۱- Introduction

۲- Theoretical foundation

۳- Research model and hypotheses

۴- Research methodology

۵- Discussions and implications

۶- Conclusions and future research directions

References

Abstract

Mobile social platform such as WeChat Moments has gained great popularity in China in the past few years. However, there are still a lack of studies that focus on Guanxi network building in the virtual social community. Drawing upon social capital theory and technology affordance theory, this study develops a research model to examine the influences of platform media richness and interactivity on users’ social capital and participation behaviors in the WeChat Moments. An empirical survey was conducted in China and 287 valid data were collected from WeChat users. Structural equation modelling analysis was used to test the research model. The empirical results suggest that platform interactivity and media richness are significant technology affordances that promote users’ Guanxi network, and their influences are mediated by social interaction and shared understanding. Furthermore, Guanxi network is positively associated with users’ active participation in the WeChat Moments. Theoretical and practical implications are illustrated in the final section.

Introduction

Due to the rapid development of internet and mobile communication technology, social network and mobile social applications have been widely applied in people’s daily life (Alalwan, Rana, Dwivedi, & Algharabat, 2017; Aswani, Kar, Ilavarasan, & Dwivedi, 2018; Cheng, Fu, & Vreede, 2017; Kamboj, Sarmah, Gupta, & Dwivedi, 2018; Kapoor et al., 2018; Liu, Shao, & Fan, 2018). Individuals can share information and keep in touch with others in the social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter conveniently (Dwivedi, Kapoor, & Chen, 2015; Kamboj et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2018). Based on an investigation by “We Are Social”, the global active social media users have achieved 2.307 billion in the year of 2016 (Shiau, Dwivedi, & Lai, 2018). In addition to the social network sites, mobile social platforms have also developed rapidly due to the popularity of smartphones, and the global active mobile social application users have achieved 1.968 billion in the year of 2016 (Shiau et al., 2018). According to the statistics of China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), WeChat Moments is recognized as one of the most popular mobile social platforms in China and has gained more than one billion active users all over the world by the year of 2017 (CNNIC, 2018). The mobile social platform has provided rich media functions such as micro-video and voice-chat, and users can participate in the platform by sharing texts, photos and videos, giving thumbs-ups to others’ posts, and updating their personal status for communications and interactions (Zhang, Li, Wu, & Li, 2017). More and more people have become accustomed to devoting time and energy on the WeChat Moments platform in order to maintain and extend interpersonal relationships in the digital world (Gan, 2017; Zhang et al., 2017).