Social capital expectation and usage of social media: the moderating role of social capital susceptibility

This study aims to identify the motivations of social media users who click ‘like’ to the post of their friends. We posit that this behaviour is not solely based on an instant feeling or reaction to a post, but a more complicated action that involves calculation and expectation of the future social media use. We first apply social capital theories to identify the types of expectations, and then differentiate these expectations based on the communication styles of social media where private and public relationships coexist. From these, we develop a social capital expectation matrix in the context of social media. In the research model, we discuss how these social capital expectations motivate people to use social media, including the moderating effects of social capital susceptibilities, based on expectancy theory of motivation. To validate our model, data collected from 291 social media users are analysed. This result confirms that people click likes to share their interests and display their network to others. Conversely, the relational dimensions of social capital including capital recompense and social inclusion exerted significant interaction effects only when they were considered along with capital susceptibilities.