Social Media Adoption in Iraqi Entrepreneurial Context: An Empirical Investigation of Performance Outcomes

Abstract

This study examines the factors that influence social media adoption among entrepreneurial enterprises. With the advent of social media and the possible outcomes that can be gained from such integration in businesses have triggered much attention to be further investigated. Furthermore, this study also examines the impact of social media adoption in entrepreneurial context. This study uses an integrated model in order to examine the impact of relative advantage, interactivity, privacy, and cost effectiveness on social media adoption in entrepreneurial and subsequently the impact on the entrepreneurial performance. Data was collected and the statistical analysis was carried out through questionnaire from 144 entrepreneurs in Iraq. SmartPLS was used in order to interpret and explain the relations among the selected variables and also test the hypotheses. Interesting findings of the study show that social media adoption has very strong positive impact on the entrepreneurial performance. Likewise, factors like relative advantage, interactivity, privacy were found with significant impact on social media adoption in entrepreneurial context. The empirical findings of this study are very encouraging for many entrepreneurs who plan to integrate social media into their current system.