A Holistic Social Commerce Framework for Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The evolution of social networking and the significant growth of e-commerce has changed the nature of e-commerce interaction between customers and organizations. This evolution has produced a new form of e-commerce known as named "social commerce" (SC). In Saudi Arabia, social networking usage has increased rapidly and has begun to be an indispensable part of everyday life. The current literature indicates that social commerce has not been studied extensively and the majority of the studies on social commerce have focused mainly on the investigation of specific factors. However, in this study, the researcher intends to investigate a comprehensive range of factors including Organization Characteristics factors, HCI factors, Social factors, Psychological factors and Cultural factors. Hence, the purpose of this study is to identify the major factors that influence the customers' attitude to the adoption of s-commerce in Saudi Arabia. A new initial holistic framework will be developed for s-commerce in Saudi Arabia based on an extensive literature review. A mixed methods approach suggested for this research. This study will provide a holistic framework that will benefit stakeholders such as companies, organizations and governments by suggesting ways to encourage customers to adopt SC and find practical solutions to improve the use of SC in Kingdom Saudi Arabia (KSA) as well as those in developing countries, especially the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.