UNIVERSITY OF GHANA COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES SOCIAL COMMERCE AND VALUE CO-CREATION: EVIDENCE FROM A DEVELOPING COUNTRY EDWARD ENTEE DEPARTMENT OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS OCTOBER 2022 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh UNIVERSITY OF GHANA COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF GHANA BUSINESS SCHOOL SOCIAL COMMERCE AND VALUE CO-CREATION: EVIDENCE FROM A DEVELOPING COUNTRY BY EDWARD ENTEE (ID NO. 10397385) THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF A DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEGREE DEPARTMENT OF OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS OCTOBER 2022 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh i DECLARATION I hereby declare that this work is the result of my research done under supervision and has not been presented by anyone for any academic award at this or any other university. _________________ 17th October 2022 Edward Entee Date (10397385) 17th October 2022 _________. ____________ ____________________ Prof. Richard Boateng Date (Supervisor) ____________________ ____________________ Dr Emmanuel Awuni Kolog Date (Co-Supervisor) ____________________ __ ______________ Prof. Anthony Afful- Dadzie Date (Co-Supervisor) 19th October 2022 19th October 2022 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ii ABSTRACT The economic potential of social commerce, an ecosystem of services facilitated by social media and other digital technologies, is apparent, with an estimated 2.46 billion social media users globally and a projected market opportunity of US$ 100 billion by 2030. Despite social commerce's immense financial potential, much more is still uncovered about how value is co- created. Social commerce is critical in Africa because it provides African youth with various jobs and value-creation opportunities. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of academic literature on social commerce value co-creation. Problematising previous social commerce and value co- creation literature reveal three interrelated gaps that need urgent research attention. First, there is arguably a skewed theorisation or lack of theorisation in social commerce research that explains the essential value outcomes of social commerce applications. Second, social commerce research lacks an explanation of the roles that various actors play in the social commerce ecosystem in co-creating value. Third, there is a lack of explanation about the mechanisms that generate value outcomes. Consequently, this study formulates three research questions. (a) What are the actors’ resources and roles used and played during value co-creation within the social commerce ecosystem of Ghana (b) What is the value co-creation mechanisms within the social commerce ecosystem of Ghana? (c) What are the forms of value co-created within the social commerce ecosystem of Ghana? Answering these questions contributes to achieving the research purpose of developing a framework that explains how value is co-created within Ghana’s social commerce ecosystem. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh iii This study utilises the Service-Dominant Logic to explain the resources and roles of actors, value co-creation mechanisms, and forms of value co-created within the social commerce ecosystem of a developing economy to achieve the research purpose. Furthermore, based on information systems value literature, this study conceptualises the outcomes of value co- creation in social commerce as symbolic value and functional value. The conceptualisations culminate in a research framework explaining how social actors integrate their resources during value co-creation. This study uses a Critical Realism-based qualitative case study of a Ghanaian company in the fashion industry to illustrate how social commerce is used in the co-creation of value. The use of a single case study afforded an in-depth examination of the phenomena that led to the development of a new theoretical framework on value co-creation in the social commerce ecosystem. As an example of a developing economy, Ghana presented an opportunity to look at flexible innovations that can improvise new solutions to fit changing situations rather than sticking to long-term plans. Concerning the first research question, the findings indicate that social commerce actors performed two distinct roles during social commerce value co-creation; a collaborator role and an affiliate role. These roles are somewhat different from their formal roles and may be classified as Adaptive (i.e., actors who can adjust to changing conditions) or responsive (i.e., actors who perform actions in response to other actors’ actions). The findings on the resources used during social value co-creation reveal that different resources are unique and specific to an actor in a social commerce ecosystem. The findings also show how previous studies have assumed that resources are held entirely by the social actor of a service ecosystem, ignoring the resource potential of service platforms, which is the medium of interaction and held by all actors. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh iv Concerning the second research question, previous studies assumed that mechanisms occur at monodic levels and seem to overlook the possibility of value co-creation mechanisms to develop co-creative activities with networked actors. However, this thesis establishes that social commerce value co-creating mechanisms occur at three levels, namely, Monodic levels, Dyadic levels and Triadic levels. The monodic levels encompass how a single actor influences the functional processes underlying resource integration in social commerce value co-creation. Secondly, the dyadic levels entail how two social commerce actors influence the functional processes underlying resource integration in social commerce value co-creation. Lastly, the triadic levels concern the causal structures that underpin the functional processes of resource integration by three or more social commerce actors in value co-creation. Concerning the third research question, this thesis identifies three dynamic and multidimensional co-created value categories: functional, symbolic, and platform value. This categorisation is not mentioned in the value co-creation literature because they assume that value is consistent across purchase, consumption and evaluation for all actors. First, functional value is the benefit of converting assets into tangible (and intangible) value. In this study, three forms of functional value are co-created. These are interactional value, economic value, and physical value. Second, symbolic value (e.g., positive brand image, online social capital, and reputation) is realised from the “signalling effect” of each actor’s presence on or affiliation with social commerce platforms. Symbolic value is achieved through experiences that help social commerce actors achieve social integration. The study uncovered three forms of symbolic value: exposure, social, and relationship building. Third, platform value, hitherto absent in the literature, is the unique value offered by the social commerce platform. In precis, the study reveals that, after social commerce actors decide to co-create value, the social commerce platform fosters collaboration and venue for co-creation activities. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh v This study’s originality and contribution to research and practice are as follows. First, this study conceptualises and empirically illustrates a framework that explains various actors’ roles in co- creating value within the social commerce ecosystem. Identifying these roles generates a deeper explanation of how actors interact to co-create value. More importantly, this study’s explanation of social commerce roles is the discovery of two new actor roles, i.e., collaborator and affiliate, which is unique in social commerce literature. Second, this study uncovers three value co-creation mechanisms, i.e., co-innovation, value co- seeking, and platform scaling. Hitherto, these remained unexplained. Furthermore, these unearthed mechanisms were identified at three levels: monodic, dyadic, and triadic. Further, this study unearths various forms of how social commerce platforms offer a unique value as “platform value” as a new co-created value beyond the functional and symbolic value reported in IS value literature. Hitherto, existing studies had conceptualised co-created value as either functional or symbolic. Platform value emanating from social commerce platforms is unique because it captures how actors coordinate their collaboration and interactions that facilitate innovation. Further, co-created value can be either be collective or customised. Additionally, there are value creation dependencies which mean value does not just happen it depends on the existence of certain actors and specific resources and processes and sometimes events. Finally, value expands because the social commerce ecosystem, by nature of its integration of actors, resources, and processes, creates a continuous flow of opportunities for the discovery of ideas and relationships which can yield new forms of co-created value. These contributions have been published in two book chapters conference paper. One manuscript is also under preparation for submission to the International Journal of Information Management, an A* journal in the information systems discipline. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh vi DEDICATION This work is dedicated to the Almighty God who saved me, to Barbara, my wife, and to our lovely children Nicole, Chantelle and Adele University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This PhD thesis is the culmination of years of effort, which was made possible by the advice and assistance of several people I am eternally grateful. First, I am grateful to the Almighty God for granting me the grace and opportunity to go through this PhD work. Second, I express my profound gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Richard Boateng, for his confidence and trust in me to carry out this PhD work. I would like to express sincere appreciation for his guidance, constructive criticism, support, encouragement, and prayers, without which this work would have never been completed. His fatherly kindness and care made my PhD journey much more pleasant. Therefore, “let he who has watered be watered, let he who has given be given too in good measure”. It is my greatest honour to know you and learn from you. May God bless you. I would also like to express my special appreciation to the other members of my supervisory team Dr Emmanuel Awuni Kolog and Professor Anthony Afful-Dadzie and, for their contributions and helpful comments which improved the quality of the thesis. I am sincerely grateful to Dr Joseph Budu who was always generous with his time and provided insightful comments and suggestions. I cannot thank you enough. God bless you abundantly more than what is in store for you. I would like to thank Prof. John Effah for his insightful comments and suggestions. My sincere thanks to Dr Sheena Lovia Boateng for all the encouragement and prayers. Further, I would like to thank Desmond Larkai Chief Executive officer of Haven Made Limited for his willingness to partake in this work and providing access to his company, introductions to his partners and staff to be interviewed for this project. This research would not have been possible without this. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh viii In addition, I would like to express a special thanks to my parents (Samuel and Elizabeth) siblings (Evelyn and Gilbert). I never felt alone during these past few years. I would also like to thank my colleagues especially, Nii Barnor, for his friendship and creating an enjoyable atmosphere. We had fun working together before deadlines. Thank you to The Reverends Estelle Cummings and Enoch Djabga of the Action Chapel International. Thank you to Charles Turkson and Benedicta Oppong for their tremendous help and support. It was a great pleasure working with all in the Department of Operations and Management Information Systems members and the University of Ghana Business School community. Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife Barbara for her support and endless patience during these years. During this journey, she was the most important person, supporting me spiritually throughout this thesis and my life in general and the children Nicole, Chantelle, and Adele. God Bless you all. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration................................................................................................................................. i Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ................................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................. vii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ xvi List of Tables ....................................................................................................................... xvii Chapter One ............................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Research Background ................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Research Problem ............................................................................................................ 3 1.3 Research Purpose ............................................................................................................. 7 1.4 Research Objectives ......................................................................................................... 8 1.5 Research Questions .......................................................................................................... 9 1.6 Significance of the study ................................................................................................ 10 1.7 Chapter Outline .............................................................................................................. 11 Chapter Two ........................................................................................................................... 13 Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 13 2.1 Chapter Overview .......................................................................................................... 13 2.2 Overview of Social Commerce Ecosystem ................................................................... 13 2.3 Methodology for the Review ......................................................................................... 17 2.4 Previous Social Commerce Reviews ............................................................................. 18 2.5 Dominant Issues in Social Commerce Research ........................................................... 20 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh x 2.6 Dominant Conceptual Approaches in Social Commerce Research ............................... 22 2.7 Dominant Methodological Approaches to Studying Social Commerce ........................ 25 2.8 Research Gaps and Future Research Priorities .............................................................. 27 2.8.1 Adoption of Social Commerce ................................................................................ 27 2.8.2 Development of Social Commerce ......................................................................... 28 2.8.3 Actor Roles in Value Co-creation in Social Commerce ......................................... 29 2.8.4 Value Co-creation Mechanisms in Social Commerce ............................................ 30 2.9 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 30 Chapter Three ........................................................................................................................ 32 Theoretical foundations and research framework.............................................................. 32 3.1 Chapter Overview .......................................................................................................... 32 3.2 Overview of Value Co-Creation .................................................................................... 32 3.3 Theoretical Review of Value Co-Creation in Information Systems .............................. 33 3.4 Service-Dominant Logic ................................................................................................ 38 3.3.1 Foundational Concepts of S-D Logic ..................................................................... 39 3.3.2 Actors ...................................................................................................................... 39 3.3.3 Value ....................................................................................................................... 40 3.3.4 Service ..................................................................................................................... 41 3.3.5 Institutions ............................................................................................................... 41 3.3.6 Resources ................................................................................................................ 41 3.5 The Meta- theoretical Foundations of S-D Logic .......................................................... 42 3.5.1 Service Ecosystem .................................................................................................. 43 3.5.2 Service Platform ...................................................................................................... 45 3.5.3 Co-creation of Value ............................................................................................... 47 3.6 Justification for Choosing Service-Dominant Logic ..................................................... 49 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xi 3.7 Extending Service-Dominant Logic .............................................................................. 51 3.8 Research Framework ............................................................................................... 54 3.8.1 Actor Resources and Roles in Social Commerce.................................................... 56 3.8.2 Value Co-creation Mechanisms .............................................................................. 57 3.8.3 Co-created Value Outcomes ................................................................................... 57 3.9 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 59 Chapter Four .......................................................................................................................... 59 Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 59 4.1 Chapter Overview .......................................................................................................... 60 4.2 Research Paradigm ........................................................................................................ 60 4.3 Choice of Critical Realism for this Study ...................................................................... 63 4.4 General Research Design ............................................................................................... 67 4.4.1. Research Strategy ................................................................................................... 67 4.4.2 Case Study as A Research Method ......................................................................... 68 4.4.3 Case Study Design .................................................................................................. 68 4.4.4 Case Boundary ........................................................................................................ 69 4.4.5 Case Selection ......................................................................................................... 69 4.4.6 Sampling and Sampling Strategy ............................................................................ 71 4.4.7 Reliability ................................................................................................................ 72 4.4.8 Construct Validity ................................................................................................... 73 4.4.9 Internal Validity ...................................................................................................... 73 4.4.10 External Validity ................................................................................................... 74 4.4.11 Data Collection Methods ...................................................................................... 74 4.5 Data Analysis Approaches to Answer Research Questions ........................................... 79 4.5.1 Approach for Research Question One .................................................................... 79 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xii 4.5.2 Approach for Research Question Two .................................................................... 81 4.5.1 Approach for Research Question Three ............................................................... 83 4.6 Ethical Considerations ................................................................................................... 84 4.7 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 85 Chapter Five ........................................................................................................................... 86 Ghana’s Social Commerce Ecosystem Context ................................................................... 86 5.1 Chapter Overview .................................................................................................... 86 5.2 Ghana – A Brief Description ................................................................................... 86 5.3 Social Commerce in Ghana ..................................................................................... 87 5.4 Social Commerce Ecosystem ......................................................................................... 89 5.4.1 Structural integrity .................................................................................................. 90 5.4.2 Cognitive Distance and Shared Worldview ............................................................ 91 5.4.3 Architecture of Participation ................................................................................... 92 5.5 Social Commerce Ecosystem Actors ............................................................................. 93 5.5.1 Actor 1 – Express Delivery Services ...................................................................... 95 5.5.1.1 ED Services Today .......................................................................................... 96 5.5.1.2 Proximity to its Customers............................................................................... 98 5.5.2 Actor 2 - LDH GLOBAL ........................................................................................ 98 5.5.3 Actor 3 Anuja Holdings ........................................................................................ 100 5.5.3.1 Business Start-Up........................................................................................... 104 5.5.4 Actor 4 - KayB Enterprises ................................................................................... 105 5.5.4.1 Firm Profile .................................................................................................... 106 5.5.5 Actor 5 – Razak Mo .............................................................................................. 107 5.5.6 Customers ............................................................................................................. 109 5.5.6.1 Actor 6 – Emmanuel ...................................................................................... 109 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xiii 5.5.6.2 Actor 7 – Regina ............................................................................................ 110 5.5.6.3 Actor 8 – Cynthia ........................................................................................... 110 5.6 Social Commerce Value Co-Creation Process ............................................................ 112 5.7 Chapter Summary ........................................................................................................ 113 Chapter Six ........................................................................................................................... 114 Value Co-Creation in Social Commerce – The Case of Desven Bags ............................ 114 6.1 Chapter Overview ........................................................................................................ 114 6.2 Desven Bags ................................................................................................................ 114 6.2.1 Company Background .......................................................................................... 114 6.3 Desven’s Social Media Activities ................................................................................ 119 6.4 Desven’s Service Ecosystem ....................................................................................... 121 6.5 Facilitating interaction on the social commerce platform ........................................... 123 6.6 Description of Actors ................................................................................................... 127 6.7 Actor Resources ........................................................................................................... 128 6.8 Value Co-creation Mechanisms ................................................................................... 132 6.9 Value Co-creation Outcomes ................................................................................. 136 6.10 Chapter Summary ...................................................................................................... 139 Chapter Seven ...................................................................................................................... 142 DISCUSSIONS AND FINDINGS ....................................................................................... 142 7.1 Chapter Overview ........................................................................................................ 142 7.2 Phenomenon Verification ............................................................................................ 142 7.2.1 Definitional verification – Social Commerce ....................................................... 143 7.2.2 Thematic Verification ........................................................................................... 144 7.2.3 Definitional verification – Social Commerce Ecosystem ..................................... 146 7.3 Roles of Social Commerce Actors in Value Co-creation ............................................ 147 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xiv 7.4 Resources for Social Commerce Value co-creation .................................................... 151 7.5 Social Commerce Value Co-Creation Mechanisms .................................................... 156 7.6 Social commerce value co-created .............................................................................. 160 7.7 Chapter summary ......................................................................................................... 167 Chapter Eight ....................................................................................................................... 170 Summary, Conclusions, Contributions and Future Research Pointers .......................... 170 8.1 Chapter Overview ........................................................................................................ 170 8.2 Summary of Research Activities ................................................................................. 170 8.3 Responses to Research Objectives ............................................................................... 173 8.4 Research Contributions and Implications .................................................................... 215 8.4.1 Contributions to Research ..................................................................................... 215 8.4.2 Contributions to Practice ....................................................................................... 217 8.4.3 Contributions to Policy ......................................................................................... 218 8.5 Future Research Directions .......................................................................................... 219 References ............................................................................................................................. 221 Appendices ............................................................................................................................ 259 Appendix A: Ethical Clearance ......................................................................................... 259 Appendix B: The Case Firm Selection Criteria ................... Error! Bookmark not defined. 1. The case firm has recognisable actors (service providers, Customers, suppliers) Error! Bookmark not defined. 2. The Case firm encourages actor participation, interaction and collaboration. .... Error! Bookmark not defined. 3. The case had to have been in business for at least three years to ensure availability of longitudinal data to reflect value co-creation over time ...... Error! Bookmark not defined. Appendix C: Multifaceted definition of s-commerce ........................................................ 261 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xv Appendix F: Qualitative evidence of social commerce value co-created: dimensions, constructs, codes, and representative data ......................................................................... 271 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xvi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Socio-technical view of social commerce components ....... Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 3.1: Value Co-creation Ecosystem ............................................................................... 48 Figure 3.2: Research Framework ............................................................................................. 59 Figure 4.1: Data Analysis Method for Research Question One............................................... 80 Figure 4.2: Data Analysis Approach for Research Question Two ........................................... 82 Figure 4.3: Data analysis method for Research Question Two ............................................... 84 Figure 5.1: Map of Ghana ........................................................................................................ 87 Figure 5.2: Advertising on Social commerce platform ............................................................ 94 Figure 6.1: Bespoke Product ordering system and Payment Process .................................... 116 Figure 6.2: Ready-to-use products ......................................................................................... 117 Figure 6.3: Order and production process.............................................................................. 118 Figure 6.4: Sample product co-created with a customer ........................................................ 135 Figure 7.1: Structure of Data Related to Actor Roles .............. Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 7.2: Social commerce resources for various actors ................................................... 155 Figure 7.3: Structure of Data Related to Mechanisms ............. Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 7.4: Outcomes of Social Commerce Value Co-creation ............................................ 166 Figure 8.1: Post-study framework of social commerce value co-creation ............................. 178 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xvii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Summary of Existing Definitions of Social Commerce ......................................... 15 Table 2.2: Table showing Inclusion and exclusion criteria ..... Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 2.3: Data extraction and Synthesis ................................................................................. 18 Table 2.4: Main findings from existing social commerce-related review .... Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 2.5: Summary of Existing Social Commerce Reviews .................................................. 19 Table 2.6: Dominant Issues in Social Commerce studies ........ Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 2.7: Dominant Research Frameworks, Models, Theories and Concepts Used .............. 25 Table 3.1: Summary of Theoretical Approaches in Existing Value Co-Creation Research ... 35 Table 4.1: Categories of Social Commerce Enterprises .......................................................... 70 Table 4.2 Breakdown of Interviewees, Timelines and Duration ............................................. 77 Table 6.1: Operand and operant resources used in social commerce. ................................... 130 Table 6.2: Summary of Case Findings ................................................................................... 140 Table 7.1: Empirical Illustration of Perspectives in Social Commerce Definitions .............. 143 Table 7.2 .................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 7.3: Illustration from Empirical Case Study ................................................................ 146 Table 7.4: Qualitative evidence of actor roles: dimensions, constructs, codes, and representative data ................................................................................................................. 265 Table 7.5: Summary of study findings ................................................................................... 167 Table 8.1: Summaries of Findings for Research Objectives .................................................. 173 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh xviii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research Background There are approximately 2.46 billion social media users globally, with more than 71% of Internet users having some kind of social media account (Statista, 2018). Customers often rely on the reviews and recommendations of social media friends when making purchase decisions (Williams, 2021), the commercial potential for social commerce is apparent. Indeed, recent surveys (eMarketer, 2017) indicate that 8 out of 10 small businesses and 99 per cent of large companies have social media pages, revealing the increasing acceptance and usage of social media by companies. This widespread use of social media means companies have low-cost access to customers (Wang, Greenword, & Pavlou, 2020). As a result, social media has become a significant commercial element in business-to-consumer markets and is increasingly relevant in business-to-business markets. This trend has opened grand opportunities for novel business models such as social commerce. Presently, social commerce, which is briefly defined as “a form of commerce that is mediated by social media and is converging both online and offline environments” (Wang & Zhang, 2012, p.2), is of global interest, especially in developing countries (DC). For example, in the first quarter of 2018, social commerce orders worldwide averaged $98.66 million, an increase of 200% over the previous year (Statista, 2018). These figures indicate that social commerce is gradually gaining traction, a trend likely to continue over the coming years. Indeed, the Global Social Commerce Market size is projected to reach $948.5 million by 2026 (Wood, 2021). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 2 In response, companies are holding active accounts on social media and conducting social commerce-based transactions (Hu, Dai, & Salam, 2019). Despite the tangible benefits of social commerce, many businesses have reservations about its potential to generate a sufficient return on investments (Li, Wang, & Zhang, 2020; Williams, 2021). Most of these companies cannot generate long-term revenues from their social commerce platforms. Consequently, some of these companies have resorted to viral marketing or advertising on social media sites to generate initial awareness of their products and encourage people to use them (Shareef, Mukerji, Dwivedi, Rana, & Islam, 2019). The possible effect is the potential negative impact on credibility, trustworthiness and lack of value (Chu, 2011; Pelling & White, 2009). Encouragingly, social commerce through co-creation activities such as resource integration can provide companies with consistent revenue sources and value and spill-over effects for other stakeholders (Yu, Tsai, Wang, Lai, & Tajvidi, 2020). These social commerce value co-creation activities reinforce relationships among stakeholders (suppliers, consumers, and service providers) if effectively managed. As a result, social commerce platforms may assist businesses in leveraging their services to give more value to their customers while also including them in value co-creation (Wang & Zhang, 2012) and allow firms to gain competitive advantage (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). This potential is a ripe area for future IS research. Already, it has attracted researchers’ attention focusing primarily on themes such as social commerce definitions and conceptual models (Busalim & Hussin, 2016; Menon, Sigurdsson, Larsen, Fagerstrøm, & Foxall, 2016; Zhang & Benyoucef, 2016), adoption (Erdoğmuş & Tatar, 2015; Farivar, Yuan, & Turel, 2016; Yahia, Al-Neama, & Kerbache, 2018), risk (Farivar, Turel, & Yuan, 2017), trust and trust performance (Cheng, Gu, & Shen, 2019), biases (Farivar, Yuan, & Turel, 2016) and factors University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3 that influence customer engagement (Busalim, Hussin, & Iahad, 2019; Wongkitrungrueng & Assarut, 2018). These studies though valuable, also highlight several knowledge gaps, three of which are addressed in this study. There is a proliferation of social commerce sites (Huang & Benyoucef, 2015). As more of these sites emerge, perhaps with various services and different business models, established firms are compelled to enter the area to reap the benefits. Such emerging technologies can disrupt existing business processes, hence the need to carefully align specific organisational goals and strategies. From the preceding, social commerce is very important. More importantly, it is forcing businesses to consider their options carefully. With this background as the backbone of this study, it has become necessary to explain the essential value outcomes of social commerce application. A prime unanswered question is: What are the actor’s resources used and roles during value co-creation within the social commerce ecosystem? 1.2 Research Problem Previous social commerce research has focused on themes such as definitions and conceptual models of the social commerce (Busalim & Hussin, 2016; Menon, Sigurdsson, Larsen, Fagerstrøm, & Foxall, 2016; Zhang & Benyoucef, 2016), adoption of (Erdoğmuş & Tatar, 2015; Farivar, Yuan, & Turel, 2016; Yahia, Al-Neama, & Kerbache, 2018), risk (Farivar, Turel, & Yuan, 2017), trust and trust performance (Cheng, Gu, & Shen, 2019), biases (Farivar, Yuan, & Turel, 2016) and customer engagement (Busalim, Hussin, & Iahad, 2019; Wongkitrungrueng & Assarut, 2018). These studies, while relevant, also raise a number of knowledge gaps, three of which are addressed in this study. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 4 First, existing reviews of social commerce research suggest either a skewed theorisation towards adoption or arguably a lack of theorisation in strategic issues in social commerce research (see Han, Xu, & Chen, 2018; Lin, Li, & Wang, 2017). On the one hand, the reviews reveal that theorisation in social commerce has been fixated on arguably non-strategic issues such as user behaviour and web design (see Baethge, Klier, & Klier, 2016; Wang & Zhang, 2012). On the other hand, other reviews call for future research into how social commerce creates value (Lin, Li, & Wang, 2017). Both types of review suggest the need to theorise the strategic issues concerning social commerce. Unfortunately, to date, research continues to theorise social commerce issues using approaches that do not explain the related strategic outcomes of using social commerce. The needed theorisation should explain the essential value outcomes of social commerce applications (Han et al., 2018) and cover all the levels that manifest within the social commerce ecosystem (Gomez-Morantes, Heeks, & Duncombe, 2021). Second, in explaining the general strategic outcomes of social commerce, and more specifically, the value outcomes, we need research that explains how actors interact to co-create value using social commerce. In other words, we cannot study the outcomes in isolation from the inputs that generate the value outcomes of social commerce. In the social commerce domain, these actors include the organisation, its customers, suppliers, and other relevant business partners. Furthermore, previous studies analyse social commerce as dyadic exchange encounters (Lu, Fan, & Zhou, 2016) in which one firm who is a supplier of service subsequently provides value to a “customer” (Mikalef, Pappas, & Giannakos, 2017a; Yu et al., 2020). These perspectives are consistent with previous assertions that value is created through social and socio-technical actors (Schüritz, Wixom, Farrell, & Satzger, 2019; Wilden et al., 2019). Hence, the organisation needs to manage the various actor roles in a balanced manner to achieve University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 5 strategic outcomes that also benefit the organisation and its partners. This reciprocity amongst actors emanates from exchanges between the different actors in the social commerce ecosystem and under diverse conditions (Frow et al., 2014). Unfortunately, no prior studies have attempted to examine how a balanced relationship between actors can be established (Priharsari, Abedin, & Mastio, 2020). Further, as social commerce is mainly technology- driven, future research should consider “technology as an actor with its own capabilities” (Priharsari et al., 2020, p.78) to contribute to a better understanding of technology’s role in value co-creation. Therefore, future research needs to explain the roles of various actors in the social commerce ecosystems in co-create value. Third, the interactions of both the social and technological actors in the social commerce ecosystem create an emergence of mechanisms that generate value outcomes. Unfortunately, existing studies have been inconclusive on the latent value creation mechanisms that emerge from the co-creative interactions among ecosystem actors. Thus, there is the need to theorise value co-creation mechanisms. In this regard, Lusch and Nambisan's (2015) question of how value co-creation occurs becomes germane, especially within the current social commerce domain. Future studies should thus seek to unearth the mechanisms that emerge from the co- creative actor roles in the social commerce ecosystem. Fourth, research on developing countries’ social commerce is gaining traction in management studies in general and in specific disciplines like strategy, information systems, and marketing (see George et al., 2012). More recent studies of social commerce in developing countries (Jack & Jackson, 2017; Lubua & Pretorius, 2019a; Schoemaker et al., 2022) have drawn attention to the use of social commerce as economic tools and fertile grounds for start-ups by young people because of its ability to create social relationships and maintain existing ones (Zhou, Faulkner, University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 6 Wu, & Disalvo, 2020). Hence, offering businesses the opportunities to collaborate with multiple stakeholders to co-create value. Developing countries refer to economies with low absolute, but fast growing gross national per capita income and with generally micro and small businesses (Boateng, 2016; Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2009). Developing countries have two distinct characteristics that distinguish them from developed countries. First of all, these countries are beset with severe resource constraints across board (Prahalad, 2012; Radjou et al., 2012). Finance, skilled labour, technology, water, and energy are all in short supply. A sizable percentage of their citizens are in the informal economy: they are unbanked, have poor, fluctuating incomes, and lack access to clean energy (electricity), excellent education, and healthcare (Ernst et al., 2015). Second, these economies are often deficient in infrastructure and institutions, such as well-functioning capital, labour, and technology markets and courts and efficient bureaucracies (Kahle et al., 2013). Because of these disparities, emerging-market innovations such as social commerce are frequently fundamentally different from those in established economies, which are more frugal, flexible, and inclusive (Radjou et al., 2012). Furthermore, innovators in emerging markets excel at cost-cutting and resource efficiency because of the scarcity of resources. In addition, innovators have to adapt and devise new solutions to meet changing circumstances rather than clinging to fixed, long-term plans. Finally, because many people live and work outside the formal economy, innovators must constantly consider how their ideas can be inclusive enough to reach such people. While we may have generally perceived service innovation as a phenomenon in developed economies and then spreads to developing ones, we believe that knowledge and insights about service innovation might also move the other way (Barrett, Davidson, Prabhu, & Vargo, 2015). Hence, future research needs to study how firms in emerging economies such as Ghana co-create value using innovations such as social commerce in their resource-poor contexts. This call resonates University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 7 with existing calls for research into technology platforms in the existing field of developing economies (Gomez-Morantes et al., 2021). In summary, this study identifies three knowledge gaps. The first gap is the need to explain the roles and interactions of social commerce ecosystem actors to co-create value (Priharsari et al., 2020, p. 780). The second gap concerns the need to unearth the value creation mechanisms that emerge from the value co-creating interactions between social commerce ecosystem actors (Lusch and Nambisan, 2015). Moreover, future research should unearth such mechanisms within resource-poor contexts (Barrett, Davidson, Prabhu, & Vargo, 2015). The third gap is the need to theorise the strategic issues in social commerce, such as the forms of value co- created in the social commerce ecosystem (Lin, Li, & Wang, 2017). These gaps underlie this study’s research propose to explain how value is co-created within the social commerce ecosystem of a developing country. 1.3 Research Purpose To address the knowledge gaps argued in the research problem, this study employs the Service- Dominant Logic (SDL) to explain the roles and resources of actors, the value co-creation mechanisms, and forms of value co-created within the social commerce ecosystem of a developing economy. These explanations aggregate into a framework that explains how value is co-created within the social commerce ecosystem. Hence the research purpose is as follows. To develop a framework that explains how value is co-created within Ghana’s social commerce ecosystem. To achieve this purpose, this thesis outlines the research objectives and their related gaps in the next section. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 8 1.4 Research Objectives Based on the research purpose, and more importantly, to address the research gaps identified, this study formulates three research objectives. a. To explain actors’ roles and resources during value co-creation within the social commerce ecosystem. b. To explain the value co-creation mechanisms within the social commerce ecosystem. c. To explain the forms of value co-created within the social commerce ecosystem The first research objective addresses the need to explain the roles and interactions of social commerce ecosystem actors to co-create value (Priharsari et al., 2020, p. 780). To achieve this research objective, this study draws on Service-Dominant logic to conceptualise a theoretical framework proffering explanations of how social commerce actors act and exchange resources within the ecosystem to co-create value for each other. The second research objective responds to the need to unearth the value creation mechanisms that emerge from the value co-creating interactions between social commerce ecosystem actors (Lusch and Nambisan, 2015), especially within resource-poor contexts (Barrett, Davidson, Prabhu, & Vargo, 2015). To achieve the second research objective, this study draws on the Service-Dominant logic, which posits three mechanisms, namely accessing, adapting, and integrating, generated during the interactions between ecosystems actors in general and, in this study, between social commerce actors. This pre-conceptualisation further guides the coding and analysis of case study data collected to empirically illustrate this study’s research framework. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 9 The third research objective responds to the need to theorise the strategic issues concerning social commerce. Specifically, this response seeks to explain co-created value, a strategic outcome of using social commerce. This focus on co-created value outcomes directly responds to the need for the theorisation of strategic social commerce issues, explaining the essential value outcomes of social commerce applications (Han et al., 2018). To achieve this research objective, this study draws on Grover et al.’s (2018) conceptualisation and categorisation of value into functional and symbolic value. This initial categorisation informs the proposed relationships in this study’s theoretical foundations and research framework in Chapter Three. It will be used to guide the coding and analysis of data to unearth the value co-created in the social commerce ecosystem. 1.5 Research Questions The ensuing research questions are related to the research objectives presented in Section 1.4. to achieve the first research objective, this study poses the first research question, which is: a. How do actors in Ghana’s social commerce ecosystem co-create value using their resources and roles? Similarly, to achieve the second research objective, this study poses the second research question, which is: b. How do the forms of co-created value emerge from the interactions among Ghana’s social commerce ecosystem actors? Finally, to achieve the third research objective, the third research question is posed as follows: c. What are the forms of value co-created within the social commerce ecosystem of Ghana? University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 10 1.6 Significance of the study This study has implications for research, policy, and practice. In terms of research, this study uses the concepts of Service-Dominant Logic to explain how actors in a social commerce ecosystem co-create value. This study proposes a framework for gaining additional insights to aid the understanding of value co-creation by social commerce platforms. The relevance of context-specific theorising in information systems has been highlighted as a critical endeavour in the field of IS (Hong, Chan, Thong, Chasalow, & Dhillon, 2014). With reference to Figure 7.1, this study identifies “affiliate role” as a new form of actor role in social commerce value co-creation activities distinct from ideator, designer, and intermediary roles documented in IS literature. Existing studies had previously focused on actor roles on a dyadic level, concerned with individual customers and their interactions with the firm (Lusch & Nambisan, 2015). Second, with reference to Figure 7.3, this study unearths three value co-creation mechanisms within the social commerce context which were identified at three levels: Monodic, dyadic, and triadic. Thus far, value co-creation mechanisms remained at one level. Furthermore, unearthing this value co-creating mechanisms contributes to the theorisation of the social commerce phenomenon, and completes the process component of the S-D dominant Logic. This significance cannot be overlooked as the study aims to contribute to the existing body of knowledge in the field of social commerce studies and respond to research gaps, given the sparsity of studies that employed the use of theories The significance of this research can be viewed from academic, practitioner and policy perspectives. In scholarship discourse, the development of social commerce research, like other fields of study, requires theorization and development of a conceptual framework. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 11 This study’s practice contribution lies in the identification of mechanisms and resources that will aid actor collaboration and integration during co-creation of value. The unregulated social media platforms enable transactional businesses without any effort to engage in repeat purchases. This research will also provide adequate findings for Governments as well as other regulatory bodies to formulate policies and laws to govern the use of the internet and also use that as a means of job creation. 1.7 Chapter Outline Chapter One is the introduction of the research. In this chapter, the background of the research, research problem, and research purpose, objectives of the study, research questions and the organization of the research. Chapter Two presents a review of relevant literature on cybercrime as well as defining key concepts. The gaps in existing research and gaps to be filled by this study is also highlighted in this section. Chapter Three discusses the theoretical foundation of the research as well as the justification for the choice of using the selected theory. The chapter also highlights the assumptions, revisions and criticisms of the theory theory/framework. Chapter four delineates the selected framework in relation to this study and how it addresses the research questions and objectives of the study. Chapter Five discusses the research methodological approach which highlights the research strategy, paradigm and research design. The instrument for data collection and method used as well as data processing and analysis are discussed in the chapter. Chapter six projects an overview of social commerce in Africa as well as present the findings of the selected cases for this study. Chapter seven deals with the analysis in order to unearth dominant themes arising from the findings in Chapter five as well as discussion of findings to answer the research questions posed in chapter one. Chapter eight discusses the summary of the research, University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 12 implications (and recommendations) to research, practice and policy and the future research directions. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 13 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Chapter Overview The previous chapter introduced the background, research problem, objectives, and significance of this research. This chapter begins by exploring the conceptualisation of social commerce and presenting a literature review on social commerce research. The chapter further provides an overview of value co-creation. It ends by indicating gaps that informed the selection of theory, development of the conceptual framework and knowledge contribution to this research. 2.2 Overview of Social Commerce Ecosystem Our understanding of social commerce as a phenomenon is scattered and limited and sometimes biased by particular views and perspectives (Wang & Zhang, 2012). Consequently, as a nascent phenomenon, social commerce presents scholars with opportunities to study and corroborate various issues to extend theoretical understanding. Social commerce is the use of the internet to exchange, compare, and share information about products and services in the online marketplace and communities (Zhou, Zhang, and Zimmermann, 2013). Further social commerce could be classified as a subset of e-commerce but with emphasis on the use of social media to facilitate online social interaction (Hajli, 2013; Laudon & Traver, 2016; Smith, Zhao, & Alexander, 2013). The foregoing social commerce conceptualisation, and other summarised in Table 2.1, resonate with Zhang and Benjamin's (2007) I-model for understanding the components of information systems, namely, people, technology, organisation and society, and information. Firstly, Zhang University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 14 and Benjamin (2007) posit that people are the principal force and reason for information creation, interaction, commerce and technological advancement. People include users and designers of a given technology. Secondly, organisation and society component of the I-model consists of policies, strategies, management, structures, and cultures. Thirdly, the technology component concerns hardware, software, infrastructure, platforms, and resources. Finally, the information component is concerned with content creation, search processing, dissemination and use. Within social commerce, first, people include vendors, customers, and members of online communities who engage in commercial exchanges with each via online social media platforms. Second, organisation and society concern the broader community to which these people belong. Some people e.g., vendor belong to institutions or firms and have vested interests within their geographical catchment areas. Third, technology in social commerce concerns the hardware (e.g., servers), software (e.g., programming languages, application programming interfaces, and web browsers) and networks (e.g., the Internet) that allow the capturing, processing, storing and distribution of data and information about commercial exchanges by people on social media. Fourth, information is a direct accompaniment of social commerce exchange activities. People’s orders, delivery address information, and billing information. Beyond the identification of these components, is a noteworthy explanation of how people, information, technology, organisation and society, form an ecosystem characterised by broader goal-oriented interactions. The essence of the ecosystem perspective is the inclusiveness of different actors in the creation of value and the convergence of different interests to pursue the well-being of both individuals and the overall system (Caridà, Colurcio, Spena, & University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 15 Kandampully, 2019; Pellicano, Troisi, Tuccillo, & Vesci, 2017). Therefore, social commerce ecosystem refers to a “relatively self-contained, self-adjusting system of resource-integrating actors connected by shared institutional logics and mutual value creation through service exchange” (Vargo & Akaka, 2012, p.207). The ecosystem perspective forms the bedrock of this study. Table 2. 