More Than Just Shopping on Social Commerce Websites: A Multidimensional Scaling Study of Consumers’ In-Role and Extra-Role Behaviors

The extension of traditional e-commerce to social commerce has greatly shifted consumers’ roles from content consumers to content contributors and co-creators. However, IS discipline primarily focuses on in-role behaviors in social commerce such as product consumption, while extra-role behaviors that benefit social commerce websites through content contributions and cocreations have been largely overlooked. In this study, we conduct a literature review to identify different in-role and extra-role behaviors in social commerce and use dedication-constraint-obligation theory to guide our typology development. We then empirically validate the topology of in-role and extra-role behaviors using a multidimensional scaling approach. Our topology comprises six archetypical forms of in-role and extra-role behaviors: (I) online purchase, (II) inattentive to alternatives, (III) conative loyalty, (IV) active participation, (V) pay for premium, and (VI) moderating messages. This work will contribute to researches and offer practical guidance for social commerce websites providers to facilitate consumers’ in-role and extra-role behaviors.