Expressive participation in Internet social movements: Testing the moderating effect of technology readiness and sex on student SNS use

  • Authors:

  • Juan D. Borrero;Shumaila Y. Yousafzai;Uzma Javed;Kelly L. Page

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Management and Marketing, University of Huelva, Plaza de la Merced 11, E21071 Huelva, Spain;Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK;Management Sciences Department, CIIT, Park Road, Chak Shahzad, Islamabad, Pakistan;Columbia College Chicago, 600 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago IL 60605, USA

  • Venue:
  • Computers in Human Behavior
  • Year:
  • 2014

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

An understanding of students' use of social networking sites (SNS) for expressive participation in Internet Social Movements (ISMs) is absent in the literature on the social psychology of student social networking behavior. Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as a theoretical framework and survey data collected from 214 students in Spain, we empirically test the UTAUT theory in this context. Our results confirm that effort expectancy, social influence, and performance expectancy significantly affect students' intentions to use SNS for expressive participation in Internet social movements. We also test the moderating effect of students' sex and Technology Readiness (TR) on these UTAUT relationships. Our results show that the intention to use SNS is strongly influenced by effort expectancy for female students and students with self-reported low-levels of technology readiness. For male students and students with self-reportinghigh-levels of technology readiness, the relationship is strongly influenced by social influence. The implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed.