Integrating Trust and Risk Perception into UTAUT: Study About Consumers' Purchase Intentions in Social Media

Social media has recently been utilized not only for facilitating communication among people but also as a platform for selling and buying things. The latter term is known as social commerce, becoming an exciting place to promote products and conduct transactions. This study examines the factors contributing to purchasing intention among social media users. Since the transaction involves financial concerns, this study integrated perceived trust and perceived risk variables into the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). A sample of 278 social media users was selected randomly and analyzed using structured equations model partial least squares (SEM-PLS). The findings indicated that empirical data supported all developed hypotheses. All five variables (PE, EE, SI, PT, and PR) moderately explained 56%7 of the variance in PI. PI and FC contributed 35.4% of the variance in UB. The findings have implications for the social commerce providers' need to ensure the security of transactions and maintain users' trust in conducting online transactions.