ESM Adoption for Marketing Purposes in Organizations: The TOE Framework

Abstract

This research, utilizing the technology-organization-­environment (TOE) framework, aimed to examine the roles of technological competence, top management support, coercive pressures, normative pressures, and mimetic pressures in the adoption of enterprise social media (ESM) for marketing purposes by organizations, and ultimately, in facilitating their relationship marketing practices. From 452 responses collected via an online survey across five organizations using ESM for marketing in Iran, 400 valid data points were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed that technological competence, top management support, and mimetic pressures positively influence ESM implementation for marketing purposes. However, coercive and normative pressures were found to have no significant impact on ESM adoption for this purpose. Additionally, the study demonstrated that ESM implementation for marketing significantly impacts all components of relationship marketing practices. To the best of our knowledge, this is among the few studies addressing ESM adoption by organizations for marketing and external communications. Moreover, this study is the first to extend the advanced TOE framework to the domain of ESM implementation for marketing purposes.