The role of the espoused tight culture in value assessment of social media use

Abstract

ABSTRACT To advance the stream of culture-themed Information Systems (IS) research, this study ushers in the cultural tightness-looseness (CTL) theory and conceptualises the focal construct, the cultural tightness (CT), into the social media usage context. By integrating the CTL theory and the customer value perspective, this study proposes a research model to examine how an espoused tight culture affects individuals’ value assessment and behaviour of social media use. The model is validated using a cross-sectional field survey dataset of Chinese social media users, sampling a typical tight culture. The findings demonstrate that the espoused tight culture plays a paramount role in influencing users’ value assessment and usage behaviour related to social media. This study contributes to the cultural IS literature by providing a context-specific understanding of overall cultural interactions of social media use in a tight culture.