Social media technology use has elicited an increased interest among academicians and researchers worldwide. The present study examines the latent constructs, such as social media technology use (SMTU), innovation capability (IC), entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and innovation performance (IP), which have not been studied by researchers in the past. The purpose of the study is to examine the impact of SMTU and IC on EO and highlight the impact of EO on IP.
A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from 164 entrepreneurs, which included CEO/owners, managers or founders of start-up companies from India. The data were analysed with the structural equation model technique.
The results demonstrate that the model proposed in this study supports all the hypotheses of SMTU, IC, EO and IP. The results of this study provide evidence for the importance of SMTU as a crucial factor that came out from the analysis of Indian entrepreneurs which reiterates the point that the user-generated content could be very important. The results of the research show that entrepreneurs value and are looking forward to using social media for getting individual reviews from consumers about their marketing campaigns, product development and innovation.
At the level of practice there are significant implications for decision-makers in start-up firms to become more attuned to how SMTU can significantly add importance to the customer experience. This study would also help managers and policymakers in understanding the importance of SMTU when seeking to improve the performance of the organizations.
Owing to the increasingly collaborative innovation environment in entrepreneurship, the authors draw the attention of managers to the need of SMTU for innovation actions and provide a logical framework to guide action for organizational analysis.
