Reputation, Trust and Purchase Intention on Facebook

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รายงานประชุมเชิงวิชาการทางด้านบริหารธุรกิจระดับชาติ ครั้งที่ 3
The Impact of Reputation on Trust, Perceived usefulness of recommendations
Toward Purchase Intention
Waritsanan Pattanathawekij
Sirion Chaipoopirutana
Graduate School of Business, Assumption University
ABSTRACT
This study aims to examine the usage level of Facebook’s users as an information resource to obtain
product recommendations from Facebook friends or other Facebook users, and also aims to test the factors that
affect consumer purchase intention. Data were collected from 300 respondents at Silom area in Bangkok. The
results showed that website reputation has a statistical significant relationship with trust, and perceived
usefulness of recommendations. Furthermore, trust has a significant relationship with perceived usefulness of
recommendations. Also, trust and perceived usefulness of recommendations have significant relationship with
purchase intention.
Keywords: Reputation, Trust, Perceived usefulness of recommendations, Purchase Intention
จุดประสงคของการศึกษานี้เพื่อตรวจสอบระดับการใชงานของผูใชเฟสบุคในฐานะแหลงขอมูล
เพื่อใหไดมาซึ่งคําแนะนําผลิตภัณฑจากเพื่อนและผูใชอื่นๆ ในเฟสบุค ทั้งยังมีวัตถุประสงคเพื่อทดสอบปจจัย
ที่มีผลตอความตั้งใจซื้อของผูบริโภค โดยทําการเก็บรวบรวมขอมูลจากผูตอบแบบสอบถาม 300 คน บริเวณ
ถนนสีลม กรุงเทพฯ ผลการศึกษาพบวาชื่อเสียงของเว็บไซตมีความสัมพันธอยางมีนัยสําคัญกับความไววางใจ
และการรับรูประโยชนของการแนะนํา นอกจากนี้ความไววางใจมีความสัมพันธอยางมีนัยสําคัญกับการรับรู
ประโยชนของการแนะนํา อีกทั้งความไววางใจและการรับรูประโยชนของการแนะนํามีความสัมพันธอยางมี
นัยสําคัญกับความตั้งใจซื้อ
คําสําคัญ: ชื่อเสียงของเว็บไซต, ความไววางใจ, การรับรูประโยชนของการแนะนํา, ความตั้งใจซื้อ
INTRODUCTION
Product recommendations from any online community sites are crucial and affected to other users who
access the data to make a decision to buy product/service. Nowadays, online community sites are the direct path
for users to communicate with one another and gain more useful online information (Constant, Sproull, & Kiesler,
1996). Also, the finest social network sites, the researchers found that Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ because
are better than any other websites, and each social network is unique (www.social-networking-websites-
review.toptenreviews.com). However, Facebook social network was chosen to study in this research because this
social network is the most well-known when compare with other social network websites. Additionally, Facebook
has attracted the largest users around the world, which has 1.26 billion users to use this network

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(www.expandedramblings.com, October 2013). Moreover, Facebook is the most popular social network site in
Thailand, which has 18.5 million social media users. This offers a new opportunity for the Facebook’s users to
engage and share their experience among website’s users, and also all users have a chance of variety to practice
and perform both online and offline, which help them gain higher value of communication and infrastructure
(Schau et al., 2009). In addition, consumers are able to assess their purchase intention by utilizing Facebook, and
all users can share and exchange their experiences, or they can obtain product recommendations from other
consumers, which will be a good source before they make a decision to buy product/service (ALghamdi 2012).
The recommendations or opinions could assist consumers to find interesting information for new
products/services, and support consumers in making shopping decisions. Furthermore, the information provided
by other shoppers will be able to make people have more trust than furnished by companies (eMarketer, 2008a).
However, a few previous studies have investigated and studied about the information of product
recommendations, which may affect by consumers trust and social network reputation. Then, in this study, the
researchers set five major objectives.
REREARCH OBJECTIVE
The major objective of this research is to analyze the factors which affect consumers’ purchase
intention. The research aims to study the website reputation, trust, perceived usefulness of recommendations,
and finally lead to impact consumers’ purchase intention. Consequently, the main objectives of this research are
to analyze a relationship between website reputation and perceived usefulness of recommendations, to
determine a relationship between website reputation and trust, and also examine an association between trust
and perceived usefulness of recommendations. Also, study a relationship between perceived usefulness of
recommendations and purchase intention. Finally, the researchers aim to find the relationship of trust and
purchase intention
LITERATURE REVIEW
Purchase Intention
Chiu et al. (2008) defined repurchase intention as customer intent to use or to buy product or service in
the future. Hsu (1987) suggested that after consumers’ common assessment of a product, their behavior certain
exchange because a perceptual response taken towards someone’s mind-set to an object which created their
intention to purchase intention. That is, consumers’ assessment of products or viewpoint towards a brand
concerted with external stimulative factors is able to create consumers’ purchase intention. In accordance with
Shao et al. (2004), purchase intention mentions the endeavor to visit a store offering services or to purchase a
product. Therefore, purchase intention includes several necessary meaning such as consumers are possibly willing
to consider buying, want to buy in the future, and buy a product of company again. (Lin et al. 2010)
Trust
Pavlou and Fygenson (2006) defined trust as the customer’s belief that the organization or company or
website or seller will behave ethically and honestly. Also, Anderson and Narus (1990) suggested that, for a
business relationship, trust helps reduce business risks. Psychological identification, reputation perceived, and
image between suppliers and buyer are able to influence mutual trust (Smeltzer, 1997). Grazioli and Jarvenpaa

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(2000) proposed that under an e-commerce environment, internet users’ purchase intention is influenced by
direct or indirect trust. Koufaris and Hampton-Sosa (2004) studied what causes in a website can be influencing
customer trust and discovered that the interactions between web sites and customers affect customer trust
through related web site beliefs. While, customer trust further manipulates purchase intention.
Perceived usefulness of recommendations
ALghamdi (2012) implied that perceived usefulness refers to the degree of usefulness that consumers
experience from Facebook friends’ product recommendations. Also, Davis (1988) described perceived usefulness as
an individual believe in a different degree of using a particular system.
Reputation
Reputation has been mostly considered as an antecedent of trust or behavioral intention, which
product/service or brand or thing is to be known and remembered about how good they are (Casalo et al., 2008;
Keh and Xie, 2009; Koufaris and Hampton-Sosa, 2004), in addition, regarded as a trust builder for a long time
(Barber, 1983), particularly for trust in a website (Jarvenpaa and Tractinsky, 1999; McKnight et al., 2002). Such
ratings and reviews may be viewed as measures of website reputation as they reflect the collective opinions of
consumers toward the website (Adapted from Gregg, 2009; Joo, 2007; Kim and Ahn, 2006). Therefore, this
research believes that readers’ perceptions will be influenced by websites with different level of reputations.
Recent theory has disputed that trust is not only pivotal to online service dynamics but is also central
to online exchange (Harris and Goode, 2004; Yen and Gwinner, 2003). The most important issue on studies of
consumers discovers that consumers assess when considering online exchange is trustworthiness (Fusaro et al.,
2012). Thus, while recognizing about practitioners, theorists, consumers, and wide range of factors affect to online
exchange that come into view coherently to bring up perceived trust as necessary to online shopping intentions.
The Expectancy Theory by Vroom (1964) highlighted in part on recognized repercussions associated with
the options that the characteristics of individual transmission with behavior options based. The phenomena of IS
adoption was explained by Technology Acceptance Model that developed by Davis (1989). The researcher
suggested a key factor which influencing the intended use of an information system is perceived usefulness. Thus,
utilitarian motivation is focused by perceived usefulness. According to perceived usefulness in the blog context, it
mentions about degree which a user believes in using a blog that improve his or her learning/life
performance/work. The research of Tang et al., (2011) found that attitude toward purchasing a customized has
been positively influenced PC by perceived usefulness, highlighted in part on recognized repercussions associated
with the options that the characteristics of individual transmission with behavior options based.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Different authors have presented different perceptual and cognitive factors that affect purchase. Hence,
the research conceptual framework was modified based on four major research models. The first research model
is the intention to purchase by purchasing experience, social presence and trust was developed by Weisberg,
Te’eni and Arman (2011). The second research model is an extended S-O-R model with reputation, web site
quality, emotion, perceived risk and purchase intention. This research model was developed by Kim and Lennon
(2013). The third research model is the importance of trust in product recommendations to online consumers’
transaction intention was developed by Hsiao, Chuan, Lin, Wang, Lu and Yu (2010). The last research is intention

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to shop online that affect by attitude that is influenced by the impact of beliefs about usefulness and trust
regarding the intention to shop online was developed by Hsu, Chuan, Lin, and Chiang (2013).
After analyzing the four main research models according to their concepts and with detailed
explanations, the researcher has developed the conceptual framework. It illustrates the effects of website
reputation and user recommendations in Facebook on consumers' purchase intention in Thailand.
Figure 1: A Modified Conceptual Framework of “The Impact of Perceived Usefulness of Online User
Recommendations Towards Consumers’ Purchase Intention”
Research Hypothesis
Based on the conceptual of this study, website’s reputation drives trust and perceived usefulness of
recommendations. Trust is able to affect perceived usefulness of recommendations. Trust and perceived
usefulness of recommendations are able to influence purchase intention. Hence, the following hypotheses are
proposed:
H1o: The website’s reputation has no statistical significant relationship with trust.
H1a: The website’s reputation has a statistical significant relationship with trust.
H2o: The website’s reputation has no statistical significant relationship with perceived usefulness of
recommendations.
H2a: The website’s reputation has a statistical significant relationship with perceived usefulness of
recommendations.
H3o: Trust will not affect perceived usefulness of recommendations.
H3a: Trust will affect perceived usefulness of recommendations.
Perceived usefulness
of recommendations
H1
H3
H2
Trust
Purchase
Intention
H4
H5
Reputation

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H4o: There is no statistical significant relationship between trust and purchase intention.
H4a: There is a statistical significant relationship between trust and purchase intention.
H5o: There is no statistical significant relationship between perceived usefulness of recommendations and
purchase intention.
H5a: There is a statistical significant relationship between perceived usefulness of recommendations and purchase
intention.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this study, the descriptive research is applied as the method of research, and also this study was
conducted by using survey technique, and distributing the questionnaires to the target population. Gay (2006)
described about the descriptive research as the nature of this research is quite clear to understand the
characteristics of apopulationorphenomenon,seekstodeterminetheanswerto what, where, when, and how questions,
assists the segment or target market, and determines the difference in characteristics of subgroups. Non-
probability sampling by using convenience technique was applied to use for the sampling procedure. The
questionnaires of this study were distributed to collect the data from 300 working people at Silom area in
Bangkok who are currently used Facebook social network and intend to buy product/service based on other
user’s recommendations.
The questionnaire consisted of six parts; (1) Screening question which ensure the right target population
was chosen, (2) Reputation, (3) Trust, (4) Perceived usefulness of recommendations, (5) Purchase Intention, and (6)
Demographic characteristics including gender, age, income, education, occupation, and time ever purchase. The
13 questions were used a five-point Likert scale, and the format is ranked from strongly disagree (1) to strongly
agree (5).
A pretest using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha scale (see Table 1) to test internal consistency of the
questions. The researchers collect the data from 50 respondents to test the reliability. The results of each
variable showed that all questions of each variable could be considered acceptable.
For the final analysis, the researchers applied descriptive and inferential analysis to test demographic
factors, general information, and all hypotheses, respectively. The data were analyzed using the Statistical
Package for the Social Sciences.
Table 1: The Summary of Reliability Analysis by using Cronbach’s Alpha Test
Variable Alpha test
Reputation .742
Trust .850
Perceived usefulness of
recommendations
.885

