Behavioral Implications of International

Social Media Advertising: An

Investigation of Intervening and
Contingency Factors
Wesley J. Johnston, Shadab Khalil, Angelina Nhat Hanh Le, and Julian Ming-Sung Cheng

ABSTRACT
Despite the rapid growth of social media and the enthusiasm surrounding social media advertising (SMA), scant
theoretical and empirical knowledge exists on the cross-border effectiveness of SMA and its influence on consumer
behavior in the social media environment. This research develops a four-stage belief–value–attitude–behavior frame-
work to understand the intervening role of SMA value and attitude and reflect how consumers react to SMA across
cultures and global social media types. The results confirm the mediating effects of value and attitude and reveal that
positive attitude toward SMA increases social media–specific behaviors (i.e., message and social interaction behaviors).
The moderating effect results of culture reveal a greater impact of infotainment on SMA value and of credibility on SMA
value and attitude in the higher-uncertainty-avoidance culture. Infotainment has a larger effect on SMA value and
attitude in global content community sites than in global social networking sites, but there is a reverse moderating effect
on the impact of credibility. The research provides a better theoretical understanding of consumers’ behavioral responses
to SMA in international marketplaces.

Keywords: social media advertising, global social media, uncertainty avoidance, message interaction, social interaction

Online Supplement: http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jim.16.0125

he growth of Web 2.0–based social media has led to a allows for an environment in which close and mutual re-

T major paradigm shift in how marketers communicate

with consumers around the world. The inherent in-
teractive and immediate nature of global social media
Wesley J. Johnston is Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing,
Georgia State University (email: mktwjj@langate.gsu.edu). Shadab Khalil
(corresponding author) is Assistant Professor, Department of International
Business, National Dong Hwa University (email: jnu.shadab@gmail.com).
Angelina Nhat Hanh Le is Lecturer, School of Management, University of
Economics (email: lenhathanh@yahoo.com). Julian Ming-Sung Cheng is
Professor of Marketing, Business Administration Department, National
Central University, and Adjunct Professor, University of Economics (email:
mingsungcheng@yahoo.com). The authors would like to thank the
JIM review team for their constructive comments that helped improve the
paper significantly. The financial support of the University of Economics,
Ho-Chi-Minh City, is acknowledged. The funding body did not have any
involvement in study design; in collection, analysis, and interpretation of
data; in the writing of the research; or in the decision to submit the article for
publication. Bulent Menguc served as associate editor for this article.
lationships can be built with consumers across national
borders (Okazaki and Taylor 2013). It also provides
marketers with a platform for instant and interactive ad-
vertising on a global scale (Hudson et al. 2016). According
to Okazaki and Taylor (2013), global social media
employed for international advertising can bring together
the two most dominant but opposite traits: global reach and
personalization. A host of global firms are thus using social
media increasingly as an advertising platform (Hatzithomas,
Fotiadis, and Coudounaris 2016). Understanding how
global social media could be employed for international
Journal of International Marketing
©2018, American Marketing Association
Vol. 26, No. 2, 2018, pp. 43–61
DOI: 10.1509/jim.16.0125
ISSN 1069-031X (print) 1547-7215 (electronic)

Behavioral Implications of International Social Media Advertising 43

advertising and assessing its impact on consumers is
therefore of prime importance.
Despite the enthusiasm of marketers and the increasing
scholarly attention (e.g., Berthon et al. 2012; Okazaki and
Taylor 2013), the behavioral implications of international
social media advertising (SMA) are relatively less understood.
(Hudson et al. 2016). A pertinent issue in social media re-
search, in general, is a predisposition toward the study of
behavioral responses, such as click-through rates and pur-
chase intention (e.g., Aguirre et al. 2015; Dao et al. 2014),
rooted in either the traditional or the Web 1.0 advertising
media. The social media environment fundamentally differs
from these advertising environments in terms of accessibility,
interactivity, and power (shift from firms to consumers)
(Berthon et al. 2012). The instant-interactive nature of social
media, perhaps its most consequential feature, provides
consumers with greater ability to process advertising stimuli
than with traditional media (Ko, Cho, and Roberts 2005).
This results in more complex and interactive behaviors, such
as consumers’ interaction with their social network or with
the advertised messages. Therefore, applying the existing
wisdom on consumer behavior from traditional or Web 1.0
media to social media would provide limited insights (at best)
into international SMA effectiveness.
At the same time, international SMA research is in a nascent
stage. Okazaki and Taylor (2013), in their review of in-
ternational SMA literature, indicate the dearth of theoretical
perspectives on which hypotheses could be formulated and
empirically tested. This paucity is resonated in and com-
pounded by the scant literature on the effect of international
SMA on consumer behavior and the underlying psycho-
logical processes (Hudson et al. 2016). This is surprising
given the importance attached to understanding the dy-
namics of international SMA and its impact on consumers
(Moro, Rita, and Vala 2016; Okazaki and Taylor 2013).
Arguably, the theoretical foundations of Web 1.0 in-
ternational advertising could be transferred to social media.
Knoll (2016), however, cautions against using this ap-
proach without empirical evidence, prompting the testing of
theoretical frameworks on the interactive behavioral im-
plications of international SMA.
Berthon et al. (2012) suggest that the downstream conse-
quences of social media are dependent on national culture.
The authors argue that marketers need to take cultural
differences into account when designing their global social
media strategies. Barring a few studies that discuss the
standardization/adaptation of social media communication
and the role of national culture (e.g., Hatzithomas, Fotiadis,
and Coudounaris 2016; Hudson et al. 2016), the extant
44 Journal of International Marketing
literature provides limited guidance on how SMA is per-
ceived and could be implemented effectively across cultures.
Such an insight is particularly important because behavioral
models do not necessarily hold across cultures (Ashraf,
Thongpapanl, and Auh 2014).
In view of these limitations in the extant literature, our aim is
to develop a theoretically grounded framework of in-
ternational SMA effectiveness in a cross-cultural setting. Using
the hierarchy of effects theory (Lavidge and Steiner 1961) and
the expectancy value theory of gratifications sought and
obtained (Rayburn and Palmgreen 1984) as theoretical
foundations, we develop a framework of factors that could
intervene with and contingently affect consumers’ interactive
behavioral responses to SMA across borders. Specifically, we
focus on the intervening roles of value and attitude and the
moderating roles of uncertainty avoidance and global social
media types in the relationship between SMA infotainment
(a term for material that informs and entertains)/credibility
and message and social interaction behaviors.
Our research makes several contributions to the literature.
First, we advance the research on international SMA ef-
fectiveness by proposing an alternative model of consumer
behavior rooted in the interactive Web 2.0 environment.
Our research is among the first to investigate and advance
the knowledge of the effect of interactive SMA on the in-
teractive behavioral responses of message and social in-
teraction in the international context. In the process, we
depart from most prior literature, which has focused on
marketing outcomes such as purchase intention and elec-
tronic word of mouth (Dao et al. 2014; Hsu et al. 2015),
because these measures may be unsuitable to assess ad-
vertising effectiveness in the social media environment.
Second, we contribute to the international advertising lit-
erature by developing a theory-driven framework of in-
ternational SMA effectiveness. Drawing on the hierarchy of
effects theory and the expectancy value theory, we address
the call to advance theoretical perspectives on international
SMA (Knoll 2016; Okazaki and Taylor 2013). Our
framework deepens the theoretical understanding of how
consumers evaluate SMA in international marketplaces by
examining value and attitude as the underlying processes
guiding behavior and investigating the boundary conditions
that alter the efficacy of SMA. On a broader level, we add to
the development of the two theories in the realm of SMA
and their applicability across borders.
Third, we extend the research on uncertainty avoidance
(Ashraf et al. 2017; Krautz and Hoffmann 2017) and
contribute to the scant literature on the role of national
culture in international SMA. This gap in the SMA research is
particularly worrisome because limited knowledge exists on
the feasibility and efficacy of same SMA strategies across
cultures (Hudson et al. 2016). We expand the stream of
research on SMA by offering both theoretical insights and
managerial guidance on the execution of SMA in different
cultures. In the process, we also add to the SMA literature on
standardization versus adaptation (Hatzithomas, Fotiadis,
and Coudounaris 2016) and to the larger and the ongoing
debate on the advertising standardization–adaptation strat-
egy. We also take into account how consumer assessment of
SMA could vary across different global social media types,
thereby adding to and extending the limited literature on the
comparative efficacy of SMA strategies on different types of
global social media.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Social Media Advertising
Drawing on the synthesis of the SMA literature (e.g., Knoll
2016; Kumar et al. 2016), in this research we operationalize
SMA as firm-generated advertising posted by firms on social
media with instant and interactive features that allow con-
sumers to take interactive actions. By nature, SMA is instant
and interactive, but certain formats of SMA are more in-
teractive, such as those with built-in quizzes, games, and polls
and/or those that allow consumers to explore, like, comment
on, follow, and share the ads instantly. Social media adver-
tising provides both consumers and managers with a unique
metric of an ad’s popularity through the number of likes,
comments, and shares it receives in a timely fashion. Social
media advertising is unique because, unlike ads on traditional
or Web 1.0 media, it appears as the part of the main viewing
content of a given social media. Social media itself has shifted
the power from firms to consumers, changing them from
passive to active elements in the advertising process (Berthon
et al. 2012). Thus, SMA fundamentally differs from adver-
tising on traditional or Web 1.0 media, and it might be in-
appropriate to assess the impact of SMA on behavior with the
existing knowledge from other media.
Advertising on social media is achieved in several ways and
through different types of social media, such as in the form
of long (e.g., on Facebook) or short (e.g., on Twitter) text
messages, pictures, videos (e.g., on YouTube), and so on.
Firms can create their own YouTube channels and Face-
book pages or use the various interactive advertising tools
on YouTube and Facebook. Different types of social media
have their own unique formats and attributes that offer
specific applications for SMA. For example, SMA on
YouTube primarily appears in the form of in-stream videos
Behavioral Implications of International Social Media Advertising 45
ads (skippable ads before the start of or during a video), and
in-search ads (displayed in search results). Whereas in-stream
video ads appear incidentally when consumers watch a
video, in-search ads appear when they deliberately search for
ads or related content on YouTube. Consumers are also
exposed to ads when they subscribe to a brand’s YouTube
channel. Irrespective of the differences in the source of ex-
posure, ads on YouTube provide similar experience and
actions/content to consumers. In contrast, ads on Facebook
mainly take the form of posts and dynamic product ads.
Consumers are exposed to ads on their newsfeed when they
like brands’ pages; when ads are shared, liked, or commented
on by consumers’ social network; or when firms directly
target consumers on the basis of their browsing history and
habits. Although ads on Facebook differ from those on
YouTube in terms of how consumers are exposed to them,
they appear on the newsfeed essentially in the same manner,
with identical actions and content.
The Hierarchy of Effects and the Expectancy
Value Theories
The hierarchy of effects theory is a systematic response
process divided into the sequential stages (Smith, Chen, and
Yang 2008) of cognition, affect, and conation. Cognition
can take the form of belief, affect takes the form of attitude,
and conation takes the form of behavior. The theory of the
cognition–affect–conation process is proposed to be the
most practical model of connecting various levels of con-
sumer responses and is considered both the basis and an
adequate approach to measure the effectiveness of adver-
tising (San José-Cabezudo, Gutiérrez-Cillán, and Gutiérrez-
Arranz 2008). We employ the theory particularly because it
allows for a holistic assessment of both direct and indirect
effects of positive dispositions on behavioral responses
(Bartsch, Riefler, and Diamantopoulos 2016). Furthermore,
it is posited that these theoretical models do not generalize
but are contingent (Eisend and Tarrahi 2016). This not only
renders the projection of the extant hierarchy of effects
domestic frameworks to international context difficult but
also strengthens the ground for employing the theory in the
contingent settings of varied cultures and global social
media types.
The expectancy value theory, in contrast, elucidates how a
person’s beliefs contribute to the assessment of value
through gratifications sought and obtained, leading to the
development of an affect state (Rayburn and Palmgreen
1984). The theory is robust and flexible in understanding
and linking different stages of consumer evaluation and is
frequently employed as a theoretical paradigm in a variety
of fields (Shoham, Rose, and Kahle 1998). The theory,
through the mechanism of gratifications sought and ob-
tained, delineates the motivation behind the belief–value–
attitude sequence of consumer responses. Furthermore, the
central tenet of the theory (i.e., the belief–value–attitude
link) could be said to be complementary to the belief–
attitude–behavior model of the hierarchy of effects theory.
Building on this and the flexibility of the hierarchy of effects
theory in terms of the number of stages (see Smith, Chen,
and Yang 2008), we develop a four-stage framework of
belief–value–attitude–behavior and study the mediating
and moderating mechanisms to understand consumer re-
action to SMA in international marketplaces.
Conceptual Framework Development
We develop a theory-based belief–value–attitude–behavior
framework to understand consumer responses to SMA
across international markets (Figure 1). We base our choice
of factors on both the traditional advertising literature and
the unique interactive factors crucial to SMA. To represent
the belief or cognition (first) stage of the four-stage
framework, we employ SMA infotainment and credibil-
ity. The two, apart from being regarded as belief factors in
the traditional advertising literature (e.g., C.-L. Liu et al.
2012; Pollay and Mittal 1993; Wang and Sun 2010), are
important characteristics and the defining features of SMA
(Dao et al. 2014). The second stage is represented by value
of SMA. Value, besides being considered a part of cognition
in advertising (F. Liu et al. 2012; Okazaki 2004), is also
treated as an outcome of belief factors. At the same, value is
an antecedent of attitude according to the expectancy value
theory (Rayburn and Palmgreen 1984). Therefore, we
model value as a mediator in the beliefs factors–attitude
relationship. Advertising attitude, a personal utility factor
that originates from advertising beliefs (Pollay and Mittal
1993), forms the affect factor (third stage). Attitude, apart
from being a consequence of beliefs/value, is also posited to
lead to behavioral responses, according to the hierarchy of
effects theory, and thus acts as a mediator in the beliefs/
value–behavior relationship. Behavioral responses (the
conation factors in the hierarchy of effects theory) are
represented by social media–specific behaviors of message
and social interactions.
We study message and social interactions as consumers’
behavioral responses to international SMA because of their
relevance in the social media environment. Message and
social interactions are considered fundamental behaviors in
response to interactive Internet advertising (Huang et al.
2007; Ko, Cho, and Roberts 2005; Zeng, Huang, and Dou
2009). They can provide marketers with meaningful in-
sights into consumer opinion (see Nguyen et al. 2014) and
46 Journal of International Marketing
could become a powerful determinant of subsequent, more
direct consumer responses. Although these two behaviors
are the fundamental behavioral responses to interactive
marketing stimuli and are expected to play important roles
in judging the effectiveness of SMA, studies on their driving
forces (in both domestic and cross-border settings) are
scarce.
Although we develop a broad four-stage framework of
consumer responses to SMA, our primary aim is to in-
vestigate how consumers develop SMA-specific behavior
and to identify the mediating and moderating effects.
Therefore, while we test the entire proposed framework, we
hypothesize only the direct effects of attitude on message
and social interaction behaviors (the SMA-specific out-
comes), the mediating effects of value and attitude, and the
moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance and global
social media types (discussed next). We contend that al-
though the direct effects of (1) SMA infotainment and
credibility on value and attitude and (2) value on attitude
must be tested within the proposed framework, these re-
lationships may provide only incremental contributions to
the arguments delineating them in the existing advertising
literature. Thus, we focus on the relatively richer direct,
mediating, and moderating effects and confirm the appli-
cability of a holistic hierarchy of effects theory– and
expectancy value theory–based framework of SMA ef-
fectiveness across international markets.
Uncertainty Avoidance. International SMA efforts are
subject to cultural differences. Culture is expected to in-
fluence consumers’ motivation to create, exchange, and
enthusiastically engage in their social media newsfeed
(Berthon et al. 2012). Among the six dimensions of
Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov’s (2010) cultural typology,
we focus on the moderating effect of uncertainty avoid-
ance, which explains whether a culture accepts un-
certainty as a source of opportunity or finds ways to
reduce it because it is perceived as a threat. Compared
with other cultural dimensions, uncertainty avoidance
has a unique relevance in the social media environment. In
addition to its importance in affecting social media behavior
and usage (see Hudson et al. 2016), uncertainty avoidance
has a bearing on risk taking, whereas consumers’ perceived
risk has been found to affect their behavior on social media
(Hajli and Lin 2016). Furthermore, uncertainty avoidance
has been shown to affect international advertising outcomes
(Möller and Eisend 2010) and social media interactions
(Hudson et al. 2016) across cultures.
Global Social Media Types. Social media could be clas-
sified as global, regional, and local depending on its reach
Figure 1. The Research Framework and Direct, Mediating, and Moderating Effect Results

Belief Value
Attitude Conation
Cognition

H4a(SMAI-VSMA-ASMA): .164 (.131, .199)

Mediation H4
H4b(SMAC-VSMA-ASMA): .105 (.077, .137)

R2= .250
.294c Message
SMA H1: Interaction
R2 = .281 R2 = .296
Infotainment .444c .407c Behavior
.236c Attitude
Value of SMA –.089b –.200c .077b
.151c Toward SMA
SMA

(Control Variables)
Credibility .144c Gender

User
H6b H5d Experience
H6a H5b
H6c H6d
H5a H5c Social
Global Social Media Usage
Media Types Uncertainty
Avoidance (Moderator H5) –.01 –.104c .084b
(Moderator H6) Social
H2: R2 =
Interaction
.377c Behavior .177

H3a(SMAI-ASMA-MIB): .146 (.111, .183); H3b(SMAI-ASMA-SIB): .135 (.101, .174)

Mediation H3 H3c(SMAC-ASMA-MIB): .139 (.109, .169); H3d(SMAC-ASMA-SIB): .124 (.096, .159)
H3e(VSMA-ASMA-MIB): .122 (.095, .155); H3f(VSMA-ASMA-SIB): .131 (.099, .165)

H5a (.300highc = .300lowc) H6a (.195SNSc < .382CCSc)c

H5b (.542highc > .360lowc)c H6b (.434SNSc < .450CCSc)c
H5c (.205highc > .164lowc)c H6c (.260SNSc > .039CCS)c
H5d (.169highc > .151lowc)c H6d (.173SNSc > .127CCSb)c

a
p < .05.
b
p < .01.
c
p < .001.
Notes: Dotted arrows refer to nonhypothesized effects; bold boxes are moderators; bold lines refer to moderating effect relationships; dotted boxes symbolize mediation effects; the
bold dotted irregularly shaped box represents the control variable effect relationship. Numbers outside of parentheses are points of estimate; numbers inside of parentheses are
confidence intervals. SMAI = SMA infotainment; SMAC = SMA credibility; VSMA = value of SMA; ASMA = attitude toward SMA; MIB = message interaction behavior; SIB = social
interaction behavior.

and coverage. In contrast to regional/local social media sites
(e.g., VKontakte in Russia and Eurasian countries; Renren,
Youku, or Sina Weibo in China) that are characterized by
local users and the use of local languages, global social
media has global reach and relevance. Although users of
global social media come from diverse cultural back-
grounds, they are untethered to time and geography and
form a global network–based society (Hampton, Lee, and
Her 2011). Okazaki and Taylor (2013) point to a likely
emergence of global consumer culture around global social
networks due to shared meanings and symbols. This pro-
vides the ground to posit that consumers on a global social
media site might exhibit similar attitudes and behaviors
even in the presence of cultural differences.

Behavioral Implications of International Social Media Advertising 47

All global social media, however, is not the same. One of
the defining features of global social media is its different
formats or types that possess their own image, personality,
and characteristics (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Different
types of global social media may influence the nature of
interactions and affect consumer perception and belief in
advertisements (Prendergast, Liu, and Poon 2009). There-
fore, we expect that consumers from different cultures will
exhibit similar attitude and behavior on a global social
media site, but their attitudes and behaviors will vary across
different types of global social media because of differences
in the nature of global social media and the network society
it generates. This makes global social media types an im-
portant yet relatively ignored contingent factor in the study
of behavioral responses to international SMA (Wang, Min,
and Han 2016).
According to Bergh et al. (2011), social media can be di-
vided into three types: content community sites (CCSs),
social networking sites (SNSs), and social media platforms.
We focus on global CCSs (YouTube) and global SNSs
(Facebook) because these are the two most widely used
global social media types (Dao et al. 2014). We do not
explicitly study the effect of social media platforms because
this type of social media is relatively less prevalent (Dao et al.
2014) and Facebook is both an SNS and a platform (Bergh
et al. 2011), thereby making the modeling of social media
platforms less insightful.
Hypothesis Development
The Effect of Affect/Attitude Toward SMA on Conation.
Consumer conation, in our research, is represented by
message interaction and social interaction behaviors on
social media. Message interaction refers to the degree to
which consumers engage in processing ads by actively
interacting with advertising messages, whereas social in-
teraction entails consumers’ engagement with the advertiser
and other users. Message and social interaction behaviors
are unique to the social media environment, as they capture
consumers’ varied interactivity with the advertising content,
other consumers, and advertisers. Thus, these behaviors are
quite different from the general responses to any Internet
advertising, such as giving, obtaining, and passing in-
formation. In the context of SMA, message interaction can
be set in motion through actions within the advertising
message, such as downloading content, clicking hyperlinks,
utilizing search functions, or consuming the multimedia
features of the advertisement (Ko, Cho, and Roberts 2005).
A prominent aspect of attitude toward digital advertising is
its capability to affect consumers’ exposure, attention, and
48 Journal of International Marketing
willingness to click, assess, and react to the advertised
message (Okazaki 2004). Consumers with a positive atti-
tude toward SMA are more receptive to it (Hsu et al. 2015)
and thus will be more willing to expose themselves to,
watch, and pay attention to/follow the ad and the advertised
message (see Mehta 2000) on social media. The resultant
high involvement with the ad (James and Kover 1992)
would make consumers act further in response to the ad-
vertised messages (Mehta 2000), such as spending more
time to elaborate on the advertised message (James and
Kover 1992) and performing more content-gathering-
oriented behavior (Zeng, Huang, and Dou 2009). In the
context of SMA, these behaviors span a wide range of
actions, from the traditional Web 1.0–based functions such
as clicking a hyperlink for more information or utilizing
search function, to the Web 2.0–based functions such as
consuming SMA multimedia features in an instantaneous
and interactive fashion (Ko, Cho, and Roberts 2005; Zeng,
Huang, and Dou 2009). Drawing from this notion, we
contend that a positive attitude toward SMA will lead to an
interaction with the advertising message (i.e., message in-
teraction behavior on social media). The hierarchy of effects
theory also lends support to the contention that favorable
attitude toward SMA will generate (social media–specific)
behavior toward advertising. Thus, we hypothesize,
H1: Attitude toward SMA has a positive effect on
message interaction behavior.
In the context of SMA, social interaction behavior is con-
ceptualized as consumers’ contribution to social media by
means of social interaction with advertisers and other
consumers about the advertised product/brand (Ko, Cho,
and Roberts 2005; Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit 2011).
For example, consumers may provide feedback to the ad-
vertiser, participate in online discussions and forums, pass
on the advertised message to their social connections, re-
quest product problem diagnostics online from advertisers
and their social network, and so on.
As we have noted, consumers with a positive attitude to-
ward advertising tend to interact with the advertised mes-
sage for information and/or purchase decision. However,
advertising on social media is not just about the message
itself but rather presents a personal channel and currency
for user-centered networking and social interaction (Chi
2011), which the traditional or Web 1.0 media environ-
ments do not allow for. Consumers can not only comment
on the ads and explicitly connect to the advertisers but also
share the advertised content with their social connections.
These actions enable consumers to get more comments,
opinions, advice, or information regarding the advertised
product/brand from their social network (Chu 2011). Thus,
more benefits, such as more trustworthy information and
opinions, can be accessed (Chu and Kim 2011), more
opportunities can be identified, and better purchase de-
cisions can be made (Chu 2011). Due to these perceptions,
consumers with a positive attitude toward SMA are more
likely to respond and react favorably to SMA. This implies a
high propensity for engagement (Hsu et al. 2015) that fi-
nally drives consumers to habitually interact socially (Chu
2011)—that is, develop social interaction behavior. This
assertion is supported by the hierarchy of effects theory,
which denotes a positive relationship between attitude and
behavior. Accordingly, we propose the following:
H2: Attitude toward SMA has a positive effect on
social interaction behavior.
Mediating Effect of Attitude Toward SMA. The hierarchy
of effects theory contends that affect is the intermediate step
between cognition and conation (Lavidge and Steiner
1961). This provides a basis to hypothesize that attitude
toward SMA, the affect variable in our research, mediates
the effect of the three belief factors on the two behavioral
outcomes. This rationale finds support in Smith, Chen, and
Yang (2008), in which the authors argue that attitude is
formed on the basis of consumers’ beliefs and is a necessary
precursor of behavior. In addition, the literature on ad-
vertising in general and SMA in particular confirms the
important role of advertising attitude as a crucial construct
that guides and influences consumer behavioral responses
to advertising (see, e.g., Chu 2011). More specifically,
advertising attitude is a pathway between advertising belief
and behavior (Wang and Sun 2010). It is therefore plausible
that attitude toward SMA would mediate the relationship
between the three SMA beliefs (i.e., infotainment, credi-
bility, and value) and the two research behavior outcomes
(i.e., message and social interaction behaviors). Drawing
from this argument and the related evidence, we hypoth-
esize that
H3: Attitude toward SMA mediates the relationships
between the three belief factors (i.e., SMA info-
tainment, SMA credibility, and SMA value) and
the two behavioral outcomes (i.e., message inter-
action behavior and social interaction behavior).
Mediating Effect of SMA Value. As we have argued
previously, on the basis of the hierarchy of effects theory,
value and the two belief factors (i.e., infotainment and
credibility) are posited to directly affect attitude toward
SMA. At the same time, the expectancy value theory pro-
poses value as a consequence of belief factors as well as a
Behavioral Implications of International Social Media Advertising 49
precursor to attitude, and we model it likewise in our re-
search. We posit that, in addition to the direct effect of
infotainment and credibility on SMA attitude, the two belief
factors also indirectly affect attitude toward SMA through
the value of SMA. Thus, value may also act as a mediator in
the relationship between the two belief factors (SMA in-
fotainment and credibility) and the attitude toward SMA.
We base our assertion on the argument that consumers first
derive a value from their beliefs, and the calculation of this
value results in evaluations, referred to as attitude (Tehone,
Zo, and Ciganek 2015). That is, value is an intermediate
step and provides an alternative pathway from consumer
SMA beliefs to subsequent attitude. From these arguments,
we posit,
H4: SMA value acts as a mediator in the relationships
between the belief antecedents (i.e., SMA info-
tainment and SMA credibility) and attitude to-
ward SMA.
Moderating Effect of Uncertainty Avoidance. According
to Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov (2010, p. 191), un-
certainty avoidance reflects the idea that people feel
threatened by unknown or ambiguous situations and thus
form beliefs and develop strategies to avoid these threats.
As per their cultural typology, consumers from high-
uncertainty-avoidance cultures differ from those from
low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures in their beliefs and
attitudes. International marketing literature has suggested
that consumers from cultures with high uncertainty
avoidance are more averse to risk than their counterparts in
low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures (Ashraf et al. 2017;
Krautz and Hoffmann 2017). Consequently, they have a
much lower tolerance for ambiguity and unclear situations,
a much stronger need for consensus, clarity, and struc-
ture, and a much lower level of acceptance for diversity.
Because of these characteristics, people from high-
uncertainty-avoidance cultures show a strong need for
rules, structure, and formality (Möller and Eisend 2010).
They attempt to increase stability and predictability
(Akdeniz and Talay 2013), and thus they prefer and seek
credible signals (Mazaheri, Richard, and Laroche 2011).
Consequently, they gather and process more information
(Akdeniz and Talay 2013) and rely more on experts
(Möller and Eisend 2010), even if these actions incur
greater costs. All these actions help them mitigate am-
biguity, uncertain feelings, and potential risks.
Advertising plays the role of providing consumers with rules
and structure for future consumption by way of useful
information (Wang and Sun 2010). Compared with other
sponsored sources, SMA is considered a useful and
informative medium that provides helpful, reliable, and
high-quality product-/brand-related information because of
the comments and/or endorsement by consumers’ social
network (see Chu and Kim 2011). High-quality information
is particularly valued in high-uncertainty-avoidance cultures
(Engelen, Lackhoff, and Schmidt 2013). To reduce per-
ceived ambiguity, uncertainty, and possible risks, consumers
in a high-uncertainty-avoidance culture will be eager to
search for quality information and be more inclined to
look for product advice endorsed by others through SMA
(see Singh 2006). This will enable them to precisely
comprehend product/brand benefits and help them make
better decisions. This suggests that in a high-uncertainty-
avoidance culture, where consumers are more sensitive to
ambiguity, uncertainty, and risk, the perception of SMA
as a useful and reliable information source is expected to
be higher. In addition, consumers will sense a greater need
to be involved in SMA and have more positive feelings
toward it. The more the consumers interact with SMA,
the greater their perceived SMA benefits will be in terms
of the SMA’s usefulness and reliability. Thus, the effect of
belief on positive attitudes and value will be greater. In
line with these assertions, we propose the following
moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance:
H5: In the proposed framework, uncertainty avoid-
ance moderates the effect of belief on attitude and
value. Specifically, the effect of infotainment
on (a) SMA attitude and (b) SMA value, and
the effect of credibility on (c) SMA attitude and
(d) SMA value is greater in a high-uncertainty-
avoidance (vs. low-uncertainty-avoidance)
culture.
Moderating Effect of Global Social Media Types. Between
the two most popular global social media types (i.e., CCSs
and SNSs), CCSs, with their low requirements of self-
presentation and disclosure (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010),
focus on specific content rather than users and permit their
users to organize, share, or search for specific media content
(Bergh et al. 2011). The shared content could be texts (e.g.,
BookCrossing), photos (e.g., Flickr), videos (e.g., You-
Tube), and/or PowerPoint presentations (e.g., Slideshare).
Given the characteristics of these sites, advertising on global
CCSs should be related to users’ individual needs and in-
terests. For instance, advertising on YouTube in the form of
in-search ads closely follows consumers’ search words, and
thus the displayed ads are related to the content the con-
sumer originally searched for. The ability to skip YouTube’s
in-stream ads also enhances consumers’ control over ads
and increases their engagement with ads (Knoll 2016).
Furthermore, consumers can search for specific product/
50 Journal of International Marketing
brand information on global CCSs. In contrast, a search on
global SNSs for product/brand information results in highly
varied information, most of which is unspecific and un-
related. Ads on CCSs are thus viewed as more relevant and
useful in meeting consumers’ needs (Knoll 2016). Therefore,
CCSs ads will be noticed and viewed more than ads on other
social media (Chu and Kim 2011) and regarded as more
advantageous in carrying out users’ tasks and satisfying
their entertainment needs. Ultimately, the infotainment of
ads on global CCSs will foster better attitude and higher
value than those on other global social media, such as SNSs.
Unlike CCSs, global SNSs are more user-centric, with high
self-presentation and disclosure, and offer online venues to
users to share all types of content with others for net-
working as well as for building and maintaining relation-
ships (Bergh et al. 2011). Users post personal content and
information on their profiles with the purpose of sharing
with other users (e.g., adding photos, uploading music,
writing notes and messages, placing web links) or consume
the content shared by others (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010).
Facebook is a renowned global SNS where personal in-
formation such as photos and statuses are shared and
messages are exchanged with one’s social network (Chu
2011; Li, Liu, and Li 2014). LinkedIn is another well-
known global SNS oriented toward business networking.
Through interactions, users become acquainted and build
trust with one another (Li, Liu, and Li 2014). This structures
and maintains their social connectivity and gratifies their
socialization needs (Chu and Kim 2011). In contrast, so-
cialization on global CCSs, such as YouTube, is mostly
limited because of low personal networking and weak ties
between consumers. In addition, social support from
existing social contacts helps users gain self-status (Taylor,
Lewin, and Strutton 2011). Thus, ads on SNSs, which allow
for comments on advertised products from users’ social
contacts and connections, are perceived as more trust-
worthy and believable (Chu and Kim 2011). As a result, not
only is the information from SMA on global SNSs con-
sidered more reliable, but less time and effort is spent on
verifying the SMA’s trustworthiness. Eventually, a more
favorable attitude toward SMA and the value of this ad-
vertising format is facilitated on global SNSs than on other
global social media such as CCSs. Drawing on these as-
sertions, we propose the moderating role of global social
media types:
H6: In the proposed framework, global social media
types moderate the effect of belief on attitude and
value. More specifically, the effect of infotain-
ment on (a) SMA attitude and (b) SMA value is
stronger on global CCSs than on global SNSs,
 while the effect of credibility on (c) SMA attitude
and (d) SMA value is stronger on global SNSs
than on global CCSs.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Environmental Setting and Sampling
We chose Taiwan and Vietnam to represent high- and low-
uncertainty-avoidance cultures, respectively. Taiwan has a
relatively high-uncertainty-avoidance score of 69, while
Vietnam has a lower score of 30 (Hofstede, Hofstede, and
Minkov 2010, pp. 193–94). We selected YouTube and
Facebook to represent global CCSs and SNSs, respectively,
because the two are not only representative of their re-
spective categories in terms of users but also synonymous
with global social media (Knoll 2016). Given their reach
and relevance, we expect CCSs (YouTube) and SNSs
(Facebook) to provide rich insights into the moderating
effect of global social media types. In Taiwan, YouTube is
the leading CCS, while Facebook is the most popular SNS
(SimilarWeb 2017). Social media advertising has become a
growing mainstream advertising format in Taiwan (Tele-
compaper 2016). YouTube and Facebook are also the most
popular CCS and SNS, respectively, in Vietnam (Sim-
ilarWeb 2017). In Vietnam, SMA has surpassed other
online venues of advertising, with 34% local businesses
using SMA (Vietnam News 2017).
University students in Taiwan and Vietnam formed the
research sampling frame. We chose this segment for several
reasons. Compared with those in higher age brackets,
university students born in the 1990s are more familiar with
information technology (Ashraf, Thongpapanl, and Auh
2014) and are also more open to and more likely to adopt
innovative technologies (Yim, Chu, and Sauer 2017). They
possess the requisite knowledge, are familiar with, and
are most proactive in using such technologies (Ashraf,
Thongpapanl, and Auh 2014). These young adults form the
largest proportion of Internet users, and university students
constitute the majority of this age segment (Pan et al. 2017).
Social media has a growing influence on their purchase
behavior, and they often prefer to interact with firms
online (Hamilton, Kaltcheva, and Rohm 2016). The student
segment is consequently often viewed as a reasonable
sample in Internet research (Smith et al. 2013). University
students are also one of the largest online segments in
Taiwan and Vietnam (Kemp 2011, 2012).
More importantly, Bello et al. (2009) state that a university
student sample is appropriate for academic studies to
concurrently evaluate differences in views and values
Behavioral Implications of International Social Media Advertising 51
between countries or cultures, and the results are possibly
generalizable to other populations if the research un-
dertakes theory applications with hypothetical predictions
(which the current research does). In addition, for cross-
cultural studies, samples drawn from university students,
rather than the general population, can ensure relative
sample consistency and subject pool equivalence, which
facilitates comparability across countries because it mini-
mizes the effect of potentially influential extraneous vari-
ables (e.g., demographic, social) (see F. Liu et al. 2012).
Such a segment allows for isolating and excluding alter-
native explanations caused by the heterogeneity of samples
between cultures, making way for predictions that are more
precise as well as a stronger test of theory.
In conclusion, a substantive and nonidiosyncratic result can
be obtained from the use of student samples, making
generalizability and external validity less of a concern.
Therefore, the proximate processes and outcomes specified
by Bello et al. (2009) are satisfied. In addition, university
students are deemed an acceptable sample (Zellmer-Bruhn,
Caligiuri, and Thomas 2016) and are often recruited in
cross-cultural marketing research (Ashraf, Thongpapanl,
and Auh 2014).
Measurements, Questionnaire Design, and
Pretesting
We measured all constructs using prior multi-item scales
modified slightly to fit the research environment (Web
Appendix A). We measured SMA infotainment and cred-
ibility using C.-L. Liu et al.’s (2012) five-item scale and
MacKenzie and Lutz’s (1989) three-item scale, respectively.
We assessed SMA value with a three-item scale by Ducoffe
(1995). Attitude toward SMA was measured with a three-
item scale adapted from Pollay and Mittal (1993). We
measured message and social interaction behaviors using
the three-item scales drawn from Zeng, Huang, and Dou
(2009) and Huang et al. (2007), respectively. With the aim
of minimizing possible systematic errors, we introduced
gender, user experience, and social media usage as control
variables. User experience is communicated as the years of
experience users have with a specific social media website,
and social media usage refers to the average number of
hours users spend on a specific social media website per day.
We assessed all control variables using single-item scales.
All the measurement items originated from English-
language works, but the field studies were conducted in
Taiwan and Vietnam, where the official languages are
Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese, respectively. The scale
items were translated using a back-translation technique to
ensure equivalence. We constructed two versions of the
questionnaire for use in the survey of the CCS (YouTube)
and the SNS (Facebook) samples. The major difference
between these two versions was the scale item statements
corresponding to YouTube and Facebook. We then pre-
tested the questionnaires among 90 undergraduate students
in each country who had at least six months of experience
using YouTube/Facebook. The final questionnaire design
integrated their remarks and suggestions to ensure its
readability and logical flow.
Data Collection
Taiwan and Vietnam both have two parallel university
systems (i.e., public and private). To represent the two
university systems, data collection took place at one uni-
versity of each type in Taoyuan, Taiwan, and in Hanoi,
Vietnam. The two versions of the questionnaire (either
YouTube or Facebook versions) were distributed at the
main entrance of each university. The four universities had a
population of roughly 10,000 (8,000~12,000) students,
and the daily main entrance passerby count for each uni-
versity averaged to approximately 2,500 students, out of
which a minimum of 50% of students were expected to be
qualified and willing to participate (based on the response
rate of the pretest). One out of every five students passing
through the main entrance was requested to participate to
achieve a sample size of approximately 250 from each
university. Initial verbal filtering questions helped identify
qualified undergraduate students with knowledge of SMA
and experience in using YouTube/Facebook in the last six
months and ensured no duplication of responses in both the
surveys. We instructed the respondents to provide their
responses focusing on the firm-sponsored advertising they
encounter on YouTube (or Facebook).
In Taiwan, 1,080 people were approached (510 for You-
Tube, 570 for Facebook), out of which 565 met the criteria
and agreed to participate (278 for YouTube, 284 for
Facebook). The response rates were 54.5% and 49.8%,
respectively. Data screening finally led to 258 usable surveys
for YouTube and 218 for Facebook. In Vietnam, 955
people were approached (455 for YouTube, 500 for
Facebook), out of which 609 met the requirement and
agreed to participate (309 for YouTube, 300 for Facebook).
The response rates were 67.9% and 60.0%, respectively.
Usable surveys totaled 299 for YouTube and 297 for
Facebook. A post hoc analysis revealed that all four sample
sizes were acceptable for the research, as the alpha level,
statistical power level, and anticipated r were above the
minimum values of .05, .8, and .5, respectively.
52 Journal of International Marketing
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
We used partial least squares (PLS), in particular, SmartPLS
3.0 (Ringle, Wende, and Becker 2015), to examine scale
accuracy, the research framework, and the hypotheses. We
elaborate on these in the following subsections.
Sample Characteristics
The Taiwan sample consisted of a comparable number of
men and women (47% vs. 53%, respectively) while the
Vietnam sample consisted of approximately two-thirds
(64%) women, with similar distribution across the Face-
book and YouTube samples. The age group of 18- to 22-
year-olds dominated the sample in both Taiwan (85.5%)
and Vietnam (91.9%). In Taiwan, the highest number of
respondents browsed YouTube for 11–30 minutes (33.7%)
and Facebook for more than 180 minutes (27.1%) per day.
In the Vietnam sample, approximately 25% respondents
(the highest) browsed both YouTube and Facebook for a
similar time duration (11–30 minutes) per day. Around
two-thirds of respondents in Taiwan had used YouTube
and approximately half of the respondents had used
Facebook for more than two years. In the Vietnam sample,
the largest group (approximately 40%) had an experience
of less than six months in using both YouTube and Face-
book. The full sample characteristics of the individual and
integrated data sets appear in Web Appendix B.
Scale Accuracy Analysis
We assessed scale reliability using Cronbach’s alpha,
composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted
(AVE). All scales exhibited acceptable scale reliability, as the
Cronbach’s alpha and CR values were above the common
cutoff value of .70 and the AVE exceeded the required
threshold of .50 in all cases. The scales demonstrated
convergent validity, as the factor loadings of all scale items
on their corresponding constructs were statistically signif-
icant at the .01 level and exceeded the threshold value of .50.
We found strong evidence for discriminant validity because
the highest item cross-loadings were less than the items’
loadings on their corresponding constructs, the square roots
of AVEs for all constructs were higher than their correla-
tions with all other constructs, and the heterotrait–
monotrait (HTMT) ratio for all the constructs was less than
the threshold value of .85 (Henseler, Ringle, and Sarstedt
2015). The results of the integrated sample appear
in Table 1 while the results of Taiwan/Vietnam and SNS/
CCS subsamples appear in Web Appendices C and D,
respectively.
 TABLE 1. SCALE ACCURACY ANALYSIS (INTEGRATED DATA SET)

Cronbach’s AVE1/2 (Highest Factor Highest Cross- Highest Highest HTMT

Research Constructs Ma SD Alpha CR AVE Corr.) Loading Loading VIF Ratio

SMA Infotainment
ISMAI-1 4.45 1.50 .79 .86 .55 .74 (.26) .73 .31 1.673 .63
ISMAI-2 .76 .35
ISMAI-3 .79 .40
ISMAI-4 .70 .44
ISMAI-5 .73 .42
SMA Credibility
ISMAC-1 3.75 1.34 .84 .90 .76 .87 (.21) .86 .41 1.380 .55
ISMAC-2 .89 .36
ISMAC-3 .86 .41
Value of SMA
IVSMA-1 4.50 1.36 .79 .88 .70 .84 (.26) .83 .42 1.661 .63
IVSMA-2 .86 .45
IVSMA-3 .82 .48
Attitude Toward SMA
IASMA-1 4.41 1.22 .80 .88 .72 .85 (.23) .75 .30 1.489 .58
IASMA-2 .90 .48
IASMA-3 .88 .42
Message Interaction
Behavior
IMEI-1 4.45 1.64 .83 .90 .74 .86 (.33) .86 .47 1.827 .72
IMEI-2 .85 .48
IMEI-3 .87 .54
Social Interaction Behavior
ISOI-1 4.03 1.64 .75 .86 .67 .82 (.33) .80 .45 1.544 .72
ISOI-2 .83 .41
ISOI-3 .82 .54
aBased on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree,” 4 = “neutral,” and 7 = “strongly agree”).
Notes: VIF = variance inflation factor.

Behavioral Implications of International Social Media Advertising 53

Common Method Bias
We employed procedural remedies prior to data collection to
minimize common method bias (CMB) and performed sta-
tistical analyses to assess the seriousness of CMB. We designed
the questionnaire with caution. For example, the measures of
the dependent constructs followed, rather than preceded,
those of the independent constructs. We also used remedies
such as participant anonymity, no description of the research
purpose, alleviation of evaluation apprehension, use of verbal
midpoints for measures, prevalidated scales, and reverse-
coded items. In the post data collection stage, we employed
the post hoc marker variable test (Lindell and Whitney 2001).
Following Hultman, Robson, and Katsikeas (2009), we
isolated the second-smallest positive correlation among the
observed variables, which was .007. We then computed the
CMB-adjusted correlations between all pairs of constructs in
our research. We found very small differences between the
original and the CMB-adjusted correlations (Δr £ .007), and
the significance of all the correlations remained unchanged.
Furthermore, the chi-square difference test revealed in-
significant deterioration in fit (Δc2 £ 12). Therefore, CMB was
unlikely to be a serious concern in our research.
Testing Multisample Measurement Invariance
The examination of the moderating effects of uncertainty
avoidance and global social media types required data sets from
four groups (Taiwan, Vietnam, CCS, and SNS). Thus, it was
crucial to establish measurement invariance among the four
data sets prior to further analysis. Accordingly, we assessed the
configural, metric, and scalar invariance among the four data
sets. We employed Steenkamp and Baumgartner’s (1998)
process to test the invariance. Specifically, we assessed the in-
variance between any sample pair of Taiwan CCS and SNS and
Vietnam CCS and SNS. As Web Appendix E shows, and
coupled with the fact that all hypothesized factor loadings were
highly significant in all the four samples, adequate configural
invariance across all four data sets was implied. For metric
invariance assessment, the comparisons between Taiwan CCS
and SNS and between Vietnam CCS and SNS achieved full
metric invariance, while others reached partial metric invariance.
As for scalar invariance, although full scalar invariance was not
achieved, partial scalar invariance was reached in all four
comparisons. In general, the analysis results provided evidence
that there was measurement invariance in the four samples.
Hypothesis Testing: Proposed Structural
Framework and Direct Effects
We pooled the four data sets together to test the hypothesized
direct effect relationships of H1 and H2. We used the squared
54 Journal of International Marketing
multiple correlations (R2) to evaluate the explanatory power
of the four endogenous variables, and a bootstrapping
resampling procedure (500 samples) assessed the hypothe-
sized effects using t-tests. The results are depicted in Figure. 1.
As can be observed, the R2 for the four endogenous variables
ranged from .177 to .296, indicating 17.7%–29.6% of
variance in the four endogenous variables, which is higher
than the minimum value of 10% (Falk and Miller 1992),
suggesting a satisfactory and substantial model. The hy-
pothesis test revealed that the two hypotheses were statistically
significant and in the proposed direction, thus supporting
H1 and H2. The results of the nonhypothesized effects
(Figure 1) indicated that SMA infotainment and credibility
significantly and positively affected the value of SMA and
attitude toward SMA, and value had a significant positive
effect on attitude. In addition, the analysis of the control
variables revealed that gender had a negative significant effect
on message interaction behavior and a nonsignificant effect on
social interaction behavior. Moreover, user experience had a
negative significant effect, whereas social media usage had a
positive significant effect, on the two outcome variables.
Hypothesis Testing: Mediating Effects of Attitude
Toward SMA and Value of SMA
We adopted the bootstrapping procedure (5,000 samples) to
formally test mediation (Preacher and Hayes 2004). First, we
examined the mediating role of SMA attitude on the re-
lationships between the three cognition antecedents and the
two conation outcomes. The results of the bias-corrected
95% confidence interval indicated that the six indirect effects
were significant, establishing the mediating effects (H3a–H3f
in Figure 1). We then conducted two additional mediation
tests to confirm the significance of and provide better insight
into these individual mediating effects (Web Appendix F).
First, we computed a z-statistic score (Vinzi et al. 2010,
p. 526). Six z-statistic scores were obtained, ranging from
3.67 to 5.39 (i.e., higher than the threshold of 1.96), in-
dicating that the three antecedents had a direct and indirect
effect through SMA attitude on the two outcomes. Second,
we calculated the variance-accounted-for (VAF) value, which
represents the ratio of the indirect effect to the total effect
(Vinzi et al. 2010, p. 528), to measure the size of the indi-
vidual indirect effects. The VAF values (in percentages) in-
dicated the amount of total effect of the antecedent on the
outcome variable that was explained by the indirect effect.
The results revealed the smallest VAF values for the
value–message interaction behavior relationship (13.5%)
and the greatest for the credibility–message interaction be-
havior relationship (27.4%). In summary, attitude toward
SMA mediated the six individual antecedent–outcome re-
lationships, thereby lending support to H3.
We conducted similar analyses to examine the mediating
effect of SMA value in the relationship between the two
antecedents (i.e., infotainment and credibility) and the out-
come (i.e., attitude toward SMA). The bias-corrected 95%
confidence interval results of the bootstrapping procedure
(5,000 samples) revealed that the two indirect effects through
the mediator, value of SMA, were significant (H4a–H4b in
Figure 1). The z-statistic scores of 3.79 and 5.99 indicated
that the two antecedents had both direct and indirect effects
through value of SMA on the outcome. Furthermore, the
VAF values suggested that the indirect effect of value of SMA
was weaker on the credibility–attitude relationship (19.8%)
than that on the infotainment–attitude relationship (26.3%)
(Web Appendix F). In summary, SMA value mediated
the two antecedent–outcome relationships, thus offering
support to H4.
Hypothesis Testing: Moderating Effects of
Uncertainty Avoidance and Global Social Media
Types
To examine the moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance,
we computed the differences of the corresponding co-
efficients between the integrated data sets of Taiwan and
Vietnam. The integrated Taiwan data set included Taiwan
CCS and SNS samples, and the integrated Vietnam data set
included similar samples from Vietnam. We employed the
multigroup analysis approach proposed by Keil et al. (2000)
to test the proposed moderating effects. As Figure 1 shows
(see H5a–H5d), with the exception of one path, the effects in
the integrated Taiwan data set were significantly stronger
than those in the integrated Vietnam data set. The exception
was associated with H5a that showed no difference in co-
efficients between the two data sets. Therefore, the results
supported H5b–H5d, but not H5a. To test the moderating
effect of global social media types, we merged the Taiwan
and Vietnam CCS (SNS) samples into an integrated CCS
(SNS) data set. As Figure 1 illustrates, all path coefficients
showed significant differences between the two data sets
and were in the anticipated direction. Thus, the findings
supported H6a–H6d.
Post Hoc Three-Way Interaction Test
Although, as our research shows, global social media types
cut across cultural boundaries to exhibit unique contingent
effects on SMA, a case could be made otherwise. For in-
stance, Berthon et al. (2012) suggest that how a social media
is used is contingent on the culture of the country, and
Okazaki and Taylor (2013) call to test this assertion em-
pirically. Taking a cue from the assertions in Berthon et al.
and Okazaki and Taylor, and to provide a more in-depth
Behavioral Implications of International Social Media Advertising 55
insight, we investigated the contingent effects of culture—in
particular, uncertainty avoidance—on the proposed mod-
erating effect of global social media (H6). We primarily
tested the three-way interaction between uncertainty
avoidance, global social media, and the two belief factors
using the PLS multigroup analysis technique. According to
the results, uncertainty avoidance, in general, did not
moderate the moderating effect of global social media types
on direct relationships in the case of the CCS (YouTube),
whereas we witnessed a mixed three-way interaction in the
SNS (Facebook) condition. The full results of the analysis
appear in Web Appendix G.
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Social media is transforming the scale and scope of in-
ternational advertising. Despite this, the research on SMA is
relatively rare (Knoll 2016), and research on the behavioral
implications of international SMA is even more so (Okazaki
and Taylor 2013). We develop a framework of consumer
responses to SMA in international marketplaces and
identify the intervening processes and the boundary con-
ditions that guide SMA’s effect on interactive behaviors of
message and social interaction. The findings confirm the
intervening role of value and attitude in our hierarchy of
effects theory– and expectancy value theory–based frame-
work of SMA belief–value–attitude–behavior. We find
support for our argument that SMA effectiveness across
cultures is contingent on uncertainty avoidance. We find a
stronger effect of SMA infotainment on value and of
SMA credibility on value and attitude in a high-uncertainty-
avoidance culture (Taiwan) than in a low-uncertainty-
avoidance culture (Vietnam). Contrary to our expectation,
the effect of infotainment on attitude shows no difference
between Taiwan and Vietnam. It is likely that the high-
infotainment content of SMA reduces consumers’ need for
cognitive closure in low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures,
making them more curious and open-minded (see Smith,
Chen, and Yang 2008), thus raising their positive attitude
toward SMA to equal that held by consumers in high-
uncertainty-avoidance cultures. We also find support for
our contention that consumers’ responses to SMA are
contingent on global social media types. Infotainment is
found to have a stronger effect on SMA value and attitude
on CCSs than on SNSs, whereas credibility is more powerful
in influencing value and attitude on SNSs than on CCSs.
Theoretical Implications
Our research offers several theoretical implications. First,
we add to the literature on the behavioral implications of
international SMA and to the limited literature on the effect
of SMA attitude on behavior (Knoll 2016). Our exami-
nation of message and social interaction behaviors advances
the research on international advertising on social media,
the majority of which either is descriptive in nature (e.g.,
Berthon et al. 2012; Okazaki and Taylor 2013) or often
assesses consumer attitude or perceptions (Hatzithomas,
Fotiadis, and Coudounaris 2016; Hudson et al. 2016)
rather than behavior. Our findings also contribute to the
stream of research on cross-cultural interactive behavior
(Lin and Kalwani 2018; Tang 2017). While prior social
media research has investigated limited aspects of in-
teractive behavior such as seeking and passing information
(Chu 2011; Hsu et al. 2015) and consumption, creation,
and contribution (Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit 2011), it
has not principally focused on SMA or its international
application. In light of this gap, we advance the theory on
interactive behaviors in response to international SMA by
specifically focusing on message and social interaction,
which represent the two forms of interactive behavior.
Second, our research addresses the call to develop and test
theory-based frameworks on the implications of SMA in
international marketplaces. More than half of the prior
research on SMA lacks theory (Knoll 2016), and the scarcity
of studies on international SMA is attributed to the limited
theoretical perspectives in the field (Okazaki and Taylor
2013). In light of this, the proposed hierarchy of effects
theory– and expectancy value theory–based framework
adds to the theoretical bases that predict consumer behavior
in response to SMA across cultures and global social media
types. The modeling of the mediating effect of SMA value
and attitude within the belief–value–attitude–behavior
framework contributes to the scarce literature on the un-
derlying processes that guide consumer behavior in re-
sponse to SMA in international marketplaces (Hudson et al.
2016). The findings extend the research on the development
and extension of the two employed theories in the social
media domain (e.g., Dao et al. 2014) and contribute to the
knowledge on their application and consistency in de-
lineating different stages of consumer evaluation across
dissimilar cultures (Bartsch, Riefler, and Diamantopoulos
2016; Durand, Turkina, and Robson 2016). This is note-
worthy because behavioral models are not necessarily ef-
fective across cultures (Ashraf, Thongpapanl, and Auh
2014).
Third, we corroborate the importance of uncertainty
avoidance as a boundary condition in cross-cultural con-
sumer behavior models (Ashraf, Thongpapanl, and Auh
2014; Ashraf et al. 2017; Krautz and Hoffmann 2017; Lin
and Kalwani 2018; Möller and Eisend 2010). More
56 Journal of International Marketing
specifically, we extend the scant literature on the role of
national culture in the application of SMA across borders.
The majority of prior international social media literature,
with the exception of a few studies (e.g., Hatzithomas,
Fotiadis, and Coudounaris 2016; Hudson et al. 2016), was
not concerned with SMA but with how behavior and at-
titude on social media vary across cultures in general. In
light of this, our research establishes the unique relevance of
uncertainty avoidance in international SMA research by
validating its contingent role in the social media commu-
nication and consumer behavior relationship. This is sig-
nificant because little understanding exists about the
viability and efficacy of the use of the same online or SMA
strategies across cultures (Hudson et al. 2016; Tang 2017).
The findings are in line with the views held by Berthon et al.
(2012) and Hatzithomas, Fotiadis, and Coudounaris
(2016) that same SMA strategies may not work across
cultures. Thus, on a broader level, our study adds to the
stream of research on the standardization versus adaptation
of online strategies (Ashraf et al. 2017; Tang 2017) and
international SMA (Hatzithomas, Fotiadis, and Coudou-
naris 2016). Given that high- and low-uncertainty-avoidance
cultures differ in how they evaluate SMA, the stan-
dardization of SMA across cultures may not yield con-
sistent results. The findings, however, diverge from the
view that consumers from high-uncertainty-avoidance
cultures are less likely to adopt Internet marketing pro-
grams (e.g., Park and Jun 2003). This supports our ar-
gument that theoretical understanding established in the
traditional or Web 1.0 media context may not be
transferrable to the social media environment.
Fourth, our findings provide insight into the moderating
role of global social media types. Despite their purported
contingent role, global social media types have been largely
ignored in the international SMA literature (Wang, Min,
and Han 2016). The extant literature, irrespective of do-
mestic or international focus, often studies only one social
media type (e.g., Bergh et al. 2011; Hudson et al. 2016) or
does not distinguish between global social media types (e.g.,
Chu 2011; Zeng, Huang, and Dou 2009). Although Dao
et al. (2014) do provide an insight into the moderating role
of social media types, their study is confined to a single
country. In contrast, our research not only corroborates the
contingent role of global social media types but also extends
its applicability and importance in SMA across cultures.
This is evident in the results of the post hoc three-way in-
teraction between global social media types, uncertainty
avoidance, and the two belief factors (Web Appendix G).
The findings largely indicate that culture (uncertainty
avoidance) does not influence the moderating effect of
global social media, which lends additional support to our
assertion that different global social media types have
unique contingent effects on SMA effectiveness across
cultures. This also provides support to the existence of
cross-country consumer segments, as reflected in the uni-
formity in consumer behavior along global social media
types (Krautz and Hoffmann 2017).
Fifth, the findings on the effect of SMA infotainment and
credibility on behavior reinforce the notion that SMA
content is important in understanding behavior on social
media (Dao et al. 2014; Kumar et al. 2016). In doing so, the
research also adds to and extends the literature on the effect
of firm-generated SMA content on consumer behavior on
social media (Kumar et al. 2016; Tang 2017).
Managerial Implications
Our findings provide important insights and actionable
strategies to international managers who aim to employ
SMA across cultures and global social media types.
According to the results, consumer engagement in in-
teractive behaviors of message and social interaction de-
pends on the perceived value of and their favorable attitude
toward SMA. To increase the perceived value of SMA
campaigns and develop a favorable attitude, international
marketers must focus on the infotainment and credibility
aspect of their SMA. Compared with SMA credibility, SMA
infotainment has a stronger influence on message and social
interaction behaviors. This implies that marketers should
develop SMA that is informative and entertaining. Thus,
managers charged with the design and content of SMA
should prioritize creating SMA content that is rich in up-to-
date information and that simultaneously engages, amuses,
and entertains consumers. Managerial efforts should also be
directed toward creating SMA campaigns that are credible.
Increasing the credibility quotient of SMA could be
achieved by creating advertising content and disseminating
it in a way that consumers endorse the campaign. This
would add to its popularity and provide credibility cues to
other consumers.
Second, managers should pay attention to the cultural
differences across target markets because SMA campaigns
need to be adjusted across cultures to be effective in
achieving interactive behavioral responses. We find that
consumers in low-uncertainty-avoidance markets are less
sensitive to both infotainment and credibility than those in
high-uncertainty-avoidance cultures. Therefore, managers
should place more emphasis on delivering advertising
content high in infotainment and credibility in such cultures
than in those where consumers are highly risk averse. An
approach could be to deliver SMA high in infotainment to
Behavioral Implications of International Social Media Advertising 57
low-uncertainty-avoidance consumers using the location-
targeting tool of global social media. Concurrently, efforts
to increase SMA credibility beyond what may be acceptable
in high-uncertainty-avoidance cultures should also utilized
to succeed in low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures.
Third, the findings of the effect of global social media types
indicate that consumers do not perceive similar levels of
SMA infotainment and credibility on different global social
media types. Consumers have higher value for and more
favorable attitude toward SMA infotainment on CCSs than
on SNSs. In contrast, consumers value SMA credibility
more and evaluate it more favorably on SNSs than on CCSs.
Therefore, it is important to consider the advantages and
limitations of one global social media type over another to
be more effective in achieving desired outcomes. The
findings suggest that separate and distinct advertising ap-
proaches on various types of global social media should
be used. Specifically, to trigger interactive behavioral re-
sponses effectively, SMA on CCSs should focus more on
infotainment, whereas SMA on SNSs should be high in
credibility.
Fourth, we find that compared with men, women exhibit a
higher tendency toward message interaction behavior. Al-
though marketers should use this to their advantage
through the targeting tools of global social media, ascer-
taining gender differences in motivation and sought benefits
could help in identifying ways in which message interaction
could be increased in men. Managers should also focus on
increasing the time consumers spend on global social media
because of its positive effect on message and social in-
teraction behavior. One possible method of doing so could
be to offer free content or create gaming applications on
global social media that make consumers spend more time
on brand/fan pages. However, user experience negatively
affects message and social interaction behaviors. This
suggests that managers could be more successful in their
global SMA campaign with less experienced users while
they would need to identify ways to motivate more expe-
rienced users for more message and social interaction
behaviors.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
DIRECTIONS
Our research is not without limitations. In terms of
methodological design, we rely on Hofstede, Hofstede, and
Minkov’s (2010) scores rather than measuring uncertainty
avoidance levels in the two samples. Although these scores
are frequently employed in studies, and our post hoc
analysis of uncertainty avoidance levels in the two samples
(Web Appendix H) supports our design, future studies
could measure uncertainty avoidance to rule out alternative
explanations. Another limitation stems from the double-
barrel nature of the item IMEI-1 (Web Appendix A) of the
message interaction scale. Future studies could employ
better measurement to amply capture the construct. With
respect to the research sample, although the use of student
sample in our research is justified, studies using samples that
are more heterogeneous would be helpful in generalizing
our findings.
Furthermore, it is likely that for respondents with a high
number of fan page likes, a certain proportion of SMA
appearing on their newsfeed/updates would be from these
fan pages, which may lead to a more positive attitude to-
ward SMA. Future SMA studies could control for these fan
page likes to access more neutral results. In addition, due to
our survey design, we cannot distinguish between the effects
of different formats of YouTube/Facebook SMA on con-
sumer evaluation across cultures. Given that different for-
mats of SMA on a particular social media type may be
perceived differently across cultures, future research could
employ experimental design methods to gain insights into
consumer responses to different SMA formats across
cultures.
Because of the limited scope of our research, there are
several important avenues for future research that we could
not address. For instance, we account for only one cultural
factor, uncertainty avoidance. Future studies could in-
vestigate the moderating effect of Hofstede, Hofstede, and
Minkov’s (2010) other cultural factors and time orienta-
tion, as they have a bearing on cross-cultural Internet ad-
vertising (see Möller and Eisend 2010). Furthermore, it
is probable that consumers from high-/low-uncertainty-
avoidance cultures may spend more/less time processing
SMA. Therefore, research on the interaction between un-
certainty avoidance and the processing time is encouraged
to gain deeper insights into cross-cultural differences in
consumers’ SMA evaluation. Another interesting avenue of
research relates to the findings of the post hoc three-way
interaction between global social media types, uncertainty
avoidance, and the two belief factors (Web Appendix G).
While we largely found no effect of uncertainty avoidance
on the moderating effect of global social media types, two
out of eight three-way interactions were significant. The
findings point to the need for more investigation into how
global social media types interact with cultural variables.
Future research streams could also focus on international
SMA design and outcomes. The identification and modeling
58 Journal of International Marketing
of other possible content-related drivers of SMA effec-
tiveness (Kumar et al. 2016) could benefit the current body
of research on SMA design and content. Furthermore, given
that interactivity is the fundamental attribute of SMA de-
sign, future research could explore the outcomes of different
levels of SMA interactivity and their cross-cultural impli-
cations. Correspondingly, marketing outcomes of message
and social interactions (e.g., brand equity, purchase in-
tention), which form the main motivation for advertisers
(Ko, Cho, and Roberts 2005), should be explored to val-
idate SMA expenditure. To address the larger issue of in-
ternational SMA strategy design, studies on how firms
could standardize/adapt SMA in conjunction with other
marketing tools to identify/work on cross-market segments
could advance the theoretical knowledge on and the ac-
tionable strategies for SMA in the global market (see also
Hatzithomas, Fotiadis, and Coudounaris 2016).
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