A moderating – mediating model of the urge to buy impulsively in social commerce live-streaming

Abstract

Responding to the call for more studies that dig deeper into the mechanism linking live-streaming’s (SC live-streaming) distinctive characteristics with impulsive buying behaviour, this study adopts the widely-accepted stimulus–organism–response paradigm to develop a moderating-mediating model that investigates the mechanisms linking the two distinctive characteristics of vividness and personalisