Journal Pre-proof

The impact of social media celebrities' posts and contextual interactions on

impulse buying in social commerce

Abaid Ullah Zafar, Jiangnan Qiu, Ying Li, Jingguo Wang, Mohsin Shahzad

PII: S0747-5632(19)30390-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.106178
Reference: CHB 106178

To appear in: Computers in Human Behavior

Received Date: 28 August 2018

Accepted Date: 21 October 2019

Please cite this article as: Abaid Ullah Zafar, Jiangnan Qiu, Ying Li, Jingguo Wang, Mohsin
Shahzad, The impact of social media celebrities' posts and contextual interactions on impulse
buying in social commerce, Computers in Human Behavior (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.
2019.106178

This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the
addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive
version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it
is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article.
Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the
content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

© 2019 Published by Elsevier.

 Journal Pre-proof

The impact of social media celebrities' posts and contextual interactions on impulse buying
in social commerce
Abaid Ullah Zafar *, Jiangnan Qiua*, Ying Lia, Jingguo Wangb, Mohsin Shahzada
a

aSchool of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, 116024 China

bCollege of Business, The University of Texas at Arlington, 76019, United States

Email: aabibizz@mail.dlut.edu.cn, qiujn@dlut.edu.cn, yingli@dlut.edu.cn, jwang@uta.edu,

mohsin@mail.dlut.edu.cn
* Corresponding authors:
aabibizz@mail.dlut.edu.cn, Tel.: 008615641153022, qiujn@dlut.edu.cn, Tel.:008613941153492

Conflict of Interest:
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding authors state that there is no conflict of interest.

Brief Professional Biography

Jiangnan Qiu (qiujn@dlut.edu.cn) is a Professor and Director of the Information management

and Information system, School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of
Technology. He has a Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering. His research interests are
information system, emergency management, and big data analysis. His work has been published
in several papers in different journals, including Decision Support Systems, Journal of
Knowledge Management, and Behavior & information Technology, among others.
Jingguo Wang (jwang@uta.edu) is a Professor in the Department of Information system and
Operation Management, College of Business, University of Texas at Arlington, Texas, United
States. He has graduated from SUNY-Buffalo. His work has been published in MIS Quarterly,
Information System Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the
Association for information Systems, Decision Support Systems, and Information &
Management, among others. His paper has received best paper awards at Annual Conference
the Midwest Association for Information systems and AMCIS. His research has been supported
by the National Science Foundation and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Ying Li (yingli@dlut.edu.cn) is an Assistant Professor at School of Economics and
Management, Dalian University of Technology. She has a Ph.D. in information processing
science. Her research interests are information security and privacy, and social commerce. Her
work has been published in the Journal of Enterprise information management, Behavior &
Information Technology, Computers & Security, among others.
Abaid Ullah Zafar (aabibizz@mail.dlut.edu.cn) is a Ph.D. student at School of Economics and
Management, Dalian University of Technology. He has conducted research for Atlas Honda Ltd.
Pakistan, in the context of marketing. His research interests are social commerce; social media
celebrities, and consumer buying behavior.
Mohsin Shahzad (mohsin@mail.dlut.edu.cn) is a Ph.D. student at School of Economics and
Management, Dalian University of Technology. His work has been published in the Journal of
Environmental Planning and Management, among others. His research interests are
environmental sustainability, consumer behavior, and corporate social responsibility.
 Journal Pre-proof

The impact of social media celebrities' posts and contextual interactions on impulse buying
in social commerce

Abstract
Social commerce has altered the consumption experience due to various interactive factors.
Growing evidence stated that users are prone to buy impulsively in such an environment. Prior
studies were limited to demonstrate the emerging role of social media celebrities and embedded
social interaction in the context of impulse buying though users encounter them concurrently and
frequently while browsing. Hence, this study investigated the influence of celebrities’ post
authenticity, sentiment polarity, observational learning, and impulse buying tendency following
the latent state-trait theory. We have used the data of 452 Pakistani respondents to empirically
investigate the research model collected via an online questionnaire from celebrities’ community
on Facebook. This study employed partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM)
and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze data. The findings revealed
that proposed constructs significantly influence the urge to buy impulsively. Further, impulse
buying tendency moderates all relationships except negative sentiments. Unexpectedly, the
moderation effects of celebrities’ authenticity are insignificant. Furthermore, fsQCA results show
the robustness of constructs towards urge to buy impulsively. The theoretical and managerial
implications with limitations are provided in the paper.

Keywords

Impulse buying, Social commerce, Latent state-trait theory, Celebrities post authenticity,
Sentiment polarity, Observational learning

1. Introduction
In the modern era, the brisk proliferation of Social Networking Sites (SNS) such as Facebook
(FB), Twitter, and Pinterest has influenced consumer behavior and compelled the companies to
espouse commercial and marketing activities on such platforms known as social commerce
(Liang & Turban, 2011; Xiang, Zheng, Lee, & Zhao, 2016). Social commerce assists the
individuals in decision making and buying activities within online communities and market place
because it involves social media and web 2.0 which facilitate the social interaction with user-
generated content (Huang & Benyoucef, 2013; Zhang, Lu, Gupta, & Zhao, 2014). Social
commerce significantly changed e-commerce and suggested as:(1) an online shopping platform
which contains social tools and facilitates consumers to communicate with others (2) computer-
mediated social milieu where persistent interaction exist involving community members and
have the potential to influence firm marketing strategies (Hajli, Sims, Zadeh, & Richard, 2017;
Huang & Benyoucef, 2013; Stephen & Toubia, 2008). Users are empowered to put forth
influence on brands via SNS because it assists them to generate content in customer and business
relationship (Tajvidi, Richard, Wang, & Hajli, 2018). Therefore businesses are integrating SNS
in different aspects, and FB is perceived as one of the major social commerce platform (Leong,

1
 Journal Pre-proof

Jaafar, & Ainin, 2018). Marsden (2011) argued that FB significantly provokes the users to buy
impulsively that is defined by Stern (1962) as “any purchase which a shopper makes but has not
planned in advance” (p. 59). Around 40% of FB users have bought an item either online or
offline upon liked, commented, shared, or marking it favorite (Samuel, Lam, Sevitt, & Loh,
2013). But, preceding researchers have concentrated on rational purchase behavior (Hajli, 2013;
Shin, 2013), even though impulse buying may occur in social commerce environment due to
different interactive factors (Chahal & Bakshi, 2015). Further, consumers incline to spend in
hedonic manners because it provides satisfaction (Chung, Song, & Lee, 2017). It personifies
approximately 40% of online consumption and 84% of all shoppers have bought items
impulsively (Saleh, 2017).
Aforementioned literature and facts highlighted the importance of SNS in impulse buying, but
there is a dearth of research in this context. Prior scholars also argued that impulse buying
behavior is underexplored with the incorporation of context-specific website stimulators rather
broad variables, e.g., perceived ease of use (Chan, Cheung, & Lee, 2017; Zhang & Benyoucef,
2016). Although, numerous researchers have studied social commerce but still a few investigated
impulse buying (Busalim & Hussin, 2016). Moreover, escalation of SNS has caused to emerge a
new type of celebrities, i.e., social media celebrities. These celebrities are administering
groups/pages on social media platforms where they share buying behavior and opinion. Such
communities also contain a lot of interactive activities, but there is a lack of research on this
phenomenon. Though celebrities parasocial interaction might influence the user impulse buying
tendency (Xiang et al., 2016). In addition, Djafarova and Rushworth (2017) highlighted that
digital celebrities are more credible and influential compared to traditional celebrities. Such
celebrities have been emerged and getting followed by a lot of people due to their authenticity
(Pittman & Reich, 2016; Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Social media celebrities have not received
much attention from scholars until recently such that these celebrities with a high level of appeal
and interaction have the potential to influence the impulse buying behavior. Consumers’ impulse
buying behavior on FB in the context of digital celebrities is one yet to be examined. Hence, it is
imperative for academics and practitioners to comprehend the influence of social media
celebrities and contextual factors that may induce the impulse buying behavior, which is the
focal objective of this research.
Following the above mentioned gap, this study assessed how social media celebrities stimulate
impulse buying. Previous literature proposed two types of online social interaction, i.e., “word of
mouth” and “observational learning” (Chen, Wang, & Xie, 2011; Godes et al., 2005; Zhang, Hu,
& Zhao, 2014). We focused on the celebrities’ pages/groups where consumers encounter
celebrities post and peers’ social interaction concurrently. These celebrities contain a large
number of followers and represent an online community. Moreover, organizations consider
social media celebrities in marketing strategies to influence users buying behavior (Pemberton,
2017). Thus, this research tried to address the gap with the research question: Whether and how
social media celebrities’ post authenticity and contextual social interaction arouse consumer to
buy impulsively in the presence of impulsive trait?
For hypothesis testing, we collected data from Pakistan. Pakistan is a growing market and
contains more than 44 million social media users, in which 85% are Facebook users (GeoNews,
2017). Pakistan is witnessing rapid changes in its social structure, and middle-class group
income is rising with excessive consumption (Islam, Wei, Sheikh, Hameed, & Azam, 2017).

2
 Journal Pre-proof

Further, social media celebrities have also been emerged in Pakistan (Zoha, 2018) and businesses
invite celebrities to experience their offerings and write a blog to attract more customers
(inflowlabs, 2018; Pemberton, 2017). Therefore, social commerce platforms in Pakistan are
appropriate for testing our hypotheses. This study has significance in several ways. First, a
research framework is proposed based on theory to identify the influence of potential factors on
impulse buying. Second, we unveil the impact of celebrities post. Third, this study focused on
the various underexplored contextual antecedents related to peers interaction (i.e., sentiment
polarity and observational learning) which is encountered alongside celebrities post during the
browsing with the moderation of users’ inherent trait.
2. Theoretical Background and Literature Review
2.1 Urge to buy impulsively (UBI)
Impulse buying is an unplanned purchase characterized as an abrupt, irresistible, hedonically
complicated behavior with lack of deliberation, alternatives contemplation, and selfless (Beatty
& Elizabeth Ferrell, 1998; Rook, 1987). Further, UBI is reflected as irrational desire and might
be considered as an intention to buy without any prior planning (Song et al., 2015), which is
defined as “the state of desire that is experienced upon encountering an object in an
environment” (Beatty & Elizabeth Ferrell, 1998 p. 172). UBI is a rational surrogate of actual
consumers’ impulse buying behavior because consumers’ UBI leads to actual impulse buying
(Rook, 1987). Several studies have suggested UBI as a proxy of actual impulse buying behavior
in the context of online and social commerce environment (Chen, Su, & Widjaja, 2016;
Parboteeah, Valacich, & Wells, 2009; Xiang et al., 2016). Therefore, this research focused on
consumer urge to buy impulsively.
Dholakia (2000) purposed situational cues, marketing cues, and impulsive traits as antecedents to
impulse buying behavior. Literature suggested that social, environmental, and personal
conditions like store environment, the presence of other customers in the store, and
characteristics of consumers may arouse impulsive consumption (Dholakia, 2000). Several
studies adopted impulse buying in the context of traditional e-commerce platforms (Parboteeah
et al., 2009; Park & Lennon, 2006), and identify that different factors influence impulse shopping
behavior e.g. website characteristics, website atmospheric cues, browsing, recommendation,
customer mood, demographic variables, and income (Yanhong Chen, Lu, Wang, & Pan, 2019;
Hultén & Vanyushyn, 2014; Liu, Li, & Hu, 2013; Zheng, Men, Yang, & Gong, 2019). Despite, a
few researchers focused on UBI in SNS context and suggested that different cues, i.e. the number
of likes and Para-social interaction play a vital role in impulsive behavior (Chen, Su, and Widjaja
2016; Xiang et al. 2016). An overview of influencing factors, which were adopted in prior
studies, is summarized in Table 1. It stated that most of the previous studies were focused on
web benefits and general beliefs, however; our study focused on SNS with the incorporation of a
particular behavior and the interactions between the celebrities and their followers.
Table-1
Sr.# Author(s) and Starting Point Influencing Factors Methodology Framework
Year
1 Zheng et al., Role of Browsing in Mobile Interpersonal Influence, Visual Appeal, Survey-252 S-O-R
(2019) Commerce Portability, Hedonic and Utilitarian Browsing
2 Chen et al., Recommendation on Recommender related signals, Product related Survey-233 ST
(2019) WeChat signals, Cognitive and Affective trust, Product
affection

3
 Journal Pre-proof

3 Liu et al., Upward social comparison Social comparison, Rumination, Negative affect Survey-430 Nil
(2019) on social network sites

4 Sundström et Bored-state-of-mind's Boredom as shopping motivation In-depth Nil

al., (2019) importance interviews-14
5 Leong et al., Presence on Facebook Browsing, Usage intensity, Demographic Survey-800 S-O-R
(2018) variables
6 Chen and Yao Drivers in the mobile Quality of website, Promotion campaigns, Survey-401 S-O-R
(2018) auction platform Normative evaluation, Positive effect, Impulse
buying tendency
7 Akram et Environmental factors in Scarcity, Serendipity, Five dimensions of Survey-671 Nil
al.,(2018) Chinese social commerce hedonic shopping value
8 Zhang et al., Reviews value and Utilitarian value, Hedonic value, Browsing Survey-315 Nil
(2018) browsing
9 Akram et Role of website quality usefulness, ease of use, entertainment, Survey-1350 Nil
al.,(2018) complementary relationship, Sale promotion,
Credit card
10 Leong et Importance of the big five agreeableness, conscientiousness, Survey-802 BFM
al.,(2017) model extraversion, neuroticism, openness
11 Xiang et al., Social interaction in social Perceived usefulness and, enjoyment, Survey-248 S-O-R
(2016) commerce Information, Visual appeal, Impulse buying
tendency, Para-social interaction,
12 Huang (2016) Social capital and browsing Browsing activities, Peer communication, Survey-410 S-O-R
activities Social bridging, Social bonding, subject
involvement, Vividness
13 Chen et al., Consumer ad in Facebook Information quality dimensions (relevance, Experiment-277 LST
(2016) C2C environment accuracy, etc.), Impulsiveness, Number of likes
14 Wu et al., Drivers following shoppers Flow experience, Website design, Perceived Survey-496 TPB
(2016) and system users usefulness, Trust, Web skill, Challenges
15 Lin and Lo Influence of virtual layout Ease of navigation, Pleasantness, Arousal Survey-216 S-O-R
(2016)
16 Yan et al., The large online promotion Promotion attributes, Time pressure, In-store Survey-162 S-R
(2016) activity slack, Social environment
17 Zhang et al., Role of online social Review quality, Source credibility, Survey-315 S-O-R
(2014) interaction Observational learning, Perceived usefulness,
Positive affect
18 Floh et al., Influence of atmospheric Customized view, Navigation, Store Content, Survey-508 S-O-R
(2013) cues Visual Appeal
19 Park et al., Apparel product and web Price attribute, Product availability, Sensory Survey-356 Nil
(2012) browsing attribute
20 Chih et al., Antecedents on travel Hedonic consumption needs, Impulse buying Survey-364 S-O-R
(2012) website tendency
21 Wells et al., The interplay of traits and Visual appeal, Navigability, Security, Experiment and LST
(2011) website quality Impulsiveness Survey-223
22 Parboteeah et Role of website Task-relevant cue, Mood relevant cue, Experiment-264 S-O-R
al., (2009) characteristics Perceived enjoyment, Perceived usefulness
23 Bressolles et Influence of Electronic Electronic service quality dimensions (Design, Survey-4109 S-O-R
al., (2007) service quality Ease of Use, Security, and privacy, etc.)
*Stimulus (S)-Organism (O)-Response (R) * Latent state-trait (LST) *Theory of planned behavior (TPB) *Signaling theory (ST)

2.2 Latent state-trait theory (LST)

Environmental psychology approach suggested that online impulse shopping is an outcome of a
website environment and interaction among individuals personality traits (Chan et al., 2017).
Different studies have explored that individuals state of mind can be pretentious by online
environmental cues, i.e. web visual appeal, web design, shopping festival in China called
“Taobao Double 11” and social interaction which may significantly influence impulse purchase
(Wu et al., 2016; Xiang et al., 2016; Zhang & Benyoucef, 2016). Moreover, prior studies have
suggested that impulse purchase trait positively arouse shopping intentions, either online or
offline (Pornpitakpan & Han, 2013). Eysenck (1983) and Chen et al., (2016) advocated that

4
 Journal Pre-proof

Latent state-trait (LST) theory may be applied to describe online impulse purchase behavior in
the context of e-commerce and social commerce. Psychologist affirmed that consumer behavior
depends on individual differences which are supposed to be somehow consistent according to
time and circumstances called traits and it is considered as part of the personality (Maltby et al.,
2013). Further, consumer behavior affected by temporary situations and consumers behaves
inconsistently according to circumstances and time defined as states (Epstein, 1997).
Hence, it is imperative to investigate the intrinsic traits of individuals in the context of impulse
buying and contemporary mental state to comprehend their behaviors in a better way (Eysenck,
1983). Steyer et al., (1999) suggested that environmental circumstances and individual traits may
influence one’s behavior with the interaction of state and trait. Wells et al., (2011) has utilized
Latent state-trait theory in e-commerce perspective to explain the influence of constructs related
to website quality with the interaction of impulsive trait on impulse buying. A few researchers
adopted this theory in social commerce context except one notable example of (Chen et al.,
2016) who employed LST theory in which “ad information quality dimensions” was considered
as “state” and consumers impulsiveness considered as “trait” to explain the UBI. Thus, this
research adopted latent state-trait theory while operationalizing environmental cues embodying
the interactions between the celebrities and the followers as “state” like contextual interaction.
Whereas, “trait” was operationalized by incorporating impulse buying tendency.

3. Research Model & Hypotheses Development

Fig.1 presents the research framework of this study derived from LST theory. We considered that
celebrity post, sentiment polarity, and observational learning represent “state” because these
structured environmental cues exert influence on the urge to buy impulsively. Further, this study
operationalized celebrities post in term of its authenticity as an antecedent, which has the
potential to enhance the impact of contextual factors. Furthermore, sentiment polarity was
operationalized into positive and negative sentiments. Whereas, observational learning was
operationalized into the number of likes, shares, and comments. Moreover, consumer impulse
buying tendency was considered as “trait” following the LST theory. The constructs’ definitions
and relationships are explained as follows.

Fig-1(Research Model)

5
 Journal Pre-proof

3.1 Influence of celebrities’ authenticity (SMC):

Research in psychology such as Kowalczyk & Pounders (2016) defined authenticity as “a post or
photo that demonstrates some aspect of the celebrity’s true self.” Authenticity signals that a
celebrity is being true and faithful toward the fan base. Celebrities have been segregated into the
traditional and non-traditional category. Traditional celebrities consist of movie icons, musicians,
sports stars, TV performers. Non-traditional celebrities also referred to online celebrities, which
include bloggers, YouTube icons, and social media famous personalities (Chahal, 2016;
Kowalczyk & Pounders, 2016). Users like to follow such celebrities due to their authenticity, and
it has received an augmented concentration in the marketing field (Moulard, Rice, Garrity, &
Mangus, 2014). Online celebrities are defying traditional celebrities and perceived to be more
credible (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017). According to Wiley (2014), the information provided
by an online celebrity is perceived as more authentic and influencing. Such celebrities have
emerged in different fields, e.g., lifestyle, entertainment, food, etc. (inflowlabs, 2018; Kumar &
Mirchandani, 2012; Zoha, 2018). These celebrities are managing their accounts, groups, or pages
on different types of social media where they share their consumption experiences (Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2012; Zhu & Chen, 2015). Prior scholars suggested that consumers follow the
celebrities post and seek to adopt their lifestyle, including makeup, clothing, fashion, restaurant
choice, even destination of holidays. Enterprises are also trying to integrate such influencers for
effective social media marketing campaigns (Hennig-thurau, Hofacker, & Bloching, 2013;
Kumar & Mirchandani, 2012). Celebrities’ followers also ask for recommendations. Therefore, it
is expected that once celebrities share the post, its authenticity may stimulate the followers to
buy impulsively because individuals probably imitate celebrities actions (Wilcox & Stephen,
2013). Further, people incline to respond to the perception of celebrities authenticity by making a
public commitment, engage in positive feeling and buying intention (Loroz & Braig, 2015;
Moulard, Garrity, & Rice, 2015). Previous literature belongs to social media also stated that
celebrities parasocial interaction and relationship has the potential to influence the impulse
buying behavior (Chung & Cho, 2017; Xiang et al., 2016). Hence, celebrities post authenticity
may arouse the desire in users to buy impulsively. Pursuing, the aforementioned argument and
literature, celebrity post authenticity will influence in following postulated ways.
H1a: Celebrities’ post authenticity has a positive influence on consumer urge to buy impulsively.
Djafarova and Rushworth (2017) highlighted that celebrities’ credibility might influence buying
behavior and word of mouth. Similarly, Kowalczyk & Pounders (2016) suggested that digital
celebrities post authenticity strongly influence the user's interaction and argued as a strong
predictor of positive attitude and buying intention (Brown et al., 2014). As every member may
have a different attitude towards celebrities’ post authenticity, it might be purposed that users
who perceive celebrities post more authentic will likely to be more influenced by those factors
characterizing interactions between the followers and the celebrities. Thus, the celebrities post
authenticity may have a moderating effect in the following ways.
H1b: Celebrities’ post authenticity positively moderates the relationship of positive sentiments in
such a way that the lower (higher) authenticity, the weaker (stronger) relationships.
H1c: Celebrities’ post authenticity positively moderates the relationship of negative sentiments in
such a way that the lower (higher) authenticity, the weaker (stronger) relationships.

6
 Journal Pre-proof

H1d: Celebrities’ post authenticity positively moderates the relationship of observational

learning in such a way that the lower (higher) authenticity, the weaker (stronger) relationships.
3.2 Comments’ sentiment polarity and urge to buy impulsiveness
Social interaction recognized as the core element of social commerce. Prior studies have
highlighted the importance of interaction attribute, e.g., review quality, dimensions of ad
information quality as antecedents of online impulse buying (Chen et al., 2016; Zhang et al.,
2014). Though, impulse buying argued as hedonic behavior with less consideration of
information in contrast to planned shopping because emotions take over cognition. Still,
Verhagen and Van Dolen (2011) emphasized on the information consideration during impulse
shopping, which might be obtained from contextual comments while viewing the celebrities post.
Marketing literature classifies social interaction into opinion-based social interaction as word of
mouth (WOM) and researcher from economics and psychology defined behavioral based social
interaction as observational learning (OL) (Bandura, 1977; Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, & Welch,
1998). Online WOM has influenced the users for product selection and purchase decision (Lee,
Jung, & Park, 2017), but individuals have dissimilar shopping experiences. Therefore, they
generate a different type of opinion in comments. Sentiments are a vital dimension of reviews
which suggested as the vehicle to express emotions and assumed to provide context-focused
reviewer’s feelings relevant to consumption experience. Sentiments have significantly affected
peers behavior, and it has positive, negative and neutral dimensions (Avanzo & Pilato, 2015) but
neutral reviews do not have a significant effect on buying behavior (Mo, Li, & Fan, 2015).
Therefore, scholars have argued to consider two dimensions of reviews sentiment, i.e., positive
and negative (Wang et al., 2017). Behavioral studies have identified that positive reviews
enhance the shopping experience (Huang & Chen, 2006) and their polarity is featured as
encouraging, happiness, virtue, good, great, wonderful, etc. (Gui, Zhou, Xu, He, & Lu, 2017).
Positive sentimental reviews grab more attention from consumer and affect them positively
(Schindler & Bickart, 2012). Hence:
H2a: Positive sentiments have a positive effect on the urge to buy impulsively.
Extant literature has identified the conflicting results of negative sentiments like Sen and Lerman
(2007) identified that negative comments are more attractive and helpful while shopping. But
Schindler and Bickart (2012) did not find a significant relationship between review helpfulness
and negative sentiments. Though negative sentimental reviews decrease the purchase likelihood
(Huang & Chen, 2006) and their polarity is attributed as fail, awful, negate, bad, worse, etc. (Gui
et al., 2017). The previous scholar stated that negative comments expressed the feeling of
consumptions loss and caused to generate negative attitude (Weisstein, Song, Andersen, & Zhu,
2017) which might decrease the impulse buying in following postulated way.
H2b: Negative sentiments decrease the urge to buy impulsively.
However, social networking sites do not classify sentiments like e-commerce websites, and users
encounter mixed sentiments without any positive or negative classification while browsing
celebrities’ community. Further, Wang et al., (2017) identified that mixed presentation of
sentiments had a low influence on purchase delay and high impact on purchase intention
compare to the classical presentation of sentiment polarity. He also suggested that negative
sentimental reviews under mixed presentation draw users’ less attention. Moreover, Weisstein et
al., (2017) stated that low involvement of consumer during impulse buying decrease the impact

7
 Journal Pre-proof

of negative reviews. Hence, positive sentiments will have a strong positive influence compare to
the negative sentiments in the following postulated way.
H2c: Negative sentiments influence the urge to buy impulsively with low magnitude compared
to the positive sentiments.
3.3 Observational Learning and urge to buy impulsiveness
Peers interaction influenced the buying decision in an online and offline environment (Godes et
al., 2005). For instance, while selecting among two restaurants; a consumer might be profoundly
impacted by exposure of a friend or by observing the number of diners sitting in it without
knowing their identities and reasons (Becker, 1991). Extant literature defined behavioral based
social interaction as observational learning (OL), and OL contains discrete signals expressed by
the action of other consumers, but not the reasons behind the actions (Bandura, 1977;
Bikhchandani et al., 1998). Though actions usually speak louder than words, therefore,
observational learning based knowledge perceived credible (Chen et al., 2011). Individuals have
limited cognitive capacity and often adapt simplified, and heuristics approach to making a
decision (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2009). OL information is easily accessible, and low cognitive
heuristics like numeric rating play a significant role in online shopping (Hu, Koh, & Reddy,
2014). Accordingly, Chen et al., (2011) highlighted the importance of OL construct in e-
commerce with the incorporation of numerical factors and identified its positive impact on
buying behavior. Whereas, Zhang et al., (2014) employed OL construct with the integration of
purchase volume in group shopping website and found its positive influence on consumers
perception. Revealing OL information, the Chen et al., (2016) also stated its importance in the
context of No. of likes. A research conducted on 1787 FB users quoted by Leong et al., (2018)
which established that 1/3 respondents like to buy from FB due to different social plug-in for
instance “Like,” “Comment,” “Share,” ‘‘Recommendation.” Further, Kim & Yang (2017)
highlighted the difference between FB key features and argued that like is an effectively driven,
the comment is a cognitively triggered behavior, and share is either effective or cognitive or a
combination of both. These key interactive features may provide discrete signals to peers as
expressed by OL notion. Following above perspective, this study argued that interactive numeric
cues at social media, i.e., No of “likes,” “Shares” and “Comments” which come across with
celebrities post might formulate and explained by the OL construct to influence UBI. Also, the
positive influence of number of likes and sales volume on impulse buying implied the
importance of OL and consumer involvement in it (Chen et al., 2016; Zhang et al., 2014). Hence,
any post which contains a high number of numeric cues on social media may lead toward
information cascade, for instance succeeding member of groups will perceive the positive impact
signaled by these high numbers of OL, consequently will arouse their UBI. So, this study
proposed the following hypothesis.
H3: Observational learning has a positive impact on the urge to buy impulsively.
3.4 Impulse buying tendency (IBT) and interaction effect:
Prior researchers have undoubtedly recognized IBT as a key trait of a personality and a foremost
antecedent of impulse buying behavior. IBT argued as an individuals’ inherent tendency which
stimulates the individuals to respond swiftly without reflection and careful planning (Dholakia,
2000). IBT defined as “both the tendencies (1) to experience spontaneous and sudden urges to
make on-the-spot purchases and (2) to act on these felt urges with little deliberation or evaluation

8
 Journal Pre-proof

of consequence”(Beatty & Elizabeth Ferrell, 1998, p.174). Further, Wells et al., (2011) suggested
that the impact of website quality on UBI without the integration of IBT would lead to the
limited prospect of impulse buying. So, IBT should be incorporated in such a context. The IBT
influence in the context of UBI has grabbed attention in online and offline settings. Moreover,
succeeding scholars have established the positive impact of IBT on the urge to buy impulsively
(Xiang et al., 2016) in social commerce platforms. Hence, following the above literature, this
study purposed the relationship in a similar way:

H4a: Impulse buying tendency positively affects users’ urge to buy impulsively

Moreover, the researcher belongs to psychology like Eysenck (1983) purposed that the inherent
trait of individuals and state of mind must be considered for an in-depth understanding of
impulse buying. IBT perceived as a surface trait, which depicts an enduring temperament to act
in an online shopping environment (Sun & Wu, 2011). Extant literature also proposed that
consumers having a high propensity to buy impulsively will be more inclined to experience UBI
from environmental cues (Beatty & Elizabeth Ferrell, 1998; Chen et al., 2016). Consumers’
inherent impulsive trait might enhance the impact of environmental cues and instigate them to be
more involved in impulse buying (Youn & Faber, 2000). Hence following the LST theory, this
research tends to investigate the interaction effect of IBT in the following postulated way.
H4b: Impulse buying tendency positively moderates the relationship of positive sentiments and
urge to buy impulsively in such a way that the lower (higher) impulse buying tendency, the
weaker (stronger) relationships.
H4c: Impulse buying tendency positively moderates the relationship of negative sentiments and
urge to buy impulsively in such a way that the lower (higher) impulse buying tendency, the
weaker (stronger) relationships.
H4d: Impulse buying tendency positively moderates the relationship of observational learning
and urge to buy impulsively in such a way that the lower (higher) impulse buying tendency, the
weaker (stronger) relationships.
4. Research Methodology
4.1 Sample Design and Data Collection
This research adopted a deductive approach as our focus is the development of hypotheses
derived from existing theory and craft a strategy to test the hypotheses (Bryman, 2007). Prior
scholars have highlighted the vital role of social media in restaurant and hotel sector (Hays,
Page, & Buhalis, 2015; Jeong & Jang, 2011; Kim, Mattila, & Baloglu, 2011). Social media has
been merged as the most preferred platform for information relevant to hotels and restaurants
(Cabiddu, Carlo, & Piccoli, 2014; Xiang & Gretzel, 2010). Scholars have advocated that social
media should be a top priority for a future researcher in travel, hospitality, and tourism industry
(Dev, Buschman, & Bowen, 2010; Line & Runyan, 2012) and people talk about restaurants in
varied situations (Berger, 2014). Therefore, this research collected data particularly relevant to
the restaurant sector on social media.
According to Statista (2017) report, FB has led the SNS globally with 1.96 billion users while
YouTube (1 billion), WeChat (998 million), and Instagram (600 million). Further, Asian

9
 Journal Pre-proof

marketers adapted SNS as a major platform for business activities and 48% businesses able to
decrease expenditures, and 45% of traders either small or big has a presence on SNS to enhance
sales (Akman & Mishra, 2017). FB will be a new paradigm of commerce in coming years, Leong
et al., (2018) stated it f-commerce and opined it as a subgroup of social commerce where
business activities performed through Facebook and transactions might be completed on FB or
via third-party websites. Furthermore, FB is extensively adopted by Pakistani consumers and
organizations (GeoNews, 2017). Besides, online food celebrities have emerged through FB in
Pakistan and operating their groups and pages, where celebrities and followers share their buying
experience related to the food sector (inflowlabs, 2018). Even restaurants also post their
advertisements in such communities. Such activities might create an impulsive desire for users to
visit a restaurant or purchase different food products. Hence, FB celebrities’ community
appeared as a most appropriate platform to analyze research model in Pakistan.
We have adopted a cross-section survey within February and March-2018 to maximize the
validation of our research. A self-administered questionnaire was posted in 5 FB food celebrity
groups and pages with the permission of admin. These celebrities contain thousands of members
in their communities, e.g., “Foodies ‘R Us” which contain more than 85 thousand members with
a lot of interactive activities. Such groups focused on sharing experiences and enhancing the
quality of dinning through thoughtful criticism. Brief details are given in Appendix A. The
snowball sampling technique was adopted to receive a higher response through FB Messenger
and WhatsApp. These targeted respondents who are the followers in one of the five groups were
requested to forward the questionnaire to other potential respondents to generate the snowball
effect. The snowball method was employed because a small group of respondents can assist in
obtaining a large sample by their established social networks and ensure the participation of
potential surrounded respondents. This methodology helps the researchers to save time and
money (Bryman and Bell, 2011). Screening questions were incorporated to ensure that all
participants are fully engaged with targeted constructs and utilizing social media platforms like
“Do you follow food celebrities on a social media platform.” Those participants have deleted
whose answer was “No,” and necessary condition was imposed against every question to avoid
missing values. Further, we have collected data to achieve the adequate samples size proposed by
(Hair, Hult, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2017), which is known as the rule of ten. It stated that sample
size should be ten times larger than a structural path towards particular latent constructs and ten
times larger than the number of formative indicators. We have received total 483 responses
during the data collection process and removed 31 observations as those respondents were not
following the social media celebrities. Thus, the final sample consists of 452 respondents. Details
of demographic attributes are given in Table2
4.2 Measures
The measure of all constructs was adopted and modified from former studies with established
scales and multiple validated items. Measures were modified following the suggestions of
academics and professionals to make the contextual consistency. Prior researchers tried to
measure actual impulse purchase behavior in a survey setting but did not find any results
(Madhavaram & Laverie, 2004). With the survey, it was challenging for respondents to recall
their last unplanned purchase and, observation of actual impulse buying behavior is also quite
problematic (Luo, 2005). McGoldrick et al., (1999) suggested UBI as a proxy measure to actual
impulse behavior. Hence, We adopted three items for UBI from (Parboteeah et al., 2009). We
also adopted three items for celebrity authenticity following (Moulard et al., 2015). The

10
 Journal Pre-proof

sentiment polarity was operationalized with four items of positive sentimental reviews and four
items of negative sentimental reviews from (Lee & Youn, 2009). Further, three items for each
OL dimensions, i.e., No. of Likes, Comments & Shares were employed following (Duan, Gu, &
Whinston, 2008; Park & Lee, 2008; Zhang et al., 2014). Impulse buying tendency (IBT) was
measured with four items following the (Rook & Fisher, 1995; Xiang et al., 2016). This study
employed the seven-point Likert Scale for each item “1 = strongly disagree” to “7 = strongly
agree”. Construct items are given in Appendix-B. A pilot study was conducted to ensure content
validity, which comprised 50 respondents from regular users of FB celebrity pages/groups. A
few modifications were made to ensure content validity.
4.3 Control Variables
Data is collected via an online questionnaire without random assignment of respondents, which
might augment the probability of several systemic individual discrepancies that would influence
the findings of the current study. Hence, this study incorporated a few common controlled
variables that depict the user's personality, which may affect the results on social networking
sites, i.e., Gender, Age, Qualification, Occupation, and Income. Moreover, Frequency of SNS
visits also treated as a controlled variable.
Table2- Respondents’ Demographic Attributes
Profile of Respondents n=452
Attributes Distribution Frequency %
Gender Male 237 52.4
Female 190 42.0
Prefer not to say 25 5.5
Age Under 20-years 61 13.5
20-29 years 224 49.6
30-39 years 138 30.5
40-49 years 27 6.0
50 or above 2 0.4
Qualification High School or Below 12 2.7
Two years College 45 10.0
Bachelors 162 35.8
Masters 160 35.4
Ph.D. 73 16.2
Occupation Student 206 45.6
Employee 172 38.1
Self Employed 28 6.2
Housewife 22 4.9
Others 24 5.3
Freq. of Visiting FB Everyday 236 52.2
Once a week 52 11.5
Once a month 11 2.4
Several times a week 127 28.1
Several times a month 16 3.5
Several times a year 10 2.2
Income (PKR) Less than or equal to 15000 120 26.5
15001-30000 110 24.3
30001-45000 60 13.3
45001-60000 65 14.4
60001-75000 54 11.9
Above 75000 43 9.5
*Pakistani Rupees (PKR)

11
 Journal Pre-proof

5. Analytical Approach
We employed IBM SPSS Statistics version 24.0 and Smart PLS version 3.2.7 to analyze the data.
PLS-SEM is adopted in contrast to Covariance-based SEM because it does not involve normal
distribution, and it is the best approach in case of formative constructs. PLS-SEM is the preferred
approach when the purpose is the identification of targeted constructs and theory development.
Moreover, PLS-SEM is the best-recommended approach in exploratory studies. Furthermore; it
has the best potential to estimate relationships of all constructs concurrently while handling
measurement error in the structural model ( Hair et al., 2017). Following the guidelines of Hair et
al. (2017), evaluation of the measurement and structural model was performed separately.
5.1 Results and Analysis

5.1.1Common-method variance bias test (CMB)

CMB is the foremost apprehension in the survey-based study. Therefore, different remedies were
taken to control CMB suggested by (Podsakoff et al., 2003; Schwarz et al., 2017) for example,
the confidentiality of respondents, avoidance from confusing and complex questions, and
comprehensible instructions were provided. Anyhow, Harman’s single factor test was performed
in which the first factor entailed 22% variance in data that is less than 40% cut-off value
(Harman, 1976) and total eight factors were extracted from all measurement items following the
principal component analysis with Varimax rotation. These results ensure the absence of CMB.
Moreover, the current study also espoused a rigorous and modernized approach suggested by
(Kock, 2015) to test CMB performing full collinearity assessment test. All VIF values are less
than threshold 3.3; therefore, CMB is not a serious concern in this research (Kock, 2015).
5.1.2 Analysis of Measurement Model
The measurement model was evaluated following the Hair et al., (2017) and Henseler et al.,
(2009) by analyzing internal consistency reliability, convergent validity (CV) and discriminant
validity (DV). Composite Reliability (CR) and Cronbach’s alpha have values higher than the
criteria of 0.70 (Cohen, 1988). Further, AVE of all reflective constructs was above 0.50, and
factor loading of all items was 0.7 to 0.9. These results suggest good reliability and CV (Avkiran,
2017). All results, including constructs’ mean score, are presented in Table3.
Table3- Constructs’ Reliability and Validity
Latent Composite Average Variance
Factor Loading Cronbach's Alpha Mean Score
Constructs Reliability Extracted (AVE)
UBI 0.84-0.88 0.828 0.897 0.744 5.11-5.66
SMC 0.74-0.90 0.785 0.875 0.701 4.97-5.41
STNV 0.74-0.84 0.813 0.874 0.634 2.81-3.04
STPV 0.79-0.88 0.857 0.903 0.700 5.14-5.31
NOC 0.83-0.88 0.814 0.889 0.728 4.91-5.13
NOL 0.82-0.91 0.823 0.895 0.739 4.86-5.34
NOS 0.85-0.88 0.831 0.899 0.747 5.27-5.41
IBT 0.71-0.79 0.765 0.850 0.588 5.25-5.62
OL - 0.884 0.907 0.521 -
UBI, urge to buy impulsively; SMC, social media celebrity authenticity; STPV, positive sentiments; STNV, negative sentiments; OL, observational learning; NOC, number
of comments; NOL, number of likes; NOS, number of shares; IBT, impulse buying tendency

12
 Journal Pre-proof

Discriminant validity was assessed by Fornell-Larcker criterion, which is conferred in Table4.

As the square root of AVE is greater than correlation values in rows and columns therefore, it
proposed a good discriminant validity (DV) (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Further, Heterotrait-
Monotrait Ratio (HTMT) was evaluated following the Henseler et al., (2015), which considered
a modern approach to analyzing DV. Hair et al., (2017) proposed that an HTMT value higher
than 0.90 represent insufficient DV. Henseler et al., (2015) recommended more rigorous criteria
that an HTMT value should not be higher than 0.85. Table5 presents the HTMT values of all
measured constructs, which are not above the thresholds. Thus, this study does not have the
problem of DV. Hence, complete results of measurement model reveal satisfactory internal
consistency reliability, CV, and DV for reflective constructs.

Table4-Discriminant Validity (Fornell-Lacker Criterion)

Constructs IBT NOC NOL NOS SMC STPV STNV UBI
IBT 0.767
NOC 0.101 0.853
NOL 0.023 0.553 0.860
NOS 0.014 0.545 0.582 0.864
SMC 0.529 0.007 0.016 -0.023 0.837
STNV -0.068 -0.137 -0.147 -0.154 -0.010 0.796
STPV 0.134 0.149 0.140 0.156 0.173 -0.351 0.837
UBI 0.331 0.249 0.227 0.234 0.300 -0.317 0.383 0.862

As OL is formative construct and traditional methods are not suitable to assess its validity and
reliability (Diamantopoulos & Winklhofer, 2001). Hence, following the Petter et al., (2007), we
have evaluated the validity of OL. The PLS-SEM analysis showed that first-order constructs for
OL had significant weights, which leads to its efficacy. Secondly, we have analyzed the VIF
values of first-order constructs involved in OL (presented in Table6).
Table5- Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT)
Constructs IBT NOC NOL NOS SMC STNV STPV UBI
IBT
NOC 0.130
NOL 0.073 0.668
NOS 0.072 0.656 0.704
SMC 0.707 0.052 0.048 0.048
STNV 0.118 0.159 0.184 0.185 0.041
STPV 0.167 0.176 0.166 0.183 0.206 0.418
UBI 0.414 0.305 0.274 0.282 0.369 0.373 0.452

5.1.3 Multicollinearity
Variance inflation factor (VIF) should be analyzed for multicollinearity along with reliability and
validity before analysis of the structural model. We have analyzed VIF to test for
multicollinearity among dimensions of the formative construct and other constructs, which is
inferred in Table5. Outer VIF values of all measured items were below 3.0. Hair et al., (2017)
recommended a critical value of 5.0 whereas above values considered as a warning of

13
 Journal Pre-proof

multicollinearity. Outer VIF values of all measurement items and Inner VIF values of latent
constructs, including dimensions of formative constructs were below the critical value; therefore,
this study has inconsequential multicollinearity. Results of VIF also validate the formative
construct before analyzes of the structural model (See Table6).

Table-6 Assessment of Formative Construct and Inner VIF values

Outer Weights OL UBI
Variance Inflation Factor (VIF)
SMC - - 1.422
STPV - - 1.200
STNV - - 1.164
OL - - 1.051
NOC 0.387*** 1.616 -
NOL 0.398*** 1.719 -
NOS 0.404*** 1.697 -
IBT - 1.401
Note: **p < .05, ***p < .01

5.1.4 Analysis of Structural Model

The structural model demonstrates causal relationships between independent and dependent
constructs (Hair et al., 2017). It was analyzed for path coefficient β-values, R2 i.e., explanatory
power, Q2 for the predictive relevance of research model. The hypotheses’ significance was
tested through a bootstrapping approach with (5000 resample). The results are presented in

Table7- Structural Model Analysis

Model-1 Model-2 Model-3 Model-4 Model-5 Model-6

OL -> UBI 0.207*** 0.213*** 0.205*** 0.210*** 0.199*** 0.188***

STPV -> UBI 0.283*** 0.232*** 0.228*** 0.238*** 0.249*** 0.254***
STNV -> UBI -0.182** -0.196*** -0.186*** -0.193*** -0.176*** -0.166***
SMC -> UBI - 0.258*** 0.156*** 0.257*** - -
IBT -> UBI - - 0.194*** - 0.275*** 0.288***
SMC*OL -> UBI - - - -0.005 - -
SMC*STPV -> UBI - - - 0.089 - -
SMC*STNV -> UBI - - - 0.001 - -
IBT*OL -> UBI - - - - - 0.161***
IBT*STPV -> UBI - - - - - 0.116***
IBT*STNV -> UBI - - - - - -0.019
R2 0.226 0.290 0.317 0.297 0.300 0.345
Adjusted R2 0.220 0.283 0.309 0.286 0.293 0.335
Change in R2 - - - 0.071 - 0.119
Q2 0.204 0.265 0.287 0.248 0.271 0.298
GoF 0.383 0.437 0.453 - - -
UBI, urge to buy impulsively; SMC, social media celebrity authenticity; STPV, positive sentiments; STNV, negative sentiments; OL, observational learning; NOC,
number of comments; NOL, number of likes; NOS, number of shares; IBT, impulse buying tendency 14
Note: **p < .05, ***p < .01
 Journal Pre-proof

Table-7. Model-1 depicts the significant influence of STPV, STNV, OL, and Model-2 describe
the significant extended effect of SMC in Model-1. Further, Model-5 states the significant
influence of social interaction and impulse buying tendency. Moreover, Model-3 results
specified that path coefficients of social media celebrity authenticity (H1a: β =0.156), positive
sentiments (H2a: β=0.228), negative Sentiments (H2b: β=-0.186), observational learning (H3:
β=0.205), and impulse buying tendency (H4a: β=0.194) which have a significant association
with the urge to buy impulsively. H2c is also supported because H2a: β=0.228 greater than H2b:
β=-0.186. Further, research model-3 has explained 31.7 % variance in UBI by R2 value = 0.317.
Moreover, Hair et al., (2017) purposed a more cautionary approach to evaluating the predictive
relevance of model through a Q2 rather relies on the R2 only. Hence, following the Stone (1974),
the Q2 test was employed, which has 0.287 value. Our model has Q2 value greater than zero;
hence, this model has good predictive relevance for an endogenous construct, i.e., Urge to buy
impulsively (Chin, 2010). Results are presented in Table7. All control variables were
insignificant except the gender (β= -0.105,p < 0.1).
5.1.5 Moderation effect
The effect of celebrities’ authenticity and impulse buying tendency (IBT) was assessed in two
steps. Firstly, we analyzed the significance of constructs in the research model as an independent
variable without any interaction effect. Secondly, constructs were examined with the moderation
of IBT and SMC separately. According to the finding of Model-4 in Table7, SMC does not have
significant moderation effect. Whereas, results of Model-6 in table7 conferred that IBT
interaction was positively significant with STPV (H4b: β=0.116), OL (H4d: β=0.161) and
insignificant with STNV (H4c: β=-0.019) with improved R2 = 0.345 and Q2= 0.298. SMC and
IBT interaction effect increase the 7.1%, 11.9% explanatory power of research model
respectively. Results are presented in Table7. Hence, H1 is partially supported due to the
insignificant interaction of SMC*STPV, SMC*STNV, and SMC*OL. H4 is also fully supported
except for the interaction of IBT*STNV. Summarize results of the hypotheses are given in
Table8.

Table8- Hypotheses Results

Hypotheses Results

SMC has a positive influence on consumer UBIa. It moderates the Supporteda and
H1 relationship of STPVb, STNVc, and OLd unsupportedb,c,d

STPV has a positive effect on the UBIa. STNV decrease the users UBIb with Supported
H2 low influence compare to positive sentimentsc.

H3 Observational learning has a positive impact on UBI. Supported

Supporteda,b,d and
H4 IBT positively affect UBIa. IBT interact the relationship of STPVb, STNVc
unsupportedc
and OLd with the UBI.

5.1.6 Goodness of Fit (GoF)

Hair et al., (2017) stated that standardized root means square residual (SRMR) value should be
less than 0.08 for GOF, which is 0.07 of our research model. Even though R2 considered as a
15
 Journal Pre-proof

preliminary approach to assessing the explanatory power of the model in PLS-SEM. However,
Tenenhaus et al., (2005) proposed GoF indices for PLS-SEM to evaluate model fit with formula
GoF = √(AVE × R2) using averages, but he does not purpose any threshold value. Anyhow,
Wetzels et al., (2009) suggested GoF small=0.1 ; GoF medium= 0.25; GoF large=0.36 . Table-7
stated the GoF of Models. Our study has GoF for Model-1=0.383, Model-2=0.437, Model-
3=0.453. It is observed that the GOF index of models falls in the large section. According to
Henseler et al. (2016), a good model fit implies that the model is parsimonious and plausible.
Hence, the above results depict that our research model has a very good model fit.

Fig2-Interaction Plot of IBT Fig3-Interaction Plot of IBT

6. Research model testing: fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)

Woodside (2015) emphasizes the significance of a whole view to investigate concrete

phenomena and suitability of the fsQCA approach for data analysis which is case-oriented and
explains the impact of all independent constructs instead of the unidirectional net effect of
ingredients. Hence, comparative findings of PLS-SEM and fsQCA could unveil robustness and
match in observed data and model. The fsQCA approach facilitates social scientists to employ
principal comparisons, and alternate quantitative technique by utilizing fuzzy dataset values, i.e.,
0.0 to 1.0 (Ragin, 2017). This study adopted a Likert scale for data collection, so data calibration
is essential to implement fsQCA. We selected 45 cases randomly for calibration. Following the
instructions of Ragin (2017) data were calibrated by fsQCA software 3.0 into full, mid, and non-
full values to defined a fuzzy set of 7,5, and 3, respectively. All reflective indicators were
evaluated to investigate their direct contribution to UBI. First, we performed necessary condition
analysis which depicted that IBTF is “almost always necessary” as its consistency is above 0.90
hence it will be part of every complex combination, other constructs are “usually necessary”
because they do not have consistency value less than 0.75 except STNVF (Ragin, 2017). STNVF
has consistency value 0.279, and its negation (~STNVF) has high consistency value of 0.939. As
STNVF negatively contribute toward endogenous construct. Therefore, ~STNVF has better
chance to be part of the complex solution. Results are given in Table9.

16
 Journal Pre-proof

Table-9 Results from fsQCA

Analysis of Necessary Conditions for Model
Outcome Variable: UBIF
Conditions Tested: Consistency Coverage Conditions Tested: Consistency Coverage
SMCF 0.899 0.872 ~SMCF 0.485 0.800
STPVF 0.831 0.890 ~STPVF 0.527 0.748
STNVF 0.279 0.805 ~STNVF 0.939 0.727
NOLF 0.824 0.852 ~NOLF 0.528 0.787
NOSF 0.878 0.821 ~NOSF 0.503 0.883
NOCF 0.795 0.810 ~NOCF 0.524 0.797
IBTF 0.901 0.809 ~IBTF 0.417 0.796

Further, we examined the UBI with consideration of all constructs, as shown in table10. The best
complex solution from truth table is SMCF*STPVF*~STNVF*NOLF*NOSF*NOCF*IBTF
with high consistency value 0.977, highest raw coverage, and unique coverage. The best solution
must have the highest consistency, raw coverage, and unique coverage (Ragin, 2017; Woodside,
2013). Additionally, the results of subset/superset analysis portrayed that combination of
exogenous constructs also has a good consistency and coverage values (presented in Table10).
The general results of fsQCA depicted that our research model is informative because it has
consistency value greater than 0.74, and coverage values are in the good range (Woodside,
2013). Thus, the overall findings of PLS-SEM and fsQCA disclose the same pattern of
independent constructs towards urge to buy impulsively.

Table-10 Results from fsQCA

Truth table algorithm – Complex Solution for Research Model
Outcome: UBIF = f (SMCF, STPVF, STNVF, NOLF, NOSF, NOCF, IBTF)
Consistency Raw Unique
Coverage Coverage
SMCF*STPVF*~STNVF*NOLF*NOSF*NOCF*IBTF 0.977 0.633 0.340
solution coverage: 0.792
solution consistency: 0.949
Subset/superset analysis for Research Model
Outcome: UBIF Consistency Coverage Combined
SMCF*STPVF*STNVF*NOLF*NOSF*NOCF*IBTF 0.998 0.176 0.418
SMCF*STPVF*~STNVF*NOLF*NOSF*NOCF*IBTF 0.977 0.633 0.792

7. Discussion and Implications

7.1 Discussion of key findings
This study empirically identifies the influence of celebrities’ post, sentiment polarity,
observational learning, and impulse buying tendency on the urge to buy impulsively in the
context of Pakistani social media celebrities. First, the results indicate that celebrities’ post
authenticity has a positive direct effect on consumers’ urge to buy impulsively, which provided
the evidence to support the hypothesis H1a. In the broader context, result is consistent with
Xiang et al., (2016) who argued that celebrities and peers’ parasocial interaction positively
influence the users impulse buying tendency on an image-sharing social commerce platform. It is
also in line with the Kowalczyk & Pounders, (2016) argument that celebrities post authenticity
have potential to influence buying behavior. This finding revealed the impact of social media

17
 Journal Pre-proof

celebrities post and its importance for organization and consumers to stimulate UBI. However,
unexpectedly this study could not establish the moderation effect of celebrities’ post authenticity.
The possible reason might be the consistently perceived credibility of social media celebrities
within their community, and autonomous role of peers’ interactive activities as celebrities
emerged due to these followers; consequently, H1b, H1c, and H1d were unsupported.

Second, the polarity of sentiments significantly influences the UBI. The results suggested that
positive sentiments have a strong positive association with UBI, and negative sentiments have an
adverse relationship with UBI. These results are in line with (Hu, Bose, Koh, & Liu, 2012; Wang
et al., 2017), as they identify the significant impact of sentiments on buying behavior and product
sales. However, results contradict with, (Zhao, Wang, Guo, & Law, 2015) inconsequential
impact of positive reviews and significant effect of negative reviews on users online booking
intention. These contrary results might be due to the contextual distinctiveness and different level
of trust among celebrities’ community and online hotel booking sites. Further, we find the
stronger effect of positive sentiments compared to the negative sentiments. These findings
highlighted the perspective of Wang et al., (2017) who confirmed that mixed presentation of
sentiment polarity reduces the impact of negative sentiments during online shopping. Aforesaid
results stipulate the importance of positive and negative sentiments in social commerce (H2a,
H2b, and H2c were supported).

Third, this study also unveils the positive impact of observational learning on UBI. The results
are congruent to Chen et al., (2016) who established the direct positive association of the
number of likes (OL) on impulse buying behavior in the context of C2C social commerce.
Therefore, the hypothesis H3 was also supported. Though the direct result is similar, the
interaction result is different. Chen et al., (2016) found the insignificant interaction effect of OL
and impulsiveness due to the controlled status of a person who clicked “like”. But contrarily, we
found the significant interaction effect, which might illustrate that members of celebrities’
communities build pseudo-friendship and more influenced by each other actions within a
community.

Fourth, impulse buying tendency has a positive relationship with UBI and interacts the
relationship of all constructs on UBI (H4a, H4b, and H4d were supported) except the negative
sentiments (H4c was not supported). Impulse buying tendency positively enhanced the impact of
positive sentiments and observational learning (see Figure 2 & 3). The results are similar to
Zhang et al., (2018), who argued that users inherent impulsive trait increase the influence of
environmental cues in social commerce. Interestingly, celebrities post authenticity and impulse
buying tendency did not moderate the relationship between negative sentiments and UBI
significantly. This insignificant interaction highlighted that negative sentiments always affect the
consumer perception which cannot be changed even by impulsive inherent trait or celebrities and
it always reduces the chances to shop any product either it is regular or impulse shopping. Lastly,
the findings of fsQCA disclosed that all embedded cues in celebrities’ community are necessary
to affect the UBI. The overall results of this study revealed the role of social media celebrities
post and contextual embedded interaction for concerned stakeholders to enhance impulse buying
behavior.

18
 Journal Pre-proof

7.2 Theoretical Implications

This research contributes to the extant literature on social commerce and impulse buying in
several ways. First, this study suggested a research framework with new correlates following the
psychology literature. Particularly, this study extends the appropriateness of LST theory by
employing it in social commerce environment for impulse buying. As, a lot of prior studies has
adopted Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework (Chan et al., 2017) in impulse buying
and this study is one of the few that adopted LST theory in social commerce context. The
findings revealed that LST theory could better explain impulse buying phenomenon on social
media platforms with the interaction of consumer impulse buying tendency, consistent with
Wells et al., (2011) who employed LST theory and highlighted the interaction of impulsive trait.
Further, the insignificant interaction of SMC also endorsed the vital role of trait suggested by
LST theory.
Secondly, this study contributes the literature belongs to the emerging phenomenon of social
media celebrities as extant literature did not shed much light to investigate their influence
specifically in impulse buying. Though prior studies have suggested the importance of social
media celebrities in context of planned shopping (Djafarova et al., 2017), but this study
predominantly investigated the influence of celebrities post with its interaction in impulsive
context to extend the literature.
Thirdly, social networking sites do not classify the comments’ sentiment like e-commerce
websites. Consumer encounters mixed sentiment polarity without any positive or negative
classification. Therefore, this study tried to uncover this anomaly. We have investigated the
sentiment polarity towards impulse buying and suggested that consumer like to be more
influenced by positive reviews. This study also confirmed the underlying cognitive information
processing mechanisms during an impulse buying decision. Further, this research asserted the
application of OL notion in online impulse buying with consideration of all key numeric features
of FB, i.e., No. of Likes, shares, and comments. We empirically verified that these features
collectively influence the consumers to buy impulsively. Even though OL construct builds
following the past studies similar to Chen et al., (2016) in which the only No. of likes was
examined and Zhang et al., (2014) considered it only for sales volume. But the present study
empirically investigated and expanded the scope of observational learning. Lastly, we adopted
PLS-SEM and fsQCA methodology to test our research model, and the results of fsQCA
highlighted the importance of IBT. The fsQCA also suggested that all exogenous constructs may
contribute towards impulse buying.
7.3 Managerial Implications
This study suggested important insights to practitioners particularly relevant to digital celebrities
and restaurant sector since this is one of the early studies, which investigated the role of social
media celebrities and interactive factors. First, organizations have been trying to increase
impulse buying through different social media strategies to grab more market share. According
to the results, perceived authenticity of social media celebrities’ posts on FB significantly
arouses the users to buy impulsively. Therefore, social media managers should not focus only on
advertising; rather, they can post celebrities’ opinion on their websites and pages that may
provide more insights with perceived authenticity. Such actions might stimulate users to buy
impulsively in better ways.
Second, people spend a lot of time on social media either browsing their timeline or celebrities’
19
 Journal Pre-proof

community where they encounter the peers’ interaction along with celebrities’ post. As positive
sentiments and observational learning significantly arouse the users desire to buy impulsively,
marketing managers need to consider interactive factors, i.e., positive sentiments, volume of
likes, shares, and comments as a marketing tool for effective social media campaigns. For
instance, Pakistani people being collectivists are more inclined to value the opinion of groups,
and Pakistani online food celebrities usually give an open invitation in their FB communities for
meetings, which is referred as “Food Mob.” Restaurants can sponsor the “Food Mob” with
limited members to generate high observational learning, and positive sentiments or they may
offer special discounts within such communities regarding their product. Hence, such activities
will help other users to come across more interactive activities and might effectively lead to
more impulse buying.
Third, this study identified that negative sentiments always discourage the users from buying
impulsively, even the users who have high impulse buying tendency, though its impact is weak
compared to the positive sentiments. Nevertheless, it is quite essential to handle dissatisfied
consumers for the organization. Therefore, restaurant managers can ensure their active presence
in the celebrities’ community to make certain the satisfaction of such customers. Such actions
can assist in making the users feel connected and being taken care, which may lead to design a
better environment and more impulse buying. Thus, these findings may provide an insinuation
for the organization to incorporate emerging social media celebrities in their marketing strategies
to affect the large number of customers for impulse buying.
7.4 Limitation and future research
This research has various limitations, which may facilitate future researchers. First, this study
adopted a cross-sectional approach. This approach contains limitations to test causal
relationships because concrete inference cannot be drawn. Rather, longitudinal and experimental
studies may present a strong conclusion of causal relations in the research model (Dillon &
Goldstein, 1984) specifically FB is under criticism nowadays due to data privacy issues. Though,
availability of inadequate time and resources, the cross-sectional approach is utilized as an
exploratory vehicle to establish a relationship. Secondly, this study focused on the urge to buy
impulsiveness due to a cross-sectional study, and it is also difficult to measure actual impulsive
behavior in the restaurant sector. Future research might adapt this model with consideration of
actual impulse buying behavior in another sector, e.g., lifestyle employing a longitudinal
approach to establishing more convincing results. Thirdly, Pakistani people perceived to be
collective, which are not much inclined to express negative emotions in the group. So, the results
of mixed sentiment polarity might be different in individual society. At fourth, various constructs
like targeted advertising on social media, sales promotion, and cultural traits contain potential to
influence impulse shopping. Thus, incorporation of additional construct might increase the
exploratory power, which is about 30%. Moreover, a comparative study of digital and traditional
celebrities might provide insights to academics and practitioner. Lastly, we have focused on FB
only. Although consumers and celebrities are using a lot of other virtual communities, e.g.,
Twitter, Instagram, SinaWeibo, etc. So, it will worth to integrate these platforms for better
generalization of research.
8. Conclusion
Although impulse buying in social commerce environment is a recent and vital topic, little is
known particularly in the context of newly emerged social media celebrities. Based on LST

20
 Journal Pre-proof

theory, the current study has managed to corroborate the impact of celebrities’ posts, contextual
interactions, and individuals’ inherent trait in predicting urge to buy impulsively among
Facebook users. The empirical investigation revealed that celebrities post authenticity, positive
sentiments, and observational learning significantly encourage users to buy impulsively.
Negative sentiments significantly dissuade users’ urge to buy impulsively, but the influence was
low compared to the positive sentiments. Besides, we found the significant interaction effect of
impulse buying tendency except for the negative sentiments. Surprisingly, celebrities post
authenticity did not significantly moderate any relationship. Further, the fsQCA results unveiled
the robustness of findings towards the urge to buy impulsively and depicted that our research
model is informative due to its good consistency and coverage values. In brief, this research is
eloquent to comprehend the insights of social media celebrities for scholars and practitioners
with appropriate suggestions to induce impulse buying behavior.

Reference

Akman, I., & Mishra, A. (2017). Factors influencing consumer intention in social commerce adoption. Information Technology &
People. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-01-2016-0006
Akram, U., Hui, P., Khan, M., Yan, C., & Akram, Z. (2018). Factors Affecting Online Impulse Buying: Evidence from Chinese
Social Commerce Environment. Sustainability, 10(2), 352. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10020352
Avkiran, N. K. (2017). An in-depth discussion and illustration of partial least squares structural equation modeling in health care.
Health Care Management Science, pp. 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10729-017-9393-7
Babin, B. J., Griffin, M., & Hair, J. F. (2016). Heresies and sacred cows in scholarly marketing publications. Journal of Business
Research, 69(8), 3133–3138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.12.001
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-
2466.1978.tb01621.x
Beatty, S. E., & Elizabeth Ferrell, M. (1998). Impulse buying: Modeling its precursors. Journal of Retailing, 74(2), 169–191.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-4359(99)80092-X
Becker, G. S. (1991). A Note on Restaurant Pricing and Other Examples of Social Influences on Price. Journal of Political
Economy, 99(5), 1109–1116. https://doi.org/10.1086/261791
Berger, J. (2014). Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: A review and directions for future research. Journal of
Consumer Psychology, 24(4), 586–607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2014.05.002
Bikhchandani, S., Hirshleifer, D., & Welch, I. (1998). Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and
Informational Cascades. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12(3), 151–170. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.12.3.151
Bressolles, G., Durrieu, F., & Giraud, M. (2007). The impact of electronic service quality’s dimensions on customer satisfaction
and buying impulse. Journal of Customer Behaviour, 6(1), 37–56. https://doi.org/10.1362/147539207X198365
Brown, S., Kozinets, R. V, Jr, J. F. S., Meaning, B., Bruhn, M., Eggers, F., … Stern, B. (2014). The Quest for Authenticity in
Consumption: Consumers’ Purposive Choice of Authentic Cues to Shape Experienced Outcomes. Journal of Business
Research, 31(3), 342–363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.06.001
Bryman,A., and Bell. (2011). Business research methods. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bryman, A. (2007). Barriers to Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1(1), 8–
22. https://doi.org/10.1177/2345678906290531
Busalim, A. H., & Hussin, A. R. C. (2016). Understanding social commerce: A systematic literature review and directions for
further research. International Journal of Information Management, 36(6), 1075–1088.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2016.06.005
Cabiddu, F., Carlo, M. De, & Piccoli, G. (2014). Annals of Tourism Research Social media affordances : Enabling customer
engagement. ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH, 48, 175–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2014.06.003
Chahal, H., & Bakshi, P. (2015). Examining intellectual capital and competitive advantage relationship: role of innovation and
organizational learning. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 33(3), 376–399. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-07-2013-
0069
Chahal, M. (2016). Four trends that will shape media in 2016. Retrieved from https://www.marketingweek.com/2016/01/08/four-
trends-that-will-shape-media-in-2016/
Chan, T. K. H., Cheung, C. M. K., & Lee, Z. W. Y. (2017). The state of online impulse-buying research: A literature analysis.
Information and Management, 54(2), 204–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2016.06.001
Chen, C. C., & Yao, J. Y. (2018). What drives impulse buying behaviors in a mobile auction? The perspective of the Stimulus-
Organism-Response model. Telematics and Informatics, (February), 0–1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2018.02.007
Chen, J. V., Su, B. C., & Widjaja, A. E. (2016). Facebook C2C social commerce: A study of online impulse buying. Decision
Support Systems, 83, 57–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2015.12.008

21
 Journal Pre-proof

Chen, Yanhong, Lu, Y., Wang, B., & Pan, Z. (2019). How do product recommendations affect impulse buying? An empirical
study on WeChat social commerce. Information and Management, 56(2), 236–248.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2018.09.002
Chen, Yubo, Wang, Q. I., & Xie, J. (2011). Online Social Interactions: A Natural Experiment on Word of Mouth Versus
Observational Learning. Journal of Marketing Research, XLVIII(April 2011), 238–254.
https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.48.2.238
Chih, W. H., Wu, C. H. J., & Li, H. J. (2012). The Antecedents of Consumer Online Buying Impulsiveness on a Travel Website:
Individual Internal Factor Perspectives. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2012.691393
Chin, W. W. (2010). Handbook of partial least squares: Concepts, methods and applications. In Handbooks of Computational
Statistics (pp. 655–689).
Chung, N., Song, H. G., & Lee, H. (2017). Consumers’ impulsive buying behavior of restaurant products in social commerce.
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(2), 709–731. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-10-
2015-0608
Chung, S., & Cho, H. (2017). Fostering parasocial relationships with celebrities on social media: Implications for celebrity
endorsement. Psychology and Marketing, 34(4), 481–495. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21001
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences.
https://doi.org/10.1234/12345678
D’Avanzo, E., & Pilato, G. (2015). Mining social network users opinions’ to aid buyers’ shopping decisions. Computers in
Human Behavior, 51, 1284–1294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.081
Dev, C. S., Buschman, J. D., & Bowen, J. T. (2010). Hospitality Marketing: A Retrospective Analysis (1960-2010) and
Predictions (2010-2020). Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 51(4), 459–469. https://doi.org/10.1177/1938965510376353
Dholakia, U. M. (2000). Temptation and resistance: An integrated model of consumption impulse formation and enactment.
Psychology and Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6793(200011)17:11<955::AID-MAR3>3.0.CO;2-J
Diamantopoulos, A., & Winklhofer, H. M. (2001). Index Construction with Formative Indicators: An Alternative to Scale
Development. Journal of Marketing Research. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.38.2.269.18845
Dillon, W. R., & Goldstein, M. (1984). Multivariate analysis: methods and applications. Probability and Mathematical
Statistics.
Djafarova, E., & Rushworth, C. (2017). Exploring the credibility of online celebrities’ Instagram profiles in influencing the
purchase decisions of young female users. Computers in Human Behavior, 68, 1–7.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.009
Duan, W., Gu, B., & Whinston, A. B. (2008). The dynamics of online word-of-mouth and product sales-An empirical
investigation of the movie industry. Journal of Retailing, 84(2), 233–242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2008.04.005
Epstein, S. (1997). This I have learned from over 40 years of personality research. Journal of Personality.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1997.tb00527.x
Eysenck, H. J. (1983). Cicero and the state-trait theory of anxiety: Another case of delayed recognition. American Psychologist,
38(1), 114–115. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.38.1.114
Floh, A., & Madlberger, M. (2013). The role of atmospheric cues in online impulse-buying behavior. Electronic Commerce
Research and Applications, 12(6), 425–439. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2013.06.001
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating Structural Equation Models With Unobservable Variables and Measurement
Error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/3151312
GeoNews. (2017). Over 44 million social media accounts in Pakistan | Sci-Tech - Geo.tv. Retrieved July 11, 2018, from
https://www.geo.tv/latest/131187-Over-44-million-social-media-accounts-in-Pakistan
Godes, D., Mayzlin, D., Chen, Y., Das, S., Dellarocas, C., Pfeiffer, B., … Verlegh, P. (2005). The firm’s management of social
interactions. Marketing Letters, 16(3–4), 415–428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-005-5902-4
Gui, L., Zhou, Y., Xu, R., He, Y., & Lu, Q. (2017). Learning representations from heterogeneous network for sentiment
classification of product reviews. Knowledge-Based Systems, 124, 34–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2017.02.030
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2017). A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation
Modeling (PLS-SEM). Thousand Oaks: Sage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2013.01.002
Hajli, M. N. (2013). A study of the impact of social media on consumers. International Journal of Market Research, 56(January),
387–404. https://doi.org/10.2501 /U M R-2014-025
Hajli, N., Sims, J., Zadeh, A. H., & Richard, M.-O. (2017). A social commerce investigation of the role of trust in a social
networking site on purchase intentions. Journal of Business Research, 71, 133–141.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.10.004
Harman, H. H. (1976). Modern Factor Analysis (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hays, S., Page, S. J., & Buhalis, D. (2015). Current Issues in Tourism Social media as a destination marketing tool : its use by
national tourism organisations, 3500(October). https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2012.662215
Hennig-thurau, T., Hofacker, C. F., & Bloching, B. (2013). ScienceDirect Marketing the Pinball Way : Understanding How
Social Media Change the Generation of Value for Consumers and Companies. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(4),
237–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2013.09.005
Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sinkovics, R. R. (2009). The use of partial least squares path modeling in international marketing.
Advances in International Marketing, 20, 277–319. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-8116(92)90003-4

22
 Journal Pre-proof

Henseler, Jörg, Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based
structural equation modeling, 115–135. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-014-0403-8
Hu, N., Bose, I., Koh, N. S., & Liu, L. (2012). Manipulation of online reviews: An analysis of ratings, readability, and
sentiments. Decision Support Systems, 52(3), 674–684. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2011.11.002
Hu, N., Koh, N. S., & Reddy, S. K. (2014). Ratings lead you to the product, reviews help you clinch it? the mediating role of
online review sentiments on product sales. Decision Support Systems, 57(1), 42–53.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2013.07.009
Huang, J. H., & Chen, Y. F. (2006). Herding in online product choice. Psychology and Marketing, 23(5), 413–428.
https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20119
Huang, L. T. (2016). Flow and social capital theory in online impulse buying. Journal of Business Research, 69(6), 2277–2283.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.12.042
Huang, Z., & Benyoucef, M. (2013). From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at design features. Electronic
Commerce Research and Applications, 12(4), 246–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2012.12.003
Hultén, P., & Vanyushyn, V. (2014). Promotion and shoppers’ impulse purchases: the example of clothes. Journal of Consumer
Marketing, 31(2), 94–102. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-06-2013-0603
inflowlabs. (2018). Pakistani Influencers Who Are Making The Most of Influencer Marketing - inflowLabs.com. Retrieved
March 5, 2019, from https://inflowlabs.com/2018/02/16/pakistani-influencers-making-influencer-marketing/
Islam, T., Wei, J., Sheikh, Z., Hameed, Z., & Azam, R. I. (2017). Determinants of compulsive buying behavior among young
adults: The mediating role of materialism. Journal of Adolescence, 61(October), 117–130.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.10.004
Jeong, E. H., & Jang, S. C. S. (2011). Restaurant experiences triggering positive electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) motivations.
International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(2), 356–366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2010.08.005
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2012). The Britney Spears universe : Social media and viral marketing at its best, (December
2006). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2011.08.009
Kim, C., & Yang, S.-U. (2017). Like, comment, and share on Facebook: How each behavior differs from the other. Public
Relations Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.02.006
Kim, E. E. K., Mattila, A. S., & Baloglu, S. (2011). Effects of Gender and Expertise on Consumers’ Motivation to Read Online
Hotel Reviews. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 52(4), 399–406. https://doi.org/10.1177/1938965510394357
Kock, N. (2015). Common method bias in PLS-SEM: A full collinearity assessment approach. International Journal of E-
Collaboration, 11(4), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijec.2015100101
Kowalczyk, C. M., & Pounders, K. R. (2016). Transforming celebrities through social media: the role of authenticity and
emotional attachment. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 25(4), 345. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-09-2015-0969
Kumar, V., & Mirchandani, R. (2012). Increasing the ROI of Social Media Marketing. MIT Sloan Management Review, 54(1),
55.
Lee, J. H., Jung, S. H., & Park, J. H. (2017). The role of entropy of review text sentiments on online WOM and movie box office
sales. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 22, 42–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2017.03.001
Lee, M., & Youn, S. (2009). Electronic word of mouth (eWOM). International Journal of Advertising, 28(3), 473–499.
https://doi.org/10.2501/S0265048709200709
Leong, L.-Y., Jaafar, N. I., & Sulaiman, A. (2017). Understanding impulse purchase in Facebook commerce: does Big Five
matter? Internet Research, 27(4), 786–818. https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-04-2016-0107
Leong, L. Y., Jaafar, N. I., & Ainin, S. (2018). The effects of Facebook browsing and usage intensity on impulse purchase in f-
commerce. Computers in Human Behavior, 78, 160–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.09.033
Liang, T.-P., & Turban, E. (2011). Introduction to the Special Issue Social Commerce: A Research Framework for Social
Commerce. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 16(2), 5–14. https://doi.org/10.2753/JEC1086-4415160201
Lin, S. W., & Lo, L. Y. S. (2016). Evoking online consumer impulse buying through virtual layout schemes. Behaviour and
Information Technology, 35(1), 38–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2015.1056546
Line, N. D., & Runyan, R. C. (2012). Hospitality marketing research: Recent trends and future directions. International Journal
of Hospitality Management, 31(2), 477–488. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2011.07.006
Liu, P., He, J., & Li, A. (2019). Upward social comparison on social network sites and impulse buying: A moderated mediation
model of negative affect and rumination. Computers in Human Behavior, 96(601), 133–140.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.02.003
Liu, Y., Li, H., & Hu, F. (2013). Website attributes in urging online impulse purchase: An empirical investigation on consumer
perceptions. Decision Support Systems, 55(3), 829–837. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2013.04.001
Loroz, P. S., & Braig, B. M. (2015). Consumer Attachments to Human Brands: The “Oprah Effect.” Psychology and Marketing.
https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20815
Luo, X. (2005). How Does Shopping With Others Influence Impulsive Purchasing? Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(4),
288–294. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327663jcp1504_3
Madhavaram, S. R., & Laverie, D. A. (2004). Exploring Impulse Purchasing on the Internet Exploring Impulse Purchasing on the
Internet. Association for Consumer Research, 31(31), 59–66. https://doi.org/43008804
Maltby, J. Day, L. Macaskill, A. (2013). Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence. Personality, Individual Differences
and Intelligence. https://doi.org/10.1038/1991031a0
Marsden, P. (2011). How to Sell Smart on Facebook: Insights from Impulse Buying. Retrieved November 10, 2017, from

23
 Journal Pre-proof

https://digitalintelligencetoday.com/how-to-sell-smart-on-facebook-insights-from-impulse-buying/
McGoldrick, P.J., Betts, E.J., and Keeling, K. A. (1999). Antecedents of Spontaneous Buying Behavior During Temporary
Markdowns. Advances in Consumer Research, 26(January 1999), 26–33.
Mo, Z., Li, Y., & Fan, P. (2015). Effect of Online Reviews on Consumer Purchase Behavior. Journal of Service Science and
Management, 8(June), 419–424. https://doi.org/10.4236/jssm.2015.83043
Moulard, J. G., Garrity, C. P., & Rice, D. H. (2015). What makes a human brand authentic? Identifying the antecedents of
celebrity authenticity. Psychology and Marketing, 32(2), 173–186. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20771
Moulard, J. G., Rice, D. H., Garrity, C. P., & Mangus, S. M. (2014). Artist Authenticity: How Artists’ Passion and Commitment
Shape Consumers’ Perceptions and Behavioral Intentions across Genders. Psychology and Marketing, 31(8), 576–590.
https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20719
Parboteeah, D. V., Valacich, J. S., & Wells, J. D. (2009). The influence of website characteristics on a consumer’s urge to buy
impulsively. Information Systems Research, 20(1), 60–78. https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.1070.0157
Park, D.-H., Lee, J., & Han, I. (2007). The Effect of On-Line Consumer Reviews on Consumer Purchasing Intention: The
Moderating Role of Involvement. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 11(4), 125–148.
https://doi.org/10.2753/JEC1086-4415110405
Park, D. H., & Lee, J. (2008). eWOM overload and its effect on consumer behavioral intention depending on consumer
involvement. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 7(4), 386–398.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2007.11.004
Park, E. J., Kim, E. Y., Funches, V. M., & Foxx, W. (2012). Apparel product attributes, web browsing, and e-impulse buying on
shopping websites. Journal of Business Research, 65(11), 1583–1589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.02.043
Park, J., & Lennon, S. J. (2006). Psychological and environmental antecedents of impulse buying tendency in the multichannel
shopping context. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 23(2), 56–66. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760610654998
Payne, J. W., Bettman, J., & Johnson, E. J. (1993). The Adaptive Decision Maker. The Adaptive Decision Maker, 45, 352.
https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.1994.133
Pemberton, C. (2017). Energize Your Influencer Marketing - Smarter with Gartner. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from
https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/energize-your-influencer-marketing/
Petter, Straub, & Rai. (2007). Specifying Formative Constructs in Information Systems Research. MIS Quarterly.
https://doi.org/10.2307/25148814
Pittman, M., & Reich, B. (2016). Social media and loneliness: Why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand
Twitter words. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 155–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.084
Podsakoff, P. M., Mackenzie, S. B., Lee, J., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common Method Biases in Behavioral Research : A
Critical Review of the Literature and Recommended Remedies, 88(5), 879–903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-
9010.88.5.879
Pornpitakpan, C., & Han, J. H. (2013). The effect of culture and salespersons’ retail service quality on impulse buying.
Australasian Marketing Journal, 21(2), 85–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2013.02.005
Ragin, C. (2017). User’s Guide to Fuzzy-Set / Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Manual Based on fsQCA 3.0, (July), 62.
Rook, D. W. (1987). The Buying Impulse. Journal of Consumer Research, 14(2), 189–199. https://doi.org/10.1086/209105
Rook, D. W., & Fisher, R. J. (1995). Normative Influences on Impulsive Buying Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research,
22(3), 305. https://doi.org/10.1086/209452
Saleh, K. (2017). The State of Impulse Buying Persona – Statistics and Trends. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from
https://www.invespcro.com/blog/impulse-buying/
Samuel, A., Lam, L., Sevitt, D., & Loh, C. (2013). From Social to Sale. Retrieved from
http://www.visioncritical.com/sites/default/files/pdf/whitepaper-social-to-sale.pdf
Schindler, R. M., & Bickart, B. (2012). Perceived helpfulness of online consumer reviews: The role of message content and style.
Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 11(3), 234–243. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.1372
Schwarz, A., Rizzuto, T., Carraher-Wolverton, C., Roldán, J. L., & Barrera-Barrera, R. (2017). Examining the Impact and
Detection of the “Urban Legend” of Common Method Bias. The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, 48(1),
93–119. https://doi.org/10.1145/3051473.3051479
Sen, S., & Lerman, D. (2007). Why are you telling me this? An examination into negative consumer reviews on the web. Journal
of Interactive Marketing, 21(4), 76–94. https://doi.org/10.1002/dir.20090
Shah, A. K., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2009). The path of least resistance: Using easy-to-access information. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 18(4), 232–236. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01642.x
Sheldon, P., & Bryant, K. (2016). Instagram: Motives for its use and relationship to narcissism and contextual age. Computers in
Human Behavior, 58, 89–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.12.059
Shin, D.-H. (2013). User experience in social commerce: in friends we trust. Behaviour & Information Technology, 32(1), 52–67.
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2012.692167
Song, H. G., Chung, N., & Koo, C. (2015). Impulsive Buying Behavior of Restaurant Products in Social Commerce: a Role of
Serendipity and Scarcity Message. Proceedings of Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, 1–14.
Statista. (2017). Most famous social network sites worldwide as of April 2017, ranked by number of active users (in millions).
Stephen, A. T., & Toubia, O. (2008). Deriving Value from Social Commerce Networks. SSRN.
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1150995
Stern, H. (1962). The Signficance of Buying Impulse Today. Journal of Maketing, 26(2), 59–62.

24
 Journal Pre-proof

Steyer, R., Schmitt, M., & Eid, M. (1999). Latent state-trait theory and research in personality and individual differences.
European Journal of Personality, 13(5), 389–408. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0984(199909/10)13:5<389::AID-
PER361>3.0.CO;2-A
Stone, M. (1974). Cross-Validatory Choice and Assessment of Statistical Predictions. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society,
36(2), 111–147. https://doi.org/10.2307/2984809
Sun, T., & Wu, G. (2011). Trait Predictors of Online Impulsive Buying Tendency: A Hierarchical Approach. The Journal of
Marketing Theory and Practice. https://doi.org/10.2753/MTP1069-6679190307
Sundström, M., Hjelm-Lidholm, S., & Radon, A. (2019). Clicking the boredom away – Exploring impulse fashion buying
behavior online. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 47(March 2018), 150–156.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2018.11.006
Tajvidi, M., Richard, M., Wang, Y., & Hajli, N. (2018). Brand co-creation through social commerce information sharing : The
role of social media. Journal of Business Research, (June), 0–1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.06.008
Tenenhaus, M., Vinzi, V. E., Chatelin, Y.-M., & Lauro, C. (2005). PLS path modeling. Computational Statistics & Data
Analysis, 48(1), 159–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csda.2004.03.005
Verhagen, T., & Van Dolen, W. (2011). The influence of online store beliefs on consumer online impulse buying: A model and
empirical application. Information and Management, 48(8), 320–327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2011.08.001
Wang, Q., Wang, L., Zhang, X., Mao, Y., & Wang, P. (2017). The impact research of online reviews’ sentiment polarity
presentation on consumer purchase decision. Information Technology & People, 30(3), 522–541.
https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-06-2014-0116
Weisstein, F. L., Song, L., Andersen, P., & Zhu, Y. (2017). Examining impacts of negative reviews and purchase goals on
consumer purchase decision. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 39(November), 201–207.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.08.015
Wells, J., Parboteeah, V., & Valacich, J. (2011). Online Impulse Buying: Understanding the Interplay between Consumer
Impulsiveness and Website Quality. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 12(1), 32–56.
Wetzels, Odekerken-Schröder, & van Oppen. (2009). Using PLS Path Modeling for Assessing Hierarchical Construct Models:
Guidelines and Empirical Illustration. MIS Quarterly, 33(1), 177. https://doi.org/10.2307/20650284
Wilcox, K., & Stephen, A. T. (2013). Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control.
Journal of Consumer Research, 40(1), 90–103. https://doi.org/10.1086/668794
Wiley, D. (2014). Why Brands Should Turn To Bloggers Instead Of Celebrity Spokespeople. Retrieved December 23, 2017,
from https://marketingland.com/brands-turn-bloggers-instead-celebrity-spokespeople-75971
Woodside, A. G. (2013). Moving beyond multiple regression analysis to algorithms: Calling for adoption of a paradigm shift
from symmetric to asymmetric thinking in data analysis and crafting theory. Journal of Business Research, 66(4), 463–
472. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.12.021
Woodside, A. G. (2015). Visualizing{dot operator}matching{dot operator}generalizing: Case identification hypotheses and case-
level data analysis. Australasian Marketing Journal, 23(3), 246–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2015.07.002
Wu, I. L., Chen, K. W., & Chiu, M. L. (2016). Defining key drivers of online impulse purchasing: A perspective of both impulse
shoppers and system users. International Journal of Information Management, 36(3), 284–296.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2015.11.015
Xiang, L., Zheng, X., Lee, M. K. O. O., & Zhao, D. (2016). Exploring consumers’ impulse buying behavior on social commerce
platform: The role of parasocial interaction. International Journal of Information Management, 36(3), 333–347.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2015.11.002
Xiang, Z., & Gretzel, U. (2010). Role of social media in online travel information search. Tourism Management, 31(2), 179–188.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2009.02.016
Yan, Q., Wang, L., Chen, W., & Cho, J. (2016). Study on the influencing factors of unplanned consumption in a large online
promotion activity. Electronic Commerce Research, 16(4), 453–477. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-016-9215-x
Youn, S., & Faber, R. J. (2000). Impulse buying: Its relation to personality traits and cues. Advances in Consumer Research,
27(1), 179–185. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=6687575&lang=zh-
cn&site=ehost-live
Zhang, H., Lu, Y., Gupta, S., & Zhao, L. (2014). What motivates customers to participate in social commerce? the impact of
technological environments and virtual customer experiences. Information and Management, 51(8), 1017–1030.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2014.07.005
Zhang, K. Z., & Benyoucef, M. (2016). Consumer behavior in social commerce: A literature review. Decision Support Systems,
86, 95–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2016.04.001
Zhang, K.Z.K., Hu, B., & Zhao, S. J. (2014). How online social interactions affect consumers’ impulse purchase on group
shopping websites? Proceedings - Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, PACIS 2014, 1–17.
Zhang, Kem Z.K., Xu, H., Zhao, S., & Yu, Y. (2018). Online reviews and impulse buying behavior: the role of browsing and
impulsiveness. Internet Research (Vol. 28). https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-12-2016-0377
Zhao, X. (Roy), Wang, L., Guo, X., & Law, R. (2015). The influence of online reviews to online hotel booking intentions.
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(6), 1343–1364. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-12-
2013-0542
Zheng, X., Men, J., Yang, F., & Gong, X. (2019). Understanding impulse buying in mobile commerce: An investigation into
hedonic and utilitarian browsing. International Journal of Information Management, 48(October 2018), 151–160.

25
 Journal Pre-proof

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.02.010
Zhu, Y., & Chen, H. (2015). Social media and human need satisfaction : Implications for social media marketing. Business
Horizons, 58(3), 335–345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2015.01.006
Zoha. (2018). Top 18 Social Media Stars in Pakistan - Crayon. Retrieved July 11, 2018, from https://crayon.pk/top-18-social-
media-stars-in-pakistan/

Appendix A-Social Media Celebrities Details

Sr.No Group/Page name No. of Followers
1 Foodies ‘R Us 88,174
2 Bros Meet The World 127694
3 Foodies For Life 114269
4 Foodicted 80476
5 Foodies & Friends 83159

Appendix-B
Construct items
Authenticity
1. I perceive social media food celebrities’ suggestions are genuine
2. Online celebrities’ posts regarding different eating places seem real to me.
3. Digital food celebrities’ opinions are reliable.
Positive Sentiments
4. Comments content about restaurants’ post are excellent.
5. Reviews regarding different products are good.
6. Comments content is outstanding.
7. Reviews concerning to celebrities’ posts are worthy
Negative Sentiments
8. Reviews about various posts are terrible.
9. Comments content concerning to restaurants are unpleasant.
10. Comments content is disappointing.
11. Review contents related to celebrities’ posts are poor.
No. of likes
12. It is easy for me to observe that celebrities posts are liked by many people.
13. I observe that quantity of likes regarding different posts is great.
14. I observe that the volume of likes related to various products is large.
No. of Shares
15. It is effortless for me to observe that celebrities’ posts are shared by a lot of people.
16. I observe that the volume of shares related to different posts is large.
17. I observe that quantity of share regarding various products is great.
No. of Comments
18. It is convenient to observe that celebrities’ posts are reviewed by many people.
19. I observe that quantity of comment regarding different posts is great.
20. I observe that volume of reviews regarding various products is large.
Impulse Buying Tendency
21. While browsing Facebook.com, I often buy things spontaneously.
22. As I browse FB, I often buy things online without thinking.
23. “I see it, I buy it” describes the way I buy things.
24. While browsing FB, sometimes I am a bit reckless about what I buy.
Urge to buy impulsively
25. When I browse Facebook.com, I feel a number of sudden urges to book or visit a restaurant that I had not planned before.
26. While using FB, I had the desire to buy items that didn’t relevant to my specific shopping goal.
27. As I browse FB, I had the inclination to purchase outside my shopping list.

26
 Journal Pre-proof

Acknowledgments:
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No.
71573030) & (No. 71874020) & (No. 71533001), and the Liaoning Social Science Planning
Fund Project, China (No. L15AGL017). The authors would like to express their heartful
appreciation to editors and reviewers for their valuable comments, which enabled us to improve
the quality of the paper.
 Journal Pre-proof

Highlights

 Social media celebrities post and contextual interaction have a significant impact on impulse
buying.
 Latent state-trait theory was adopted for the research framework.
 PLS-SEM was employed to analyze the data of 452 respondents collected via online
questionnaire from Facebook.com.
 Impulse buying tendency significantly interacts all relationships except negative sentiments.