Factors influencing social media adoption among smes during COVID-19 crisis
Ali Ahmad Trawnih, Husam Yaseen, Al-Adwan, Alsoud, Jaber
Abstract
Social media is considered a dominant platform for ensuring business success and survival, especially in the case of small and medium enterprises businesses (SMEs). It offers many benefits for businesses in terms of enhancing customer relations, increasing profit, reducing cost, and allowing �?exibility. During the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, social media has become essential for businesses. The focus has shifted to conducting businesses’ daily activities remotely. Despite its importance, this research aims to explore factors that affect social media implementation on the part of SMEs in Jordan. The Technological, Environmental, and Organizational (TOE) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been employed. These theories provide useful insights and explanations with regard to the internal and external contexts of social media adoption. Data was collected from 250 SMEs in the city of Irbid, north Jordan. The results reveal that all factors significantly affect social media adoption on the part of SMEs. Among these factors, environmental context was the most significant predictor of social media adoption during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis; this finding could provide a good basis for SME decision-makers and practitioners regarding assessing the factors that in�?uence social media implementation on the part of SMEs.