Extending media richness theory to explain （扩展媒体丰富度理论来解释）.pdfVIP

1 Extending media richness theory to explain social media adoption by microbusinesses Debashish Mandal and Robert J. McQueen Abstract This study uses the canonical action research method to investigate social media adoption in microbusinesses. A post positivist approach is followed based on a predetermined premise that along with Media Richness Theory (MRT), theories of access/quality and social interaction may be required to explain the media choice preference. It is found that in terms of richness, the social media interface of the Facebook business page is considered richer than email in its capacity to express by photos, and to transmit web links but it does not necessarily lead to greater use of the tool . Individual differences from social interaction theory and the ability to learn the “command language” from access/quality theory dominated the use behaviour leading to the owner’s inability to take advantage of this rich media. The incapability of MRT to explain rich communication through email is carried forwarded to social media adoption. The access/quality theory is found to be operating as a theory-in-use over the espoused theory of MRT. The microbusiness owner tries to minimise cost by minimising accessibility attributes while expecting maximum quality attributes. Overall, the access/quality theory best explained the adoption process with limited role from the MRT, and a decisive role by individual differences from social interaction theories for understanding the difference in level of adoption within the participating microbusinesses. Keywords Media richness theory, s