1 Summary of Existing Definitions of Social Commerce No. Reference Definitions Suggested I-model Component 1 Curty & Zhang (2011) The activities by which consumers shop or intentionally explore shopping opportunities by participating and or engaging in a collaborative online support People, technology 2 Liang & Turban (2011) E-commerce activities and transactions delivered through social media environment, principally on social networks and by means of web 2.0 software. Organisation, society, technology 3 Kim (2013) Social commerce is a subset of e-commerce but uses social media and online media that allows social interaction and user generated content to enhance online purchase experience. Technology, information 7 Hajli (2013) A new stream in e-commerce, which encourages the social interaction of consumers through social media. People, technology 8 Yamakami (2014) A multi-user-based e-commerce that involves multiple people during an e-commerce transaction. People, technology 9 Shen & Chen (2017) Social commerce focuses on social media – supported commercial activities Technology 11 Stephen & Toubia (2008) Social commerce is a form of Internet-based “social media” that allows people to participate actively in the marketing and selling of products and services in online marketplaces and communities. Technology, people, organiation and society 13 Sturiale & Scuderi (2013) Social commerce is a special kind of e- commerce that allows the interaction between merchants and consumers in a social environment such as Facebook.. People, technology University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 16 No. Reference Definitions Suggested I-model Component 14 Smith, Zhao & Alexander (2013) S-commerce refers to the conduct of e- commerce activities using social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) to aid in encouraging online purchases Technology 15 Munawar, Head & Hassanein (2017) Social commerce platforms are e-commerce websites that add social tools to encourage social interactions and sharing People, organisation and society 16 Hajli, Sims, Zadeh & Richard (2017) Social commerce is a type of commerce that emerges from the combination of commercial and social activities, being facilitated by Web 2.0 technologies in order to facilitate customer interactivity and content generation People, technology 17 Laudon & Traver (2016) Social commerce is e-commerce that is enabled by social networks and online social relationships Technology, organisation Source: Author’s construct These conceptualisations of social commerce and the various components raise the need to explore the issues and conceptual approaches used to understand social commerce as an information systems phenomenon. In other words, there is a need to review existing literature to close over-researched areas, and open up new areas for future research. An essential activity of every academic research is the review of relevant literature on the topic (Sofiadin, 2014). A literature review is a procedure that results in knowledge building and expansion (Hui Han, Xu, & Chen, 2018). A literature review is also an effective means to identify gaps, current theoretical developments, potential applications for existing theory, and directions for future research (Eksioglu, Vural, & Reisman, 2009; Lin, Li, & Wang, 2017). The next section shows the methodology used for undertaking this review of social commerce research. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 17 2.3 Methodology for the Review An inclusion and exclusion criterion ensures that the articles picked are relevant to the study's objectives. Therefore, the keywords "social commerce, s-commerce" and "social commerce value co-creation" were given consideration. Thus, an article was included if, first, it was peer- reviewed (conference papers, doctorate and master thesis, textbooks, and magazine articles were excluded). Second, if it was written about social commerce, both empirically and conceptual papers were considered as long as they met the initial two conditions. Other related terms like social shopping, social e-commerce, social media commerce, collaborative shopping/ commerce and social media marketing were excluded. Table 2.2 below depicts the criteria for this review. Table 2. 2 Inclusion and exclusion criteria Inclusion criteria Exclusion Criteria Full text Incomplete studies Literature written in English Not English Publication between 2006 and 2018 Outside the selected period Scope of Social Commerce Duplicated literature Source: Author’s construct Further, articles included in this review should have been published between 2009 and 2019. This range afforded comparison of this review’s findings with those of existing social commerce reviews (see Table 2.4). Data collection was in two stages: the automatic and manual stages. The automatic stage of the review was to classify all primary studies on social commerce. By recommendations of Webster & Watson (2002), articles were obtained from several online academic databases including ScienceDirect, Emerald, EBSCOhost, Online Wiley, Taylor and Francis, and the Association of Information Systems (AIS) Electronic University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 18 Library. These databases for part of the top fifty information systems journals sources (Levy and Ellis, 2006). A total of 150 papers were identified and downloaded during the initial search of the electronic databases. These papers were saved into a folder and uploaded into Mendeley’s electronic citation management software. After screening the titles, abstracts and introductions of all the papers using the selection criteria, a total of 120 were found to have met the standard for selection and were used in the study. These papers were summarised according to dominant usage in the social commerce research section, dominant conceptual or theoretical framework and dominant methodological approaches to studying social commerce. Table 2. 3 Data extraction and Synthesis Extracted Data Criteria Year of publication the year of publishing the paper e.g., 2009 Source e.g., conference proceedings, Journals Research Theme Description of the study, e.g., user behaviour, adoption strategy Geographic sources Continents, countries of publications Data collection Method e.g., Survey, case study, observation etc. Methodology Quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods Source: Author’s Construct 2.4 Previous Social Commerce Reviews The search for previous social commerce academic research produced four prominent reviews as illustrated in Table 2.4. These reviews reveal that theorisation in social commerce has been fixated on non-strategic issues such as user behaviour and web design (see Baethge, Klier, & Klier, 2016; Wang & Zhang, 2012). Consequently, they call for future research into how social University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 19 commerce creates value (Lin, Li, & Wang, 2017), how social commerce actors co-create value, and the essential value co-creation mechanisms that characterise the social commerce ecosystem (Lusch & Nambisan, 2015; Lin, Li, & Wang, 2017)). These calls suggest the need to theorise the strategic issues concerning social commerce. The next section reviews peer- reviewed articles about social commerce with respect to their issues, conceptual approaches and methodologies to discover new areas where research is needed. Table 2. 4 Summary of Existing Social Commerce Reviews Number Review Title and Citation Publication Outlet Themes and Suggested Future Research Areas 1 The evolution of social commerce: the people, management, technology, and information dimensions (Wang & Zhang, 2012) Communications of the Association for Information Systems How can firms manage co-creating and crowdsourcing strategies to manage the huge amount of content and information in social commerce 2 Social commerce – state- of-the-art and future research directions (Baethge et al., 2016) Electronic Markets Research themes include user behaviour, website design, enterprise strategies, social process, adoption strategy, business model, security and privacy policy, network structure, and firm performance 3 Social commerce research: definition, research themes and the trends (Lin, Li, & Wang, 2017) International Journal of Information Management Three major themes in social commerce research include organisation, advertisement and word-of-mouth. How social commerce is managed to create generate value. 4 Social commerce: a systematic review and data synthesis (Han et al., 2018) Electronic Commerce Research and Applications What are the essential drivers in social commerce applications? How should companies successfully engage in social commerce? Which factors may be more critical for influencing for influencing different consumers’ activities in social commerce? Source: Author’s construct University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 20 2.5 Dominant Issues in Social Commerce Research The review classified social commerce into four major themes; Social, Management, Technology and Information. Each theme was further classified into sub-themes. Considering challenges associated with classifying schemes in literature because all aspects must be addressed (Senyo, Addae, & Boateng, 2018). Hence, this classification was primarily adopted from four studies with some revisions to represent changes in the literature (Baethge, Klier, & Klier, 2016; Liang & Turban, 2011; Senyo et al., 2018; Wang & Zhang, 2012). The social theme refers to users’ adoption space of studies concerning social commerce. The sub-themes on the social are adoption which refers intention to use or engage in commercial activities through the social media (Zhang, Lu, Gupta, & Zhao, 2014); motivational factors, which relate to what drives participation in the social commerce (Ko, 2018; Lin & Lu, 2011); cognitive and affective factors, cognition is the activity of knowing, this implies, the acquisition, organisation and use of knowledge. Furthermore, cognition encompasses both knowledge structures (organisation) and processes (acquisition and use) (Davern, Shaft, & Te’eni, 2012), while Affective, on the other hand, relates to moods, feelings, and attitudes (Chen, Lu, Wang, & Pan, 2019); and knowledge and expertise, which refers to papers that investigated the intellectual structure, development, and evolution of social commerce (Cui, Mou, & Liu, 2018). In total, 80 papers (67%) were based on adoption, 21 (18%) were based on motivation, 14 (12%) were based on cognitive and affective), and 5 (4%) were on knowledge and expertise. The social theme indicates the importance of the growing use of social media platforms that empowered users, and the related issues to the adoption and use of social commerce as a new form of e-commerce. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 21 The technology theme relates to infrastructure, platforms, applications, resources, and services. The sub-themes are infrastructure and platforms that refer to social networking sites such as social media and e-commerce sites (Featherman & Hajli, 2015; Hajli & Featherman, 2017); resources refer to resources needed for social commerce to function (Turban, Strauss, & Lai, 2016). In total, 100 papers (83%) were based. On infrastructure and platforms, and 20 (17%) were focused on resource-based. The technology illustrates the evolution of social commerce and its future potential. The management theme relates to structure, strategies, operation and cultures, processes and opportunities for vendors, customers, and other entities generally perceived to benefit from the social commerce (Wang & Zhang, 2012). There are three sub-themes: user behaviour, intention to use, and business strategies. User behaviour refers to various social and technical parameters that influence users’ roles in social commerce platforms (Angeletou, Rowe, & Alani, 2011; Preece, 2001). Intention to use refers to a customer’s intention to engage in online buying in the social commerce (Hajli, 2015). Business strategies refer to the comprehensive decisions, actions, or plans designed to achieve social commerce goals (Chandler, 1962). As exhibited in Table 2.5 we found 73 papers (61%) to be user behaviour, 35 (29%) to be Intention to use and 12 (10%) to be business strategies. To visualise the development of social commerce studies, the management theme describes the economic value implication of social commerce and the concern of users beyond their need for having fun. The Information theme inclines toward a social purpose with a lifecycle that includes the acquisition or creation, processing, dissemination, and use, emphasising the user-generated content (Wang & Zhang, 2012). The sub-themes include literature reviews and general issues, i.e., articles that do not subscribe to any specific but aim to give a general overview, trends, University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 22 and convergent content strategy- this includes different social networks in various social media. In light of our review, ten papers (8%) were related to Literature Review, 78 (65%) were related to general issues, 14(12%) were related to trends, and 18 (15%) were related to convergent content strategies. Table 2. 5 Dominant Issues in Social Commerce studies Themes Sub-Them Number of Papers Percentage (%) Social Adoption 80 67 Motivational factors 21 18 Cognitive and Affective factors 14 12 Knowledge and Expertise 5 4 Total 120 100 Management User Behaviour 73 61 Intention to use 35 29 Business strategies 12 10 Total 120 100 Technology Infrastructure and Platforms 100 83 Resources 20 17 Total 120 100 Information Literature Review 10 8 General Issues 78 65 Trends 14 12 Convergent Content Strategies 18 15 Total 120 100 Source: Author’s construct 2.6 Dominant Conceptual Approaches in Social Commerce Research Our analysis of the selected papers reveals that various theories, frameworks, models, and concepts have been used in extant research. A proportion of studies used more than one theory, framework or model; others did not state any identifiable theory, framework, model or concept. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 23 This section discusses the dominant theories/conceptual frameworks used in various social commerce research themes. The knowledge contributed by these frameworks is evaluated, and gaps for future research are identified. The Uses and Gratifications theory ( see Osatuyi & Qin, 2018) was a theory employed to study context-specific gratification social commerce users’ post-adoption behaviours, including continuance intentions and addictive use. Frameworks included the four-component by Wang and Zhang (2012), used to analyse the various stages of social commerce evolution since 2005. This four-component framework was the basis of an integrated view (see Zhou et al. (2013)) that sought to help understand the development of social commerce research and practice. Several studies used more than one theory, framework, or model. For example, Farivar, Turel, and Yuan (2018) used the prospect theory and social identity theory to examine the factors that may demotivate or deter the use of social commerce, and examine potential biases in decision- making in social commerce. In another study, Han and Trimi (2017) combined Liang and Turban's (2011) six perspectives of social commerce research, Wang and Zhang (2012)’s four- component framework and Zhou et al. (2013)’s integrated view to propose a comprehensive framework as a guide to the design and evaluation of social commerce. The study particularly, examined how academics and practitioners could design social commerce and assess its performance. Some studies preferably used models which are less theoretically inspired frameworks instead of theories or theoretical frameworks. For example (Erdoğmuş & Tatar, 2015) used the stimulus-organism- response Model (S-O-R Model) to develop a model explaining how social commerce stimuli affect consumer’s cognition, affection and engagement with brands, and ultimately lead to brand trust and purchase intention on social media. It is worth bearing in University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 24 mind that other studies sought to conceptualise new models useful in studying social commerce. The first one found in this category is the social commerce adoption model which be useful in investigating the relationships of customers on the Internet and social platforms and customer behaviour (Hajli, 2012). The second one is stages Model which was proposed to help detail the stages in social commerce and to help understand social commerce (Rad & Benyoucef, 2010). Other studies used no framework. For example, Saundage and Lee (2011) summarized the activities of social commerce and suggesting a taxonomy of social commerce strategies. Huang and Benyoucef (2013) also proposed new model and a set of principles to guide social design. It is quite instructive that most of the theories used in social commerce studies are socially related thus stressing the importance of the social character of social commerce relating to people and the outcomes of their decisions on purchases. Additionally, behavioural and Technology Adoption Frameworks such as Technology Adoption Model (TAM), Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), and Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) were the dominant theories used in some of the studies. These studies aim to explain the relationship between social commerce users’ attitude and behaviours. Consequently, we argue that many of the studies done in social commerce do not use theories on co-creation. Therefore, is little or no theories in this regard. We posit that there is a need for more theorisation in social commerce value co-creation. Table 2.6 shows the use of theories, frameworks, concepts, and models used in existing research. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 25 Table 2. 6 Dominant Research Frameworks, Models, Theories and Concepts Used Research Framework No. of papers Percentage (%) Conceptual 8 7 No Framework 10 8 Social Support Theory 4 3 Social Capital Theory 8 7 Uses and Gratification Theory 7 6 S-O-R Model 8 7 Theory of Planned Behaviour 15 13 Technology Acceptance Model 21 18 Social Exchange Theory 12 10 Observational Theory 3 3 Social Network Theory 12 10 Signalling Theory 6 5 New models 6 5 Total 120 100 Source: Author’s construct 2.7 Dominant Methodological Approaches to Studying Social Commerce This section of the review presents the dominant methodologies used in studying social commerce. It is worth noting that the reviewed papers employed known methodologies including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. 33 papers used a qualitative approach, 10 papers used a mixed method approach, 8 papers used no methodology, 4 papers used Design science while 65 used a quantitative approach. A number of papers adopted a quantitative approach. For example, Mikalef, Giannakos, and Pappas (2017) who built on a theoretical framework to elucidate how user intention to purchase and to spread word-of-mouth (WOM) are influenced by characteristics present on social commerce platforms. Another study who University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 26 used a quantitative approach is by Lu, Fan, and Zhou, (2016) who drew on the social presence theory to theorises the nature of social aspect in online SC marketplace. Studies that adopted a design approach include those of Wu, Xu, Mo, and Liao (2015), who studied the factors of social commerce design with application environment and human capabilities. Another example is Friedrich, Overhage, Schlauderer, and Eggs (2015) who proposed a new method to support the selection of multiple complementary social commerce technologies. Some studies employed a qualitative approach including Cuomo, Mazzucchelli, Chierici, and Ceruti (2020) who investigated the growth of social commerce and the rapid adoption of online communities, and Yu, Tsai, Wang, Lai, and Tajvidi, (2018) whose study proposes a value co- creation circle and explores the key factors for developing a successful value co-creation circle. The study also explores a new perspective of the value co-creation circle in the social commerce environment that allows practitioners to develop a value circulation network externality and value co-creation with customers. It is worth noting that there was a lack of qualitative studies. One reason for this may be due to the nature of the phenomenon where access to users may be limited. Other studies did not employ any identifiable methodology. For example, Zhou et al. (2013) proposed a research framework for social commerce with an integrated view that is made up of four components: business, technology, people, and information. The frameworks help in understanding the development of social commerce research and report on the preliminary findings from a bibliometric study of academic and industry publications to reveal current trends and research topics. Another study with no identifiable methodology is by Hassan and Toland (2013) who investigated the nature of value creation and co-creation practices in consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and the role of ICT. The study’s framework concentrates on four University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 27 main elements in co-creation of value; the role of ICT, relationships, actors, and the types of values A probable cause for why these studies are not underpin by research methodology could be that the studies are still conceptual and are only providing insights. Finally, studies which adopted a mixed-method approach (see Wang & Yu, 2017) conceptualized social interactions in social commerce environment in two forms; Word of Mouth (WOM) communication and observing other consumers’ purchases, and examined their impact on consumer purchase intention and actual behaviour. 2.8 Research Gaps and Future Research Priorities The previous section provided evidence of research issues, conceptual approaches and methodologies used in extant social commerce research. This section thus discusses the available evidence in the context of emerging phenomena about social commerce to propose new research areas and theorisation efforts. The proposed gaps relate to two main themes - the adoption of social commerce and the design of social commerce platforms. 2.8.1 Adoption of Social Commerce There are several studies about consumer intentions, adoption and use of the social commerce (Huang & Benyoucef, 2017; Ko, 2017; Shen et al., 2017). Though these studies are insightful, current phenomena also demand future research to take a new direction. At variance with the fundamental assumptions of these studies that the adoption and use of social commerce are because of personal features and quality of technology could be inaccurate as new adoption factors emerge from other disciples, e.g. service economy (Lai & Luo, 2019). Besides a study of such new factors are along the paths of renowned technology adoption researchers such as Bagozzi (2007), Venkatesh, Davis, and Morris (2007), and Venkatesh, Thong, and Xu (2016), who have called for alternative theoretical exogenous, endogenous, moderating and outcome University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 28 mechanisms in information technology adoption research. Future research questions on this topic include the following: i. How do users leverage social commerce as a service economy in developing countries? ii. How and why do organisations adopt social commerce? 2.8.2 Development of Social Commerce Existing research about social commerce design appears to conform to traditional information systems development. For example, studies such as Lin, Luo, Cheng, & Li (2019), Tang & Zhang (2018), and Wang, Lin, & Spencer (2019) focus on individual organisations as units of analysis, abandoning the larger ecosystems in which these organisations operate. Further, these studies focus on the characteristics of social commerce facilitated by Web 2.0 without considering other entities outside Web 2.0. As posited by Wang and Zhang (2012), the concept of social commerce is broad. It can include activities such as the exchange of ideas, opinions, services, or commodities and pre-, during, and post-transaction activities. It can consist of both online and offline activities. A narrow view of social commerce is problematic, especially in the context described by Wang and Zhang (2012). Moreover, the concept of service ecosystem and value co-creation (Vargo & Lusch, 2008b) are emerging concepts in IS (Parker, Alstyne, & Jiang, 2017) that challenge existing IS paradigms (Kautz, 2021). In this regard, there is the need for future studies to explore how social commerce transcends organisational boundaries and emphasise concepts such as ecosystems. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 29 Specific future research questions on this theme may include i. What are the affordances and constraints of social commerce ecosystem that contribute to value creation? ii. How does social commerce ecosystem disrupt traditional markets? 2.8.3 Actor Roles in Value Co-creation in Social Commerce The preceding evidence also suggests that we need research that explains how actors interact to co-create value using social commerce. In other words, we cannot study the outcomes in isolation from the inputs that generate the value outcomes of social commerce. In the social commerce domain, these actors include the organisation, its customers, suppliers and other relevant business partners. Furthermore, previous studies analyse social commerce as dyadic exchange encounters (Lu et al., 2016). On the one hand, this set of multiple actors requires a configuration of value co-creation actions. On the other hand, actors participate in the value co-creating process (Ceccagnoli, Forman, Huang, & Wu, 2012; Smedlund, 2012). This expectation is consistent with previous assertions that value is created through interactions of both social and socio-technical actors of information systems developments and digital platforms (Schüritz, Wixom, Farrell, & Satzger, 2019; Wilden et al., 2019). The social actor offers significant insights into how human behaviour influences service provision and resource integration. Simultaneously, the socio- technical actor provides insights into the nature of interaction within the service ecosystem. Hence, the organisation needs to manage the various actor roles in a balanced manner in order to achieve strategic outcomes that also benefit the organisation and its partners. This reciprocity amongst actors emanates from exchanges between the different actors in the social commerce ecosystem and under diverse conditions (Frow et al., 2014). Unfortunately, no prior studies University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 30 have attempted to examine how a balanced relationship between actors can be established (Priharsari et al., 2020, p. 780). Further, as social commerce is mainly technology-driven, future research should “consider technology as an actor with its own capabilities” (Priharsari, Abedin, & Mastio, 2020) to better understand technology’s role in value co-creation. Therefore, future research needs to explain the roles of various actors in the social commerce ecosystems in co-create value. 2.8.4 Value Co-creation Mechanisms in Social Commerce The interactions of both the social and technological actors in the social commerce ecosystem create an emergence of mechanisms that generate value outcomes. Unfortunately, existing studies have been inconclusive on the latent value creation mechanisms that emerge from the co-creative interactions among ecosystem actors. Thus, there is the need to theorise value creation mechanisms. In this regard, Lusch and Nambisan (2015)’s question of how value co- creation occurs becomes germane, especially within the current social commerce domain. Future studies should thus seek to unearth the mechanisms that emerge from the co-creative actor roles in the social commerce ecosystem. 2.9 Chapter Summary This chapter has given an overview of social commerce and its components and outlined the various definitions to conceptualise it correctly for this doctoral research. The chapter continued by undertaking a review of literature on extant social commerce research to facilitate the advancement of knowledge, reveal new research areas, and explain value co-creation. Based on the review presented in the chapter, the dominant research issues, theoretical approaches, and research methodologies were uncovered. Concerning research issues, four themes were found – social, technology, management, and information. Further, some research University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 31 gaps and questions that came to mind were discussed. This study thus selects three gaps to offer empirical and theoretical responses. In summary, this study identifies three knowledge gaps. The first gap is the need to explain the roles and interactions of social commerce ecosystem actors to co-create value (Priharsari et al., 2020, p. 780). The second gap concerns the need to unearth the value creation mechanisms that emerge from the value co-creating interactions between social commerce ecosystem actors (Lusch and Nambisan, 2015). Moreover, there is a need for future research to unearth such mechanisms within resource-poor contexts (Barrett, Davidson, Prabhu, & Vargo, 2015). The third gap is the need to theorise the strategic issues in social commerce such as the forms of value co-created in the social commerce ecosystem (Lin, Li, & Wang, 2017). These gaps underlie this study’s research propose to explain how value is co-created within the social commerce ecosystem of a developing country. The next chapter presents the theoretical foundations of this doctoral study and also formulates a research framework. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 32 CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS AND RESEARCH FRAMEWORK 3.1 Chapter Overview The previous section revealed a number of research gaps. That being said, it is important that research efforts to fill these gaps must be guided by theoretical foundations that motivate the organisation of the social commerce ecosystem, the venue for the service exchange, the very process of the value co-creation, also explain the mechanisms and how digital technologies shape the process. This chapter, therefore, begins with a discussion of the inadequacies of previous theoretical approaches used in social commerce value co-creation, to justify the need for a new framework that explains the value co-creation in a social commerce ecosystem. The study draws on the S-D Logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2004) to develop a framework that explains how value is co-created within Ghana’s social commerce ecosystem. 3.2 Overview of Value Co-Creation Value co-creation is a participative process between multiple actors integrating their resources (Mikalef, Pappas, & Giannakos, 2017b; Diah Priharsari, Abedin, & Mastio, 2020). In S-D logic, all actors are both service beneficiaries and value proposers (Kjellberg, Nenonen, & Thome, 2018). As a result, service exchange is viewed as an actor-to-actor exchange (Vargo & Lusch, 2011). Consequently, Wieland, Koskela-Huotari, and Vargo (2016) assert that all social and economic actors are primarily engaged in the same activity: integrating resources to co-create value. This conception of actors implies they do not have pre-fixed roles such as sellers or customers (Vargo & Lusch, 2011b). This actor conceptualisation creates opportunity for a diverse group of actors including inanimate objects such as service platforms (Storbacka, Brodie, Böhmann, Maglio, & Nenonen, 2016). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 33 The central premise of S-D Logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2016) is that value co-creation takes place when actors integrate their resources and exchange services, which is enabled and constrained by shared institutions among multiple actors (Corsaro & Mattsson, 2019). The role of institutions and institutional arrangements in S-D logic seeks to provide insights into the mechanisms of coordination, collaboration, and cooperation among actors involved in value co-creation processes in a service ecosystems (Vargo & Lusch, 2016). Vargo & Lusch (2016) observes that as a result of this a dynamic, nested, and overlapping service ecosystems emerge, providing the context for further value co-creation. The process of value co-creation is coordinated through institutions - not referring to organisations, but to actor-generated rules, norms or regulations (Vargo & Lusch, 2016). These institutional arrangements enable resource integration. Resource integration and reciprocal service exchange cocreate value, always experienced uniquely and determined by the beneficiary (Vargo & Lusch, 2008). In other words, when the service ecosystem is adopted as the unit of analysis, all actors are both providers and beneficiaries. 3.3 Theoretical Review of Value Co-Creation in Information Systems Existing research provides a myriad of approaches to value co-creation. In an attempt to determine the essence of the concept with some degree of certainty, these approaches embrace diverse characteristics, while others are implied (Saarijärvi, Kannan, & Kuusela, 2013). The pluralism of contributions has led to the complexity of definitions, perceptions, and conceptualisation of the concept. A general characteristic of most current approaches to value co-creation is the shift towards a broader perspective on value creation. Conventionally, there is a prevalence of goods-dominant logic or product orientation approaches (Vargo & Lusch, University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 34 2004a, 2016). However, Normann and Ramirez (1993) had espoused the shortfalls of the existing marketing theory to explain value creation. They intimated that “traditional thinking about value is grounded in the assumptions and the models of an industrial economy” and defined by the view that marketing is a value-adding activity as espoused by Porter (1985). Hence, they postulated that value should be considered with respect to the value-creating system itself, where different actors (suppliers, partners, and customers) work together to co- create value (see Chapter 2.6 for the definition of value co-creation). Value co-creation has become a promising theoretical direction for the IS discipline (see Kohler, Fueller, Matzler, & Stieger, 2011; Nambisan & Nambisan, 2008) because of the increasing interest in value facilitating properties of digital technologies and infrastructures (Autio & Thomas, 2019). In IS research value co-creation is defined by the processes and activities that underlie resource integration and incorporate different actor roles in the service ecosystem. Current IS research provides a multitude of approaches to value co-creation. While these studies have predominantly focused on the effect of information technology (IT) on value co-creation (Schreieck, Wiesche, & Krcmar, 2017), they have also highlighted the various characteristics fundamental to understanding an immensely varied yet cohering domain (Zwass, 2010). These theoretical approaches inform the measurement of co-created value. From Table 3.1, three themes are common to various studies of value cocreation in IS research; customer experience and competence, S-D Logic, and service innovation. University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 35 Table 3. 1 Summary of Theoretical Approaches in Existing Value Co-Creation Research Focus Context/ Technology Perspe