The impact of social media marketing for Indonesian SMEs sustainability: Lesson from Covid-19 pandemic

Tundung Subali Patma,Ludi Wishnu Wardana,Bagus Shandy Narmaditya,Farida Akbarina,Agus Wibowo,Usama Awan

doi:10.1080/23311975.2021.1953679

Tundung Subali Patma, Ludi Wishnu Wardana + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2021.1953679

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Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has imposed the government to provide a mass restriction policy, and businesses respond to this issue by adopting technology and social media marketing. This study aims at highlighting the determinant factors affecting technology adoption, social media marketing, and business sustainability. The study involved a quantitative approach with partial least squares structural equation modeling to obtain a deep understanding of this phenomenon. The research was incorporated with small and businesses in East Java Provincial in Indonesia employing an online questionnaire. The findings show that the adoption of internet/e-business technology can be explained by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and cost. Furthermore, it has a link between internet/e-business technology, social media marketing, and SMEs’ sustainability. However, the cost variable failed in demonstrating the implementation of social media marketing by SMEs. This work strongly suggests that the adoption of internet/e-business technology and social media marketing successfully explains the mediating role between variables. Despite this work solely conducted in East Java, this research is the initial phase in a study associated with SMEs’ sustainability in the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia.

Highlights

The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has outspread throughout the world, and it has significantly impacted the economic sector (Fendel et al, 2020; Rebucci et al, 2020)
The findings indicate that the adoption of new business technology and social media marketing can be explained by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and cost
This study found that the composite reliability (CR) value of each construct ranges from 0.797 to 0.951, meaning that to achieve reliability

Summary

Introduction

The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has outspread throughout the world, and it has significantly impacted the economic sector (Fendel et al, 2020; Rebucci et al, 2020). Despite the 1998 crisis, SMEs were more adaptable than large companies (Juergensen et al, 2020), but the Covid-19 pandemic became a severe external shock and affected the supply and demand side, primarily during the implementation of health distancing policy (Fitriasari, 2020). This condition highlights that the Covid-19 crisis will affect SMEs’ sustainability (Juergensen et al, 2020). SMEs can elaborate on the use of technology and empower social media (Dwivedi et al, 2021)

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