Citizen patronage behavior of government social media services

Abstract

From the government’s position in which communication and relationships with its citizens are crucial, as social media grows in popularity, questions regarding how it is being used to communicate with citizens become important. Thus, governments should effectively utilize social media while considering the significant diversity of characteristics and risks that are inherent in social media, alongside reflecting on the potential for practical use as a channel for government service provision and communication. In particular, understanding a citizen’s perceived value of a government service through social media and social media’s media synchronicity under the characteristics of government services could provide significant insights into the government’s social media use. Also, it is meaningful to understand how attractiveness in e-government, which is the primary communication channel for G2C, affects citizen satisfaction of the government service provided with social media. We investigated the role of social media as a communication channel for enhancing citizen patronage behavior in government social media services and the effect of social media on their satisfaction depending on the perceived value using a structural equation. This study emphasizes the importance of appropriate understanding of the media characteristics of social media in order to increase citizen satisfaction with government social media services.

Keywords

social media G2C government-to-citizen interactions patronage behavior media synchronicity communication

Social media such as Facebook could be an important communication channel to complement web-based e-government systems.

Introduction

From the perspective of government-to-citizen (G2C) interactions, the rise and spread of mobile devices and social media have enabled real-time communication and interactions regardless of traditional space-time constraints, and there has been a remarkably improved speed of public opinion formulation. Social media is expected to generate the effect of direct service through increasing communication efficacy using direct relationships and communication between citizens and their government (Alikilic and Atabek, 2012). In addition, government social media has merits of depth and breadth of communication (Agostino, 2013) as well as being able to create, maintain, and strengthen the relationship with citizens in more straightforward, economic, and effective ways when compared with the existing communication channels. Thus, it is not surprising that social media has been garnering significant attention as a medium for next generation communications. From the government’s position in which communication and relationships with its citizens are crucial, as social media grows in popularity, questions regarding how it is being used to communicate with citizens become important (Kim et al., 2013).

Therefore, governments should effectively utilize social media while considering the significant diversity of characteristics and risks that are inherent in social media, alongside reflecting on the potential for practical use as a channel for government service provision and communication. In particular, understanding a citizen’s perceived value of a government service through social media and social media’s synchronicity under the characteristics of government services could provide significant insights into the government’s social media use. Furthermore, for the purpose of efficient and effective use of social media, it is meaningful to understand how attractiveness in e-government, which is the primary communication channel for G2C, affects citizen satisfaction with the government service provided with social media. Similarly, using various perspectives leads to citizen patronage behavior, and this promotes citizen participation. However, very few studies have considered this relationship from the G2C perspective. In an attempt to fill this research gap, this paper uses the structural equation model to empirically demonstrate the relationship between the perceived value (utilitarian, hedonic, and social values) with the attractiveness of e-government and citizen satisfaction with government’s use of social media. Moreover, given that the perceived value is logically linked to satisfaction, the moderating role of media synchronicity and a new concept of satisfaction of patronage intention will be investigated.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the research model and related hypotheses. The details of the research methodology including the measurement item development and analytical processes are introduced in Section 3. The proposed model and hypotheses are analyzed through a survey in Section 4. Both practical and theoretical implications and considerations of the results are described in Section 5. Finally, in Section 6, the results of this study are summarized and future research directions are presented.

Research model and hypothesis development

The conceptual model is presented in Figure 1. A comprehensive framework is proposed in order to examine the influence of perceived value on citizen satisfaction with the moderating effect of media synchronicity and patronage intention toward government social media services. Perceived value is composed of three value components: hedonic, utilitarian, and social values. In addition, the proposed framework also positions the effect of e-government as an alternative government social media for G2C communications in citizen satisfaction.

Figure 1.

Conceptual framework.

Perceived value

According to Holbrook (1999), customer perceived value provides the foundation for all marketing activity because they determine their choice behavior based on perceived value. User acceptance of new technologies and services, which are cognitive decisions made by individuals for specific information systems, can be explained using perceived value because this process is similar to customer’s decision making about products and services (Turel et al., 2007). Thus, perceived value is important when understanding user and customer behaviors, particularly when considering new technologies and services (Yu et al., 2013). However, perceived value is difficult to conceptualize and measure because it stems from the nature of value, which is an abstract concept with different meanings while also being multifaceted and complex (Holbrook, 2006; Sanchez et al., 2006). This study uses the term perceived value to describe users’ or citizens’ value perceptions, because this term is synonymous with that of customer value from a marketing research perspective.

Many studies have analyzed perceived value as a multi-dimensional construct in order to better understand user’s value perception. Teke et al. (2010) indicated that perceived value is composed of three dimensions of functional, emotional, and social values. Furthermore, Smith and Colgate (2007) built a customer value framework that identified four major types of value: functional/instrumental value, experiential/hedonic value, symbolic/expressive value, and cost/sacrifice value. Furthermore, Sweeney and Soutar (2001) proposed that multiple value dimensions, which consist of emotional, social, quality/performance, and price/value for money, could explain customer choice better from qualitative and quantitative perspectives. In summary, most prior studies have emphasized two underlying dimensions of perceived value: utilitarian value (functional or economic) and hedonic value (affective or emotional). From the perspective of IT adoption, individuals adopt new IT technologies and services because they perceive the value of obtaining the utility it brings and they gain enjoyment from it (Lin and Lu, 2011). As the importance of social value is being increasingly emphasized in society, social value is sometimes addressed as a dimension of perceived value (Lu and Hsiao, 2010). In this study, perceived value is defined as a multidimensional construct that consists of hedonic, utilitarian, and social values through reflecting the service characteristics of government social media. A selection of studies on perceived value with multi-dimensional constructs over diverse contexts is presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Multidimensional approach to perceived value.

Author	Research context	Dimension
Author	Research context	Utilitarian value (Functional value)	Hedonic value (Emotional value)	Social value
Sheth et al. (1991)	Product purchase behavior	O	O	O
Sanchez et al. (2006)	Tourism product	O	O	O
Teke et al. (2010)	Hospital services	O	O	O
Babin et al. (1994)	Customer’s shopping behavior	O	O
Sweeney & Soutar (2001)	Consumer durable goods	O	O	O
Pura (2005)	Location based service (LBS)		O	O
Smith & Colgate (2007)	Customer value framework	O	O
Kim & Han (2009)	Mobile data service	O	O	O
Turel et al. (2007)	Wireless device message service	O	O	O
Yu et al. (2013)	Social media service based LBS	O	O	O
Ha & Park (2013)	New device adoption	O	O

Perceived value is regarded as a cognitive concept that may influence psychological outcomes such as satisfaction (Yu et al., 2013). Ng and Kwahk (2010) demonstrated that perceived value influenced user satisfaction for continuance intention to use mobile Internet services. Furthermore, consumer behavior and information system (IS) research have examined perceived value as an antecedent to satisfaction (Kuo et al., 2009).

Utilitarian value

The term utilitarian value implies the instrumental, functional, and practical aspects of consumption offerings (Chitturi et al., 2008). It is related to the efficient, task-specific, and economic aspects of products and services, and it comes from instrumental and functional benefits (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982). According to Ha and Jang (2010), utilitarian value incorporates the cognitive aspects of attitude including the economic value and judgments of convenience and time savings. Utilitarian value increases when a task is completed more efficiently and effortlessly (Griffin et al., 2000). Also, convenience and task fulfillment are significant enticements that improve utilitarian value (Pura, 2005).

Social media technologies have already achieved an important role among the various means of communication between governments and their citizens, and these technologies are poised to continue to gain greater prominence as a mechanism for acquiring and disseminating government information and services. Social media has the potential to simultaneously make governments more accessible, available, and relevant to citizens while offering citizens more opportunities to become actively engaged and involved in the government (Kim et al., 2013). In government, social media is used to improve access to information, citizen communication, citizen outreach, and government transparency. Government social media services also have functions that are challenged by traditional social media tools, such as ‘need to know’ information sharing (Dawes et al., 2009) and increasing the degree of participation of all stakeholders in the process of creating, maintaining, sourcing, and sharing knowledge. Furthermore, government agencies are increasingly using social media to connect with those that they serve (Kim et al., 2013). These connections have the potential to extend government services, solicit new ideas, and improve decision-making and problem solving (Bertot et al., 2012). According to McDermott (2010), the advent of social media has changed citizen expectations about how government work should be undertaken and it has opened unprecedented possibilities in government work. Thus, we hypothesize that:

H1: The utilitarian value of government social media will positively affect satisfaction with the service provided by government social media.

Hedonic value

Hedonic value is an individual emotional and affective response that relates to consumers’ subjective experiences of fun and playfulness (Babin et al., 1994). In the overall value of service contexts, emotion is important (Turel et al., 2007) and hedonic value can be derived from interactions with the technology (Sherman et al., 1997). Perceived enjoyment is an intrinsic motivation for adopting IT devices and services (Bhattacherjee, 2001), and it is the extent to which the activity of using a specific IT device or service is perceived to be enjoyable in its own right (Venkatesh, 2000). Users that gain higher hedonic value through an enjoyable experience are more motivated to share their experiences with others and encourage others to use the service (Babin et al., 2005).

Government social media services provide hedonic value through repeated and continuous interactions based on reciprocity and characteristic similarity. Hedonic value is shaped by the experience of continuous exchanging relationships and repeated compliance with expectations; the core concept of hedonic value is mutual reciprocity (Khodyakov, 2007). Reciprocity is a significant factor in constructing trust between the government and its citizens, which stems from the recognition that the government is responsive and accessible (Tolbert and Morssberger, 2006), and government services using social media positively affect reciprocity (Khodyakov, 2007). Citizens perceive the government to be responsive and accessible through improved communication and interactions with them. Furthermore, perceived characteristic similarity among government and its citizen involved in the communication and interactions is beneficial for increasing hedonic value. In particular, the properties of government social media services, which are the environments that enable customized service, openness, and bilateral communication, contribute to increasing citizens’ perceived characteristic matches with social media services. A notable example of a government communication method that uses social media is the online spokesperson system where government departments employ a person who is attractive or familiar to the public, such as a chief official in the organization or a famous announcer, and these well recognized people become spokespersons for the government department. Thus, we hypothesize that:

H2: The hedonic value of government social media will positively affect satisfaction with the service provided by government social media.

Social value

Social value is defined as the utility derived from the service’s ability to enhance social self-concept (Sweeney and Soutar, 2001); thus, social value captures self-concept enhancement, which is a non-instrumental driver for product or service adoption. Individuals enhance their self-concept if they use a product or service perceived as trendy and innovative, which can signal that the user belongs to a particular social group. Such social influence is represented as a subjective norm in the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975); a subjective norm refers to a person’s perception that most people who are important to them think they should or should not perform the behavior in question (Thompson et al., 1991). Social image, which is derived from the Innovation Diffusion Theory (Rogers, 1995), is the extent to which users may derive respect and admiration from peers in their social network as a result of their information technology (IT) use (Lin and Bhattacherjee, 2010). Social image places emphasis on an image being demonstrated to others, whereas social influence considers others’ opinions as important.

Government social media is increasingly being regarded as an effective tool to activate citizen participation in policy making processes because social media’s properties that enable information sharing and non-discriminative participation facilitate communication and online relationships between government agencies and citizens (Aharony, 2012). It is also expected that social media can be an alternative media to increase the possibility of direct democracy under contemporary representative political systems (Bonson et al., 2012) because social media has fundamental properties of openness, speed, and bilateralism, which can enable a “cyber space” that is equal for all. As a result of such phenomena and characteristics of government social media, citizens may have pressure from others to participate in government social media services. Thus, we hypothesize that:

H3: The social value of government social media will positively affect satisfaction with the service provided by government social media.

Media synchronicity as a moderator

Media researchers have long sought to determine which media best facilitate different types of communication (Kahai and Cooper, 2003). Two theories have been widely used to explain the differences in preferences for communication media: social presence theory (SPT) and media richness theory (MRT; Carlson and Davis, 1998). Both theories argue that a fit between the perceived requirements of a task and the perceived characteristics of the media influences the media choice (Yoo and Alavi, 2001). Daft et al. (1987) argued that the communication medium should fit the requirements of the message being sent, and they developed the concept of media richness in order to classify media according to their ability to facilitate understanding. A more recent theory that explores media differences and media selection is the media synchronicity theory (Dennis et al., 2008). Media synchronicity theory (MST) argues that communication effectiveness is dependent on the fit between the information transmission capabilities of the media and the information transmission needs of the communication event, as well as the fit between the information processing capabilities of the media and the information processing needs of the communication event (Furner and George, 2012).

With regard to media capabilities, the MST implies that information communication technologies (ICTs) should fit two fundamental communication processes: a conveyance process that leads to individual understanding and a convergence process that leads to common understanding. According to the MST, high synchronicity media is appropriate for convergence processes, while low synchronicity media is suitable for conveyance processes (Dennis et al., 2008). Because convergence processes focus on shared understanding, people need to work together or synchronize for the convergence processes (Ryoo and Koo, 2010). Thus, users will only need high synchronicity media in order to improve the convergence processes. Individuals who use primarily high synchronous media are more likely to be motivated to use ICTs than those who do not use such media, because media synchronicity simplifies the process of gaining information that they need to manage (Dennis et al., 2008; Ryoo and Koo, 2010). Furthermore, high synchronicity media users are more inclined to use ICTs to enhance their social relationships in order to increase the possibilities of gaining more information in an appropriate time (Ryoo and Koo, 2010). Thus, the MST argues that synchronous ICT increases user motivation to participate in the communication channel (Dennis et al., 2008).

In government, social media has been used to improve access to information, citizen communication, citizen outreach, and government transparency (Kim et al., 2013). Social media also has functions that are challenged by traditional media tools, e.g. “need to know” information sharing (Dawes et al., 2009) and increasing the degree of participation of all stakeholders in the process of creating, maintaining, sourcing, and sharing knowledge. Furthermore, social media can facilitate direct communication between politicians and citizens (Kim et al., 2013). The resulting partially informal emerging interactions between the government and its citizens can create opportunities for increased transparency, accountability, participation, and collaboration (Orszag, 2009).

In this regard, assuming that high media synchronicity, which is an attribute of social media, fits well with the characteristics of services provided by the government social media for its citizens and enables smooth G2C communication and service provision, the relationship between the citizens’ perceived value and their satisfaction with the government social media could be improved. Thus, we hypothesize that:

H4a: Media synchronicity will positively moderate the relationship between citizens’ perceived utilitarian value of government social media and their satisfaction.

H4b: Media synchronicity will positively moderate the relationship between citizens’ perceived hedonic value of government social media and their satisfaction.

H4c: Media synchronicity will positively moderate the relationship between citizens’ perceived social value of government social media and their satisfaction.

Alternative attractiveness

Switching barriers refers to the difficulty in switching from an old to a new service or system (Jones et al., 2000). According to the switching barrier theory (SBT), the reason customers who are not satisfied with an existing situation repeat former choice behaviors and maintain the status quo is that they perceive high switching costs. A significant factor in switching costs is “alternative attractiveness”, which is conceptualized as the client’s estimate of the likely satisfaction available from an alternative relationship (Ping, 1993). If consumers perceive that there is a lack of an attractive alternative, they are most likely to retain the existing relationship (Jones et al., 2000; Lemon et al., 2002). In the process of technology development, the adoption of a new system or service implies that individuals will eventually switch from the old to the new system. In order to explain these issues, the field of technology marketing research focuses on the switching barrier theory (Yim et al., 2007). Under the context of social media use in government, the attractiveness of alternatives could be adopted in this study because the government social media is perceived to be an alternative to presenting a well-operated e-government system.

E-government has modernized governments through re-engineering methods of government service provision as well as internal and external functions. Furthermore, it has functioned as a mediator that facilitates interactions and communications among the primary stakeholders such as citizens, other government agencies, and business sectors. This transformation of the government and public sectors has led to improved transparency and efficiency (Bertor et al., 2010), as well as increased citizen participation and cooperation in policy decision processes. Recently, the mediator role has garnered significant interest in social media (Chun et al., 2010), and governments driven by social media are called Government 2.0 (Eggers, 2005). In comparison with e-governments, that focus on information provision and delivery through ICTs, Government 2.0 is based on the concepts and characteristics of Web 2.0 and it aims for transparent, true, open, and participative government using the technologies and service characteristics of social media. Particularly for G2C, it is believed that Government 2.0 and providing government services through social media can promote open governance and extension of citizen participation and engagement (Khan, 2013).

Despite most countries’ positive perceptions and expectations of truly transparent governments through the use of government social media (Chun et al., 2010), many policymakers and practitioners are reluctant or unable to develop strategies and allocate resources to Government 2.0 or social media use in government agencies (Khan, 2013). One significant reason for this is found in the alternative attractiveness of well-developed e-governments, which already exist as a communication channel with citizens. The ultimate goal of both e-governments and social media-based Government 2.0 is improving service delivery, transparency, and efficiency. While both share a common basis of ICTs and the Internet, there are differences in the technologies, strategies, and service focuses (Khan, 2013). First, from a technology perspective, e-government is based on Web 1.0, which uses fundamentally domain-specific technologies and static enterprises, whereas Government 2.0 is based on Web 2.0 concepts and is driven by consumer and commoditized technologies (Maio, 2009). Second, from the strategy perspective, e-governments focus on an inside-out approach, which transforms and delivers information and services using the internal resources of a government such as computerization of government systems and processes. In contrast, the outside-in approach is the foundation of Government 2.0 and it uses outside resources and information through bilateral collaborative technologies such as social media and crowdsourcing. Third, in Government 2.0 contexts, the end user is not only a user of the e-government services, but also an active participant using a variety of Web 2.0 tools (Linders, 2012). Despite these differences, the vast majority of governments and citizens perceive e-government and social media as substitutable relationships from a G2C perspective, and this thinking affects the satisfaction of social media services due to the attractiveness of the existing well-developed and facilitated e-governments. Thus, we hypothesize that:

H5: From the perspective of G2C, the attractiveness of the e-government (as the alternative) will negatively affect citizen satisfaction with the services provided by government social media.

Satisfaction, loyalty, and intention of patronage

Huitt and Cain (2005) identified three elements of the mind: cognition, affection, and conation. In order to reduce the ambiguity of the definitions of the constructs using these elements of the mind, Eggert and Ulaga (2002) proposed the theory of reasoned action (TRA) as a mediated impact model. The TRA states that a user’s perceived value (cognition) causes user satisfaction (affection) and sequentially influences behavior intention (conation). Because a satisfied user tends to have a higher usage level than a dissatisfied user, user satisfaction is a key source of maintaining revenue and in turn this can cause increases in user loyalty (Yang and Peterson, 2004). Furthermore, user loyalty has an important function in attracting and retaining users, and it could be an important source of sustainable competitive advantage and continuous purchasing behavior (Bharadwaj et al., 1993). In the context of social media, as a result of the media characteristics, it is expected that simple use by users is possible as well as patronage behavior that further accelerates the participation of others.

These findings from the marketing field could be applied to the interrelationship between citizens and government social media services, because logically they are connected to satisfaction, loyalty, and patronage intention. Given the previous findings of the positive role of citizen satisfaction in brand relationship continuation and the increased importance of loyalty in social media contexts, we propose that satisfaction and loyalty toward a government social media service is an important determinant of citizen patronage (continuous use and recommendation) intentions. Thus, we hypothesize that:

H6: Citizen satisfaction of government social media will positively affect loyalty toward government social media.

H7: Citizen satisfaction of government social media will positively affect patronage behavior of government social media.

H8: Citizen loyalty toward government social media will positively affect patronage behavior of government social media.

Control variables

In order to examine the research model, two additional control variables that are known to affect satisfaction, loyalty, and social media patronage behavior were controlled, as described in the following subsections.

Self-efficacy

Computer self-efficacy is defined as an individual’s perceptions of their ability to use computers to accomplish a task, as opposed to their abilities that reflect simple component skills (Compeau and Higgins, 1995). Individuals with high self-confidence in technology use would also exhibit greater positivity toward specific technologies and would result in improvements in user satisfaction (Chiu and Wang, 2008). Because the citizen’s self-efficacy has been demonstrated to increase satisfaction when government services are provided through social media (Kim et al., 2013), its effect on user satisfaction is controlled.

Personality match

A perceived personality match with a social media site is defined as a combination of human personality traits that are associated with a particular social media site brand (Pentina et al., 2013). In online contexts, many researchers in the IS field have indicated that personal characteristics affect a user’s psychological status, such as satisfaction and loyalty, and these often result in purchasing behavior. Through joining a particular social media service, its members may perceive its brand identity to be similar and more easily identifiable, which should lead to a better brand reputation. Thus, a perceived personality match for particular media (social media in this study) is included as a control variable; perceived personality match is controlled in this study in order to more clearly identify citizen satisfaction, loyalty, and patronage intention toward government social media.

Research model

The influence of perceived value (utilitarian, hedonic, and social values) on citizen satisfaction with the moderating effect of media synchronicity and patronage intention toward government social media service, which this study focuses on, are summarized based on the eight hypotheses given. These relationships and hypotheses with all relevant variables are condensed and presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Research model.

Methodology

In this study, in order to test the hypotheses presented in Section 2, survey data was obtained from a representative random sampling of the Korean population who were eligible to vote and who used a government agency’s Facebook page. In Korea, social media are used by most government agencies and are regarded as important spaces for providing citizens with government services and to more transparently align with the public relationship policy (Kim et al., 2013). As a result of the cramped and close living quarters often experienced in Korea, most citizens are subjected to intense peer pressure, e.g. social influence, to accept new models and technologies (Shim, 2008). In this context, it is inevitable that social media has become the key media through which to communicate with each other in both the private sector and public sector. In particular, the Korean government has attempted to increase citizen satisfaction with the government and to create a space for gathering citizen opinions (Cho and Park, 2012). The Korean government anticipates that the social media services provided by the government agencies will result in a more democratic and efficient governing structure.

Instrument development

This study followed the guidelines proposed by Straub (1989) throughout the instrument development process. According to the process described by Kankanhalli et al. (2005), we used verified measures from prior studies and modified the identified items for use in the government social media utilization context. Initial item pools were created for each construct and some measurement items were removed or added after the completion of the Q-Sort technique and a pilot study. A survey instrument consisting of 28 items was developed. In order to prevent potential common method bias, a marker variable was included in the questionnaire (Podsakoff et al., 2003). A 7-point Likert scale from strongly disagree (= 1) to strongly agree (= 7) was used to measure the items. Before conducting the final data collection, a Q-Sort technique and pilot study were conducted in order to remove ambiguity and to prevent misinterpretation. The Q-sort technique was used to assess the convergent and discriminant validity of the measurement items (Mora-Monge, 2007). The research model and eight constructs with their definitions were presented to the participants; then, the participants were asked to sort the measurement items into groups. After the second round, the inter-judge agreement scores averaged 84 percent, Cohen’s Kappa was 0.854, and the overall item placement ratio of items within the target constructs was 84 percent. The Q-sort technique was stopped after the second round because the Cohen’s Kappa became greater than 0.80, which is acceptable (Moore and Benbasat, 1991). Finally, 26 items for the eight constructs were obtained; all survey items used in this study are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Survey items used in this study.

Construct	Item	Label	Related Literature
Utilitarian Value	Government service by social media is reliable.	UV1	Spiteri & Dion (2004) Ha & Park (2013)
	Government service by social media offers stable quality and high performance.	UV2
	It is useful to use government service provided by social media.	UV3
	It is easy to use government service provided by social media.	UV4
Hedonic Value	I am pleasant when I take government service by social media.	HV1	Mano & Oliver (1993) Yu et al. (2013)
	I enjoy using a government’s social media whenever new information is needed.	HV2
	I am interested and have a good time when using government’s social media	HV3
Social Value	I get a good reputation from others when I am good at using government’s social media service.	SV1	Moore & Benbasat (1991) Venkatesh et al. (2003) Yu et al. (2013)
	I believe the fact that I use government’s social media makes a good impression on other people.	SV2
	I expect that using government’s social media will add to public value on my society.	SV3
Alternative Attractiveness	In G2C, the existing e-Government service is more beneficial than government’s social media service.	AA1	Yen & Horng (2010) Yim et al. (2007) Ha & Park (2013)
	In G2C, the existing e-Government service is easier than government’s social media service	AA2
	In G2C, the information quality of existing e-Government is better than that of government’s social media.	AA3
	I prefer government service provided by existing e-Government to by government’s social media.	AA4
Media Synchronicity	I am more inclined to use social media to enhance social relationships in order to gain more information in appropriate time.	MS1	Dennis et al. (2008) Ryoo & Koo (2010)
	With regard to media capabilities, social media is appropriate media for convergence process focusing on the shared understanding among users.	MS2
	The technological characteristics of social media fit well with the features of communication process and information transaction on social media.	MS3
Satisfaction	Overall, I’m satisfied with government’s service provided by social media.	SA1	Anderson & Srinivasan (2003) Lee et al. (2008)
	My choice to use government’s social media service was a wise one.	SA2
	I think I did the right thing for participating government’s social media service.	SA3
Loyalty	When I need to communicate with government’s agency, the social media is one of the best choices.	LO1	Anderson & Srinivasan (2003) Cowart et al. (2008)
	I will say excellent and positive things of government’s social media service to others.	LO2
	I feel confidence with the government’s social media service.	LO3
Intention to Patronage	I want to highly recommend government’s social media service to others.	IP1	Davis (1989)
	I will continuously use government’s social media service in the future.	IP2
	I actively intend to patronage government’s social media service to others.	IP3

Data collection and sample description

In order to collect samples, we explained the intention and purpose of this study to the Facebook page webmasters of the South Korean government agencies and departments (10 accounts) and requested cooperation; then, we posted a message on the relevant Facebook pages regarding the collection of survey samples. Next, we obtained 537 samples from the followers of the Facebook pages of the South Korean government organizations and limited these responses to those of South Korean residents of voting age (above 20 years old) in accordance with the purpose of the study, and deleted overlapping respondents; 508 samples remained and were selected. An online survey was conducted over a period of two weeks in January 2014. Samples with characteristics of duplication or inconsistency were excluded. After these processes to ensure data quality, 491 responses were deemed eligible for analysis. The demographic profiles of the respondents are presented in Table 3. We collected the data used in this study with the respondents’ consent to privacy and personal information policies. Although demographic profile information of each respondent was required for the purpose of research objectivity, questions related to direct privacy concern were excluded and categorical questions asked to protect their personal information.

Table 3.

Demographic profiles of the respondents.

	Items	Frequency	Percent (%)
Duration of Facebook usage	Below 1 year	75	15.2
	1 ∼ 2 years	179	36.5
	2 ∼ 3 years	167	34.0
	Above 3 years	70	14.3
	Total	491	100.0
Education	Diploma degree	63	12.8
	Bachelor degree	341	69.5
	Master degree	51	10.4
	Doctoral degree	36	7.3
	Total	491	100.0
Age	20∼29	194	39.5
	30∼39	248	50.5
	40∼49	30	6.1
	50∼59	14	2.9
	Above 60	5	1.0
	Total	491	100.0
Gender	Female	209	42.6
	Male	282	57.4
	Total	491	100.0

Results

We used partial least squares (PLS), which is a component-based structural equation modeling technique, in the data analysis. PLS is particularly appropriate for theory development purposes with the objective of maximizing the explained variance in the outcome variables (Chin, 1998; Gefen and Straub, 2005). We chose SmartPLS 2.0 as the analytical software to evaluate the research model and then test the hypotheses. During the data analysis, we followed the guidelines proposed by Gefen et al. (2011).

Assessment of the measurement and structural model

In order to assess whether each measurement item related to its respective construct better than to any other construct (Gerbing and Anderson, 1988), we conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using SPSS 21.0. The results demonstrate that all measurement items were loaded significantly on only one factor and that all loadings are well above the suggested threshold of 0.600 (Gefen and Straub, 2005).

Table 4 presents the descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), composite reliabilities (CRs), average variances extracted (AVEs), and Cronbach’s alpha (CA) values for all measures in this our research model. All Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability (Chin, 1998) values were well above the recommended values of 0.50 and 0.70, respectively (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994), which indicated high internal consistency in all constructs. We further evaluated the model’s convergent validity by assessing the AVE and indicator loadings for all items. The AVEs of all constructs were higher than the threshold of 0.50. We further assessed the model’s discriminant validity through examining the items’ cross-loadings and using the Fornell-Larcker criterion (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). The items’ loadings and cross-loadings presented in Appendix A demonstrate that all items correlated most strongly with their intended constructs and that all cross-loading differences were higher than the suggested threshold of 0.1 (Gefen and Straub, 2005). Furthermore, all constructs loaded highest with their assigned items, as recommended by Chin (1998). The square root of the average variance extracted values for each construct exceeded all respective inter-construct correlations (Table 4), thus fulfilling the Fornell-Larcker criterion (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).

Table 4.

Descriptive statistics and assessment of the measurement model.

	Mean (SD)	CR	AVE	CA	UV	HV	SV	AA	MS	SA	LO	IP
UV	3.76 (1.32)	0.89	0.79	0.81	0.96
HV	4.30 (1.67)	0.90	0.76	0.84	0.55	0.94
SV	4.52 (1.80)	0.98	0.92	0.97	0.49	0.51	0.96
AA	3.64 (1.87)	0.91	0.75	0.85	−0.28	−0.34	−0.43	0.89
MS	4.02 (1.53)	0.98	0.93	0.96	0.42	0.31	0.41	−0.48	0.87
SA	4.78 (1.38)	0.88	0.79	0.81	0.40	0.38	0.37	−0.28	0.40	0.94
LO	4.89 (1.33)	0.90	0.76	0.84	0.56	0.42	0.49	−0.35	0.49	0.51	0.88
IP	4.12 (1.74)	0.86	0.74	0.83	0.42	0.35	0.40	−0.29	0.33	0.29	0.37	0.93

Notes:

All items underlying the above constructs were measured using seven-point Likert-type scales (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree).

SD: Standard deviation; CR: Composite reliability; AVE: Average variance extracted; CA: Cronbach’s alpha

UV: Utilitarian value; HV: Hedonic value; SV: Social value; AA: Alternative attractiveness; MS: Media synchronicity; SA: Satisfaction; LO: Loyalty; IP: Intention to patronage.

In order to validate the quality of the structural model, we assessed its goodness of fit (GoF) measure. We followed the recommendations proposed by Tenenhaus et al. (2005) in calculating the model’s GoF, which is defined as the geometric mean of the average cross-validated redundancy and the average R² (Wetzels et al., 2009). Using this formula, we computed a GoF of 0.49, which is significantly above the cutoff value of 0.36. These results allow us to conclude that the model used in this study performs well.

Results of main effect analysis

We evaluated the structural paths of the main effects in order to test all hypotheses. This study considered an association regarding the model’s hypothesized main effects to be supported if the corresponding path coefficients had a predicted sign, had values of 0.10 or higher, and were significant at the p < 0.05 level (Meehl, 1990). The effect size of each main effect of the model was assessed using Cohen’s f², which enabled determination of an independent latent variable’s impact on a dependent latent variable.

The results of the hypotheses testing are presented in Figure 3. The results demonstrate that there is a significant positive relationship between citizen’s utilitarian value toward government social media and citizen satisfaction (β = 0.281, p < 0.01). Furthermore, both hedonic value and social value are positively related to citizen satisfaction (β = 0.112, p < 0.05; β = 0.205, p < 0.01, respectively) based on the path coefficients and t-statistic measurements. However, the results indicate that the relationship between e-government’s attractiveness and user satisfaction has a negative causality, but this is statically insignificant (β = –0.098, p > 0.10). Furthermore, the relationship between citizen satisfaction and their loyalty is significantly positive (β = 0.354, p < 0.01). Finally, the results indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between citizen loyalty and patronage intention (β = 0.212, p < 0.01), and between citizen satisfaction and patronage intention toward social media services (β = 0.297, p < 0.01).

Figure 3.

Result of structural model analysis.

Results of stepwise moderation analysis

In order to examine the moderating effect of media synchronization between perceived value and satisfaction, we assessed the research model’s moderation effects using a stepwise approach (Frazier et al., 2004) with Chin et al.’s (2003) recommendations for analyzing moderation effects. Model M1 (Table 5) included the main effects of the model with the control variables of the research model. We subsequently estimated the standalone models for the moderating effects of media synchronicity in the presence of the three components of perceived value as the main effects. Detailed results regarding this analytical process are presented in Table 6. The objective of this step was to verify the individual moderation effects separately through assessing their path coefficients.

Table 5.

Results of analysis (path coefficients with effect sizes in parentheses).

	M1			M2
Dependent Variable	SA	LO	IP	SA
Control Variables
SE	0.082*
PM	0.102**	0.187**	0.133*
Main Effects
UV	0.281**
HV	0.112*
SV	0.205**
AA	−0.098^n.s.
SA		0.354***	0.212**
LO			0.297**
Interaction Effects
UV * MS				0.107*
HV * MS				0.064 ^n.s.
SV * MS				0.082*
R²	0.675	0.418	0.466

Notes:

M1: Only main effects with control variables; M2: Stepwise moderation effect

*: p<0.05 |**: p<0.01 | ***: p<0.001 | +: p<0.10 | n.s.: not significant.

UV: Utilitarian value; HV: Hedonic value; SV: Social value; AA: Alternative attractiveness; MS: Media synchronicity; SA: Satisfaction; LO: Loyalty; IP: Intention to patronage; SE: Self-efficacy; PM: Personality match.

Table 6.

Detailed PLS results for media synchronicity moderation analysis.

	Analysis for moderation effect of media synchronicity (stepwise)
Dependent Variable	SA	SA	SA
Control Variables
SE	0.078*	0.069*	0.072*
PM	0.113*	0.124**	0.119**
Main Effects
UV	0.251**	0.218**	0.224**
HV	0.122*	0.095*	0.131*
SV	0.183*	0.159*	0.108 ^n.s.
AA	−0.091^n.s.	−0.105 ^n.s.	−0.86 ^n.s.
MS	0.219*	0.195**	0.188**
Interaction Effects
UV * MS	0.107*
HV * MS		0.064 ^n.s.
SV * MS			0.082*
R²	0.723	0.698	0.712

Notes:

*: p<0.05 |**: p<0.01 | ***: p<0.001 | +: p<0.10 | n.s.: not significant.

In order to calculate each moderating effect, we standardized the indicators for the independent (X) as well as the moderating (Z) construct, created all pair-wise product indicators (i.e. each indicator of X was multiplied by each indicator of Z), and used the product indicators to reflect the interaction construct (XZ), as suggested by Chin et al. (2003). This stepwise approach investigates the impact of each individual moderation effect separately, which is not possible when estimating all moderation effects in a single model due to the uninterpretable effects in the presence of multiple two-way and three-way moderation effects (Carte and Russell, 2003).

The analysis of the moderating role of media synchronicity caused mixed results. While the moderating effect of media synchronicity for hedonic value → satisfaction (β = 0.064, p > 0.10) was not significant, media synchronicity significantly moderated utilitarian value → satisfaction (β = 0.107, p < 0.05) as well social value → satisfaction (β = 0.082, p < 0.05). Therefore, we concluded that hypotheses H4a and H4c were supported by our data. Thus, the utilitarian value (or social value)-satisfaction relationship for government social media use was moderated by media synchronicity in a manner that utilitarian value (or social value) led to greater citizen satisfaction for accomplishing high media synchronicity. Conversely, the moderating effect of media synchronicity on the hedonic value-satisfaction relationship for government social media use was not supported by our data.

Discussions

Theoretical implications

This study makes several important contributions to the research literature. First, it provides powerful evidence for the relationship between user’s perceived value and satisfaction in a social media context. This work is among the first studies to empirically investigate the impacts of citizen’s perceived value for government social media use on their satisfaction in G2C communication contexts. Furthermore, through classifying user’s perceived value into utilitarian, hedonic, and social values, their impact on satisfaction was examined in more detail and all three were found to be significant.

Second, our study demonstrates the importance of the moderating effects of media synchronicity on the relationship between user’s perceived value and satisfaction in social media contexts. Previous research has noted the need and effectiveness of media synchronicity, which highlights the IT involved in the communication environment (Dennis et al., 2008; Ryoo and Koo, 2010). Our results extend these previous findings through demonstrating that the moderating relationship also holds for the association of perceived value and satisfaction. We demonstrated that citizen perceived value of government social media use does not have the same citizen satisfactory impact under all media synchronicity, and thereby suggest that researchers should carefully consider media synchronicity when investigating communication processes and performances in social media.

Third, we propose that alternative attractiveness is a negative factor that affects citizen satisfaction with emerging government social media services. This study regards e-government services that have been well developed and currently exist as the alternative to government social media services. Although the results indicate that the alternative attractiveness does not have significant effect on citizen satisfaction, this study demonstrated the possibility of extending the model in IS research through considering citizen perceived value and psychological factors regarding the existing services when using a new service.

Finally, this study designated patronage intention as the research model’s dependent variable and the analysis results indicate that both citizen satisfaction and loyalty could be expanded into patronage intention toward the government social media. In general, theoretical models that propose a logical linkage between user cognition, affection, and conation, such as the TRA (Eggert and Ulaga, 2002), allocate behavior intention into the conation construct. However, this study proposed that the more specific patronage intention was a construct of user conation through reflecting on the media characteristics of social media.

Practical Implications

The findings of this study provide important practical contributions for government social media services. First, in order to attract and retain users, an effective method is to improve the utilitarian value and hedonic value, as well as the social value, which increases citizen loyalty and patronage intention, which are mediated through improvements in citizen satisfaction. Thus, in order to attract and retain users, government agencies should offer utilitarian value through more stability, higher quality and reliability, and greater performance, hedonic value through providing entertainment or improving communication methods in social media through repeated compliance and mutual reciprocity, and social value through providing public-centric services, information sharing in an atmosphere of freedom, and non-discriminative participation.

Second, the results demonstrate that high media synchronicity has a positive function as a moderator for increasing satisfaction that results from citizen perceived value using government social media services. The media characteristic of social media does not constrain itself to conveyance that only delivers information but it also includes participatory media, which formulates information flows composed through convergence and creativeness based on active participation. Therefore, it is recommended that governments understand the media characteristics of social media and provide appropriate services to their citizens in order that citizen satisfaction and patronage behavior increase.

Finally, citizens’ attractiveness to e-government had an insignificant effect on citizen satisfaction with government services provided through social media. This result indicates that although citizens enjoy stable satisfaction in the well-established e-government, it does not link to satisfaction with government services using social media. Because the different characteristics of the government services provided through e-government and social media are not contradictory but rather are complementary (Khan, 2013), it is desirable to develop appropriate policy directions that enable the promotion of synergetic effects through taking advantage of the merit of both services.

Conclusion

This study investigated the role of social media as a communication channel for enhancing citizen patronage behavior in government social media services and the effect of social media on their satisfaction depending on the perceived value. Furthermore, this study derived the most appropriate type of citizen perceived value through social media and verified it using a structural equation. The results demonstrate that the effective method of spreading the government social media services is to improve the utilitarian value and hedonic value, as well as the social value, which increase citizen loyalty and patronage intention mediated through improvements in citizen satisfaction. In addition, this study demonstrated that social media such as Facebook could be used as an important communication channel that could complement web-based e-government systems. This indicates that social media differs from the conventional channels, including e-government, not only in form but also in substance when used as a channel for providing government services. Moreover, this study emphasizes the importance of appropriate understanding of the media characteristics of social media in order to increase citizen satisfaction with government social media services. Thus, governments need to consider providing services through social media more and also consider the potential of using social media as a communication channel in order to more effectively use social media.

This study is limited because, among the numerous social media available, only Facebook was considered and the study area was limited to Korea. Given the increasing number and prevalence of social media and differences in how much time people spend online undertaking various activities, it is problematic to collapse all social media users into one group. Therefore, through classifying the features of social media and its users, the relationship between user’s perceived value of each social media and their satisfaction, loyalty, and behavior intention should be investigated further. Furthermore, in order to generalize the results of this study, verification through cross-cultural studies should be undertaken. Although both self-efficacy and personality match were used as the control variables when verifying the hypotheses, the antecedents of the citizen patronage intention effects addressed in this paper require stricter analyses that also consider different personal characteristics. It is also necessary to examine how population-related characteristics, such as gender and age, affect citizen satisfaction, loyalty, and patronage intention.

Footnotes

Appendix A. Item loadings and cross-loadings

		UV	HV	SV	AA	MS	SA	LO	IP
UV	UV1	0.945	0.513	0.441	−0.082	0.168	0.226	0.374	0.382
	UV2	0.971	0.535	0.479	−0.054	0.212	0.151	0.308	0.343
	UV3	0.977	0.534	0.463	−0.057	0.197	0.277	0.345	0.329
	UV4	0.962	0.528	0.458	−0.104	0.229	0.186	0.362	0.361
HV	HV1	0.479	0.912	0.455	−0.036	0.220	0.231	0.378	0.351
	HV2	0.532	0.958	0.508	−0.044	0.244	0.197	0.298	0.369
	HV3	0.529	0.949	0.478	−0.034	0.249	0.185	0.269	0.297
SV	SV1	0.471	0.496	0.961	−0.126	0.295	0.286	0.283	0.349
	SV2	0.461	0.499	0.976	−0.120	0.275	0.295	0.342	0.299
	SV3	0.473	0.485	0.957	−0.132	0.241	0.259	0.361	0.284
AA	AA1	−0.084	0.262	−0.360	0.992	−0.138	0.124	−0.076	0.210
	AA2	−0.012	−0.272	−0.398	0.943	−0.102	−0.132	0.081	−0.065
	AA3	0.038	−0.265	0.220	0.892	0.035	−0.210	0.063	0.078
	AA4	0.018	0.273	−0.233	0.836	−0.014	−0.065	−0.131	−0.088
MS	MS1	0.611	0.360	0.249	−0.147	0.938	0.266	0.167	0.280
	MS2	0.628	0.398	0.280	−0.173	0.966	0.239	0.189	0.286
	MS3	0.626	0.420	0.286	−0.182	0.959	0.218	0.161	0.295
SA	SA1	0.226	0.173	0.397	−0.179	0.161	0.841	0.277	0.332
	SA2	0.234	0.158	0.382	0.038	0.174	0.898	0.286	0.316
	SA3	0.181	0.192	0.324	−0.082	0.140	0.912	0.224	0.291
LO	LO1	0.261	0.240	0.231	0.098	0.256	0.299	0.885	0.207
	LO2	0.296	0.224	0.296	−0.085	0.182	0.340	0.926	0.296
	LO3	0.210	0.194	0.207	−0.129	0.226	0.391	0.812	0.231
IP	IP1	0.352	0.267	0.311	−0.097	0.343	0.251	0.226	0.958
	IP2	0.296	0.235	0.321	−0.081	0.389	0.233	0.197	0.963
	IP3	0.316	0.284	0.318	0.020	0.318	0.216	0.231	0.897

Notes:

The bolded items indicate the items that are designed to load on the construct in the respective column. Detail wording of the survey items is presented in Table 2. UV: Utilitarian value; HV: Hedonic value; SV: Social value; AA: Alternative attractiveness; MS: Media synchronicity; SA: Satisfaction; LO: Loyalty; IP: Intention to patronage.

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