The Role of Social Referents in Consumer´ E-Commerce Adoption in China

From the perspective of social influence, this study developed an integrated model to explain different roles of social referents in an individual´s e-commerce adoption based on theory of planned behavior (TPB) and trust relative theories. On basis of available research, online consumers´ social referents were divided into three types: interpersonal norm, social norm of subjective norm and external norm on website. Empirical data was collected from a survey of users to verify proposed hypotheses. The result shows that consumers´ use intention towards e-commerce is mainly determined by subjective norm and consumer´s trust belief. Both interpersonal and social norm have positive effect on use intention, with the former a more important role. External norm by external referents on website shows a positive impact on users´ trust but no significant effect on use intention. After consideration of the impact of external referents on customer behavior intention, the social influence on consumer´s use intention is extend and different roles of various social referents can be better explained.