How do social commerce-IT capabilities influence firm performance? Theory and empirical evidence

Abstract : We theorized that the development of two contemporary social commerce-IT capabilities (social media and e-commerce) enables firms to engage online customers to improve their firm performance. We tested this theory by employing a secondary dataset on a sample of U.S. firms. The empirical analysis supported our theory in both examining the effects of social media and e-commerce as two individual capabilities and as two complementary capabilities. This study provides a unique organizational theory and empirical evidence on how social commerce-IT capabilities influence firm performance through the online engagement of customers.