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Purchase Intention .896
RESULT AND CONCLUSION
Summary of Demographic Factors
In this study, the demographic characteristics consist of gender, age, average monthly income,
educational level, and occupation were analyzed by descriptive analysis. The majority of this study were
females (76.3% ), age level was 51.6% of respondents who were age between 31 to 40 years. The highest
percentage of monthly personal income of the respondent was between 10,001-20,000 Baht per month
accounting for 27.0%. Approximately, 71.7% of the education level had a bachelor degree. Moreover, the
highest percentage of occupation was private companies’ employees at 71.3%.
Table 2: Summary of Hypothesis Testing
Hypothesis Test Statistic
Level of
significant
Correlation
Coefficient
Result
H1a: The website’s reputation has a relationship to
trust.
Pearson’s
Correlation
0.01 0.400** Rejected H10
H2a: The website’s reputation has relationship to
perceived usefulness of recommendations.
Pearson’s
Correlation
0.01 0. 238** Rejected H20
H3a: Trust will affect perceived usefulness of
recommendations.
Pearson’s
Correlation
0.01 0..620** Rejected H30
H4a: There is a relationship between trust and
purchase intention.
Pearson’s
Correlation
0.01 0.589** Rejected H40
H5a: There is a relationship between perceived
usefulness of recommendations and purchase
intention.
Pearson’s
Correlation
0.01 0.607** Rejected H50
All of the Hypotheses are tested by using the Pearson Correlation and all hypotheses were evaluated at
.01 sig. level and the null hypothesis was rejected. The results of each hypothesis by the survey and SPSS are
shown as Table 2.
CONCLUSION
This research aimed to investigate the factors that affect consumers’ purchase intention based on
Facebook users in Thailand. The factors were subdivided into reputation, trust, perceived usefulness of
recommendations and purchase intention. The researchers set five hypotheses to test the relationships. It was
tested that all factors affected purchase intention. The demographic characteristics included the gender, age,
average monthly income, educational level, occupation, time ever purchased were analyzed by descriptive
analysis. According to the demographic characteristics, the majority of respondents were female and the reported

625
age of the respondents was between 31-40 years old with bachelor’s degree, having a monthly income between
10,001-20,000 baht, and working as private company’s employees.
Close-ended questionnaires, which were based on various empirical previous researches, were used to
develop the screening questions and demographic factors in which respondents were given specific limited
alternative choices and were asked to select the one closet to his/her perception. Moreover, the researcher used
the Five-point Likert scale to develop the questionnaire for each variable in the conceptual framework. The scale
was ranked from one to five, which carefully constructed statements from very negative to very positive or from
the lowest number to the highest number (strongly disagree = 1, and strongly agree = 5). The data were analyzed
on the basis of descriptive analysis for demographic factors, and inferential analysis for the hypothesis testing.
The results of hypotheses testing show that trust has a strong positive relationship with perceived
usefulness of recommendations. Also, trust and perceived usefulness of recommendations have a moderate
positive relationship with purchase intention. Additionally, website reputation has a weak positive relationship
with trust and with perceived usefulness of recommendations.
RECOMMENDATION
Facebook is the most well-known online community site on the Internet (Nielsen, 2012). Although
Facebook is used mainly for public reasons such as communicating, video contacting and picture sharing, it can
also be used for other reasons, as this research has recommended. The wide range of interaction features,
Facebook provides and helps customers to get the feedback of information, which allows customers to acquire
product recommendations from other Facebook users.
In accordance with the results provided from hypothesis testing in this research, hypothesis three is the
one that has a strong positive relationship between trust and perceived usefulness of recommendations. Product
recommendations from Facebooks' users may be regarded more as trustworthy and reliable because they come
from other Facebook users who typically are generally a reliable source (Bickart & Schindler, 2001). Therefore, this
research would like to recommend that marketers and companies should be interested in consumers’
communications on social network sites, particularly Facebook, in an attempt to comprehend consumers’
attitudes and the modifying aspects that impact their attention to purchase product/service.
Marketers and companies should take part in this social network site, perhaps by creating personal
group and pages. This will possibly allow marketers and companies to interact and fascinate a huge number of
consumers, by which they can aim to increase sales. Marketers can identify and categorize the target consumers
on Facebook group or page, based on personal information such as gender, age, background and interest. This
then, also allows marketers to post related materials (e.g., advertisements and links) for persuading those users to
create more purchase intention.
FURTHUR STUDY
This research was conducted with a sample of working-age people. No identical researches could be
found to evaluate the findings of the current research. Further research is required to execute identical research

626
and evaluate their outcomes with the findings in this research. This could assist in generalizing the findings of the
current research to a prolonged population.
Further researches could implement this conceptual framework to other social network sites such as
Google+, Twitter, and Instagram, and may compare the result with this research.
By analyzing other possible factors to be involved in the research model, further studies may generate
and develop more effective explanatory model than this research. Also, to create more accurate marketing
strategies, future studies can further examine the possible variations among various demographic characteristics
such as gender, age, income levels and occupation.
Moreover, further studies should use a more advanced method of analysis to investigate the findings.
Finally, the questionnaire survey for further studies should be conducted by online surveys including the
questions with regard to main Facebook activities which consumers interact with.

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