pressure_Customers1 2,94 1,413 36
Pressure_Customers5 2,31 ,951 36
91

Maximum /
Item Means 2,940 2,306 3,167 ,861 1,373 ,105 6
Item Variances 1,616 ,904 1,997 1,093 2,209 ,159 6
Pressure_Customers1 14,69 24,847 ,862 ,872 ,863
Scale Statistics
17,64 38,980 6,243 6
Reliability Analysis: External Pressure from Competitors

N %
a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
,785 ,785 6
Item Statistics
Pressure_Competitors1 4,03 1,028 36
Pressure_Competitors2 3,81 ,856 36
92


Maximum /
Item Means 3,694 3,472 4,028 ,556 1,160 ,043 6
Item Variances ,934 ,733 1,094 ,362 1,494 ,017 6
Scale
Mean if Scale Corrected Squared Cronbach's
Item Variance if Item-Total Multiple Alpha if Item
Pressure_Competitors1 18,14 10,523 ,693 ,637 ,710
Scale Statistics
22,17 16,200 4,025 6
Factor Analysis: Employees’ Social Media Knowledge
Correlation Matrix
Employees_Knowledge1 Employees_Knowledge2 Employees_Knowledge3
Correlation Employees_ 1,000 ,853 ,816

Knowledge1
Employees_ ,853 1,000 ,892

Knowledge2
Employees_ ,816 ,892 1,000

Knowledge3
93

KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. ,756
Bartlett's Test of Approx. Chi-Square 97,607
Sphericity df 3
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
Employees_Knowledge1 1,000 ,876
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Total Variance Explained

Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings
Component Total % of Variance Cumulative % Total % of Variance Cumulative %
1 2,707 90,250 90,250 2,707 90,250 90,250
2 ,190 6,336 96,586
3 ,102 3,414 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
1
Employees_Knowledge1 ,936
a. 1 component extracted.
Factor Analysis: CEO’s Innovativeness
Correlation Matrix
CEO_Innov CEO_Innov CEO_Innov CEO_Innov CEO_Innov CEO_Innov
ativeness1 ativeness2 ativeness3 ativeness4 ativeness5 ativeness6
Correlation CEO_Innovative 1,000 ,256 ,515 ,682 ,488 ,464

ness1
CEO_Innovative ,256 1,000 ,326 ,410 ,478 ,317

ness2
94

CEO_Innovative ,515 ,326 1,000 ,674 ,271 ,308
ness3
CEO_Innovative ,682 ,410 ,674 1,000 ,673 ,537

ness4
CEO_Innovative ,488 ,478 ,271 ,673 1,000 ,597

ness5
CEO_Innovative ,464 ,317 ,308 ,537 ,597 1,000

ness6

Sphericity df 15
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
CEO_Innovativeness1 1,000 ,599

1 3,380 56,334 56,334 3,380 56,334 56,334
2 ,891 14,852 71,186
3 ,751 12,517 83,703
4 ,448 7,469 91,172
5 ,369 6,152 97,324
6 ,161 2,676 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
95

1
CEO_Innovativeness1 ,774
a. 1 components extracted.
Factor Analysis: CEO’s Social Media Knowledge
Correlation Matrix
CEO_Knowle CEO_Knowle CEO_Knowle CEO_Knowle CEO_Knowle
dge1 dge2 dge3 dge4 dge5
Correlation CEO_Knowledge1 1,000 ,817 ,813 ,664 ,802

CEO_Knowledge2 ,817 1,000 ,740 ,717 ,728
CEO_Knowledge3 ,813 ,740 1,000 ,893 ,838
CEO_Knowledge4 ,664 ,717 ,893 1,000 ,874
CEO_Knowledge5 ,802 ,728 ,838 ,874 1,000

Sphericity df 10
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
CEO_Knowledge1 1,000 ,805

96

1 4,157 83,133 83,133 4,157 83,133 83,133
2 ,420 8,409 91,542
3 ,223 4,452 95,995
4 ,163 3,252 99,246
5 ,038 ,754 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
1
CEO_Knowledge1 ,897
CEO_Knowledge2 ,875
CEO_Knowledge3 ,941
CEO_Knowledge4 ,912
CEO_Knowledge5 ,932
Factor Analysis: Ease of Use of Social Media
Correlation Matrix
Ease_of_Use1 Ease_of_Use2 Ease_of_Use3 Ease_of_Use4 Ease_of_Use5
Correlation Ease_of_Use1 1,000 ,609 ,815 ,808 ,600

Ease_of_Use2 ,609 1,000 ,698 ,633 ,528
Ease_of_Use3 ,815 ,698 1,000 ,766 ,618
Ease_of_Use4 ,808 ,633 ,766 1,000 ,664
Ease_of_Use5 ,600 ,528 ,618 ,664 1,000
Ease_of_Use5 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000

Sphericity df 10
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
Ease_of_Use1 1,000 ,805
97

Ease_of_Use2 1,000 ,641
Ease_of_Use3 1,000 ,829
Ease_of_Use4 1,000 ,818
Ease_of_Use5 1,000 ,615

1 3,709 74,177 74,177 3,709 74,177 74,177
2 ,487 9,730 83,907
3 ,423 8,463 92,370
4 ,223 4,456 96,825
5 ,159 3,175 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
1
Ease_of_Use1 ,897
Ease_of_Use2 ,801
Ease_of_Use3 ,911
Ease_of_Use4 ,904
Ease_of_Use5 ,784
Factor Analysis: Perceived Benefits of Social Media
Correlation Matrix
Benefits1 Benefits2 Benefits3 Benefits4 Benefits5 Benefits6
Correlation Benefits1 1,000 ,794 ,931 ,759 ,535 ,844

Benefits2 ,794 1,000 ,793 ,610 ,654 ,677
Benefits3 ,931 ,793 1,000 ,829 ,489 ,828
Benefits4 ,759 ,610 ,829 1,000 ,478 ,712
Benefits5 ,535 ,654 ,489 ,478 1,000 ,592
Benefits6 ,844 ,677 ,828 ,712 ,592 1,000
98

Sphericity df 15
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
Benefits1 1,000 ,889

1 4,545 75,744 75,744 4,545 75,744 75,744
2 ,662 11,039 86,784
3 ,351 5,844 92,627
4 ,280 4,660 97,288
5 ,109 1,816 99,103
6 ,054 ,897 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
1
Benefits1 ,943
Benefits2 ,868
Benefits3 ,946
Benefits4 ,846
Benefits5 ,697
Benefits6 ,897
99

Factor Analysis: External Pressure from Customers
Correlation Matrix
Pressure_C Pressure_C Pressure_C Pressure_C Pressure_C Pressure_C
ustomers1 ustomers2 ustomers3 ustomers4 ustomers5 ustomers6
Correlation Pressure_Custom 1,000 ,859 ,862 ,827 ,141 ,638

ers1
Pressure_Custom ,859 1,000 ,753 ,747 ,151 ,569

ers2
Pressure_Custom ,862 ,753 1,000 ,775 ,180 ,583

ers3
Pressure_Custom ,827 ,747 ,775 1,000 ,395 ,823

ers4
Pressure_Custom ,141 ,151 ,180 ,395 1,000 ,422

ers5
Pressure_Custom ,638 ,569 ,583 ,823 ,422 1,000

ers6

Sphericity df 15
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
Pressure_Customers1 1,000 ,927
100

Extraction Sums of Squared Rotation Sums of Squared
Initial Eigenvalues Loadings Loadings
Compon % of Cumulati % of Cumulati % of Cumulati
ent Total Variance ve % Total Variance ve % Total Variance ve %
1 4,091 68,178 68,178 4,091 68,178 68,178 3,720 61,999 61,999
2 1,055 17,578 85,756 1,055 17,578 85,756 1,425 23,758 85,756
3 ,400 6,661 92,418
4 ,247 4,124 96,542
5 ,118 1,961 98,502
6 ,090 1,498 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
1 2
Pressure_Customers1 ,926
Factor Analysis: External Pressure from Competitors
Correlation Matrix
Pressure_C Pressure_C Pressure_C Pressure_C Pressure_C Pressure_C
ompetitors1 ompetitors2 ompetitors3 ompetitors4 ompetitors5 ompetitors6
Correlation Pressure_Competit 1,000 ,688 ,754 ,293 ,311 ,310

ors1
Pressure_Competit ,688 1,000 ,813 ,619 ,082 ,089

ors2
Pressure_Competit ,754 ,813 1,000 ,403 ,178 ,160

ors3
Pressure_Competit ,293 ,619 ,403 1,000 -,009 ,062

ors4
101

Pressure_Competit ,311 ,082 ,178 -,009 1,000 ,920
ors5
Pressure_Competit ,310 ,089 ,160 ,062 ,920 1,000

ors6

Sphericity df 15
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
Pressure_Competitors1 1,000 ,731

Extraction Sums of Squared Rotation Sums of Squared
Initial Eigenvalues Loadings Loadings
Compon % of Cumulati % of Cumulati % of Cumulati
ent Total Variance ve % Total Variance ve % Total Variance ve %
1 3,001 50,015 50,015 3,001 50,015 50,015 2,794 46,564 46,564
2 1,808 30,139 80,154 1,808 30,139 80,154 2,015 33,591 80,154
3 ,734 12,228 92,382
4 ,240 3,995 96,377
5 ,142 2,371 98,748
6 ,075 1,252 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
1 2
Pressure_Competitors1 ,854
102

Reliability Analysis: External Pressure from Customers
N %
a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
,935 ,935 5
Item Statistics
103

Maximum /
Item Means 3,067 2,944 3,167 ,222 1,075 ,010 5
Item 1,758 1,514 1,997 ,483 1,319 ,047 5

Variances

Scale Statistics
15,33 34,914 5,909 5
Reliability Analysis: External Pressure from Competitors
N %
104

a
Excluded 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
,849 ,855 4
Item Statistics
Maximum /
Item Means 3,799 3,639 4,028 ,389 1,107 ,028 4
Item ,958 ,733 1,094 ,362 1,494 ,026 4

Variances

105

Scale Statistics
15,19 10,561 3,250 4
Factor Analysis: External Pressure from Customers
Correlation Matrix
Pressure_ Pressure_ Pressure_ Pressure_ Pressure_

Customers Customers Customers Customers Customers
1 2 3 4 6
Correlation Pressure_Custom 1,000 ,859 ,862 ,827 ,638

ers1
Pressure_Custom ,859 1,000 ,753 ,747 ,569

ers2
Pressure_Custom ,862 ,753 1,000 ,775 ,583

ers3
Pressure_Custom ,827 ,747 ,775 1,000 ,823

ers4
Pressure_Custom ,638 ,569 ,583 ,823 1,000

ers6
106

Sphericity df 10
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
1 3,985 79,707 79,707 3,985 79,707 79,707
2 ,551 11,019 90,726
3 ,248 4,955 95,681
4 ,119 2,374 98,056
5 ,097 1,944 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
107

Factor Analysis
Correlation Matrix
Pressure_Com Pressure_Com Pressure_Com Pressure_Com

petitors1 petitors2 petitors3 petitors4
Correlation Pressure_Competitors1 1,000 ,688 ,754 ,293
Pressure_Competitors2 ,688 1,000 ,813 ,619
Pressure_Competitors3 ,754 ,813 1,000 ,403
Pressure_Competitors4 ,293 ,619 ,403 1,000

Sphericity
df 6
Sig. ,000
Communalities
Initial Extraction
108

1 2,825 70,631 70,631 2,825 70,631 70,631
2 ,774 19,356 89,987
3 ,256 6,404 96,391
4 ,144 3,609 100,000
a
Component Matrix
Component
109

Multicollinearity Analysis: Pearson Correlation Matrix
Correlations
Employe CEO_
es_SM_ CEO_I SM_Kn SM_Ea External_Pre External_Pr

Business CEO_A Knowled nnovati owledg se_of_ SM_Bene ssure_Custo essure_Co
_Size ge ge veness e Use fits mers mpetitors
Business_Size Pearson 1 ,137 ,146 ,027 ,097 ,144 ,148 ,020 ,024
Correlation
* * *
CEO_Age Pearson ,137 1 -,279 -,398 -,299 -,386 -,143 -,380 -,026
Correlation
* *
Employees_SM_Kn Pearson ,146 -,279 1 ,259 ,331 ,291 ,332 ,265 ,040
owledge Correlation
* ** ** ** **
CEO_Innovativenes Pearson ,027 -,398 ,259 1 ,760 ,693 ,556 ,624 ,303
s Correlation
* ** ** ** ** *
CEO_SM_Knowled Pearson ,097 -,299 ,331 ,760 1 ,766 ,635 ,648 ,337
ge Correlation
* ** ** ** *
SM_Ease_of_Use Pearson ,144 -,386 ,291 ,693 ,766 1 ,590 ,410 ,140
Correlation
* ** ** ** **
SM_Benefits Pearson ,148 -,143 ,332 ,556 ,635 ,590 1 ,685 ,069
Correlation
* ** ** * **
External_Pressure_ Pearson ,020 -,380 ,265 ,624 ,648 ,410 ,685 1 ,206
Customers Correlation
*
External_Pressure_ Pearson ,024 -,026 ,040 ,303 ,337 ,140 ,069 ,206 1
Competitors Correlation
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
110

Discriminant Analysis
Analysis Case Processing Summary
Unweighted Cases N Percent
Valid 36 100,0
Excluded Missing or out-of-range group codes 0 ,0
At least one missing discriminating variable 0 ,0
Both missing or out-of-range group codes and 0 ,0

at least one missing discriminating variable
Total 0 ,0
Total 36 100,0
Group Statistics
Valid N (listwise)
SM_Adoption Mean Std. Deviation Unweighted Weighted
0 Business_Size 1,5000000 ,68465320 17 17,000
Employees_SM_Knowledge -,4090540 1,00657994 17 17,000
CEO_Age 1,6644579 ,07623048 17 17,000
CEO_Innovativeness -,6613960 ,93462644 17 17,000
CEO_SM_Knowledge -,7660300 ,78356317 17 17,000
SM_Ease_of_Use -,5171017 ,90914643 17 17,000
SM_Benefits -,5269879 1,15877404 17 17,000
External_Pressure_Custom -,7889952 ,64229631 17 17,000

ers
External_Pressure_Competi -,2711426 1,32195713 17 17,000

tors
111

1 Business_Size 1,7105263 1,00437639 19 19,000
Employees_SM_Knowledge ,3659957 ,86278351 19 19,000
CEO_Age 1,6284061 ,10016549 19 19,000
CEO_Innovativeness ,5917754 ,62062925 19 19,000
CEO_SM_Knowledge ,6853953 ,59044525 19 19,000
SM_Ease_of_Use ,4626700 ,85512625 19 19,000
SM_Benefits ,4715155 ,50390134 19 19,000
External_Pressure_Custom ,7059431 ,68100429 19 19,000

ers
External_Pressure_Competi ,2426013 ,50940086 19 19,000

tors
Total Business_Size 1,6111111 ,86281194 36 36,000
Employees_SM_Knowledge ,0000000 1,00000000 36 36,000
CEO_Age 1,6454305 ,09027499 36 36,000
CEO_Innovativeness ,0000000 1,00000000 36 36,000
CEO_SM_Knowledge ,0000000 1,00000000 36 36,000
SM_Ease_of_Use ,0000000 1,00000000 36 36,000
SM_Benefits ,0000000 1,00000000 36 36,000
External_Pressure_Custom ,0000000 1,00000000 36 36,000

ers
External_Pressure_Competi ,0000000 1,00000000 36 36,000

tors
Tests of Equality of Group Means
Wilks' Lambda F df1 df2 Sig.
Business_Size ,985 ,527 1 34 ,473
112

Employees_SM_Knowledge ,846 6,189 1 34 ,018
CEO_Age ,959 1,449 1 34 ,237
CEO_Innovativeness ,597 22,911 1 34 ,000
CEO_SM_Knowledge ,460 39,919 1 34 ,000
SM_Ease_of_Use ,754 11,098 1 34 ,002
SM_Benefits ,744 11,673 1 34 ,002
External_Pressure_Customers ,427 45,607 1 34 ,000
External_Pressure_Competitors ,932 2,467 1 34 ,125
Analysis 1
Box's Test of Equality of Covariance Matrices
Log Determinants
SM_Adoption Rank Log Determinant
0 9 -11,639
1 9 -14,609
Pooled within-groups 9 -10,647
The ranks and natural logarithms of determinants printed are those of the group covariance matrices.
Test Results
Box's M 87,196
F Approx. 1,376
df1 45
df2 3693,121
Sig. ,049
Tests null hypothesis of equal population covariance matrices.
113

Summary of Canonical Discriminant Functions
Eigenvalues
Function Eigenvalue % of Variance Cumulative % Canonical Correlation
a
1 3,316 100,0 100,0 ,877
a. First 1 canonical discriminant function were used in the analysis.
Wilks' Lambda
Test of Function(s) Wilks' Lambda Chi-square df Sig.
1 ,232 43,136 9 ,000
Standardized Canonical Discriminant Function Coefficients
Function 1
Business_Size ,103
Employees_SM_Knowledge ,477
CEO_Age ,619
CEO_Innovativeness ,180
CEO_SM_Knowledge ,556
SM_Ease_of_Use ,262
SM_Benefits -,784
External_Pressure_Customers 1,132
External_Pressure_Competitors -,071
Structure Matrix
Function 1
External_Pressure_Customers ,636
CEO_SM_Knowledge ,595
CEO_Innovativeness ,451
114

SM_Benefits ,322
SM_Ease_of_Use ,314
Employees_SM_Knowledge ,234
External_Pressure_Competitors ,148
CEO_Age -,113
Business_Size ,068
Pooled within-groups correlations between discriminating variables and standardized

canonical discriminant functions
Variables ordered by absolute size of correlation within function.
Functions at Group Centroids
SM_Adoption Function 1
0 -1,871
1 1,674
Unstandardized canonical discriminant functions evaluated at group means
Classification Statistics
Classification Processing Summary
Processed 36
Excluded Missing or out-of-range group codes 0
At least one missing discriminating variable 0
Used in Output 36
Prior Probabilities for Groups
Cases Used in Analysis
SM_Adoption Prior Unweighted Weighted
0 ,472 17 17,000
1 ,528 19 19,000
115

Total 1,000 36 36,000
Classification Function Coefficients
SM_Adoption
0 1
Business_Size -2,360 -1,941
Employees_SM_Knowledge 10,088 11,899
CEO_Age 374,791 399,260
CEO_Innovativeness 6,274 7,087
CEO_SM_Knowledge -4,451 -1,584
SM_Ease_of_Use 18,678 19,733
SM_Benefits -21,433 -24,609
External_Pressure_Customers 29,180 35,231
External_Pressure_Competitors -2,782 -3,038
(Constant) -298,143 -338,619
Fisher's linear discriminant functions
a
Classification Results
Predicted Group Membership
SM_Adoption 0 1 Total
Original Count 0 17 0 17
1 1 18 19
% 0 100,0 ,0 100,0
1 5,3 94,7 100,0
a. 97,2% of original grouped cases correctly classified.
116

TFM MARTA ORTEGA Document 1-Report and Annexes

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

TFM MARTA ORTEGA Document 1-Report and Annexes

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

TFM MARTA ORTEGA Document 1-Report and Annexes

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Escola Superior D’enginyeria Industrial, Aeroespacial I

Audiovisual De Terrassa (Universitat Politècnica De Catalunya)

Master’s Degree in Management Engineering (MUEO)

Student: Marta Ortega Góngora

Study of the factors influencing the

Master’s Thesis Supervisor: Silvia Rodríguez Donaire

Call: Spring 2016

Master‟s Degree in Management Engineering (MUEO)

Marta Ortega Góngora

Master’s Thesis Title:

Study of the factors influencing the adoption of social media in SMEs.

Master’s Thesis Supervisor:

Silvia Rodríguez Donaire

Content of the volume:

DOCUMENT 1.- REPORT AND ANNEXES

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................... 3

LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................... 4

LIST OF ACRONYMS ............................................................................... 5

1.1. AIM OF THE STUDY ........................................................................... 7

2. STATE OF THE ART ........................................................................ 13

2.1. ABOUT SMES ............................................................................... 13

3. RESEARCH MODEL ........................................................................ 31

4.1. SAMPLE CRITERIA .......................................................................... 36

5. DATA ANALYSIS & RESULTS ........................................................ 44

5.1. SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS ............................................................ 44

6. CASE STUDY ANALYSIS & RESULTS ........................................... 56

6.1. DESCRIPTION OF THE PARTICIPANTS ............................................... 56

7. LIMITATIONS & FURTHER RESEARCH ......................................... 65

ANNEX I. QUESTIONNAIRE: FACTORS INFLUENCING THE USE OF

ANNEX II: INTERVIEW GUIDE ............................................................... 85

ANNEX III: SPSS STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ......................................... 86

Figure 1: Literature evolution in terms of Social Media and SMEs. (Source:

Figure 2: Comparison between literature about "Social Media in SMEs"

Figure 3: Use of Social Media by Spanish and European SMEs (Source:

Figure 4: Research Model (Source: by the author) .................................. 34

Figure 5: Definition of SME (Source: “Use of Social Media by European

Figure 6: The New Thresholds (Source: “Use of Social Media by European

Figure 7: Social Media Adoption Distribution (source: by the author) ...... 44

Figure 8: Gender Distribution (source: by the author) .............................. 45

Figure 9: Sector Distribution (source: by the author)................................ 46

Figure 12: Final Research Model (Source: by the author) ....................... 55

Marta Ortega Góngora

Table 1: Differences between SMEs and Large Organisations (Source: by

Table 2: Factors affecting the adoption of IT (source: by the author) ....... 19

Table 3: Purpose of Social Media (Source: “Report about use of social

Table 4: Items Description (source: by the author) .................................. 39

Table 5: Reliability Analysis (source: by the author) ................................ 48

Table 6: Factor Analysis (source: by the author)...................................... 49

Table 7: Pearson Correlation Matrix (source: by the author) ................... 51

Table 8: Discriminant analysis (source: by the author) ............................ 52

Marta Ortega Góngora

SME: Small and Medium-sized Enterprise

IT: Information Technology

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

ROI: Return on Investment

Marta Ortega Góngora

In 2013, 28.6% of small businesses in Europe deployed some form of social

Social media enables companies to better communicate with their customers, to

Marta Ortega Góngora

1.1. Aim of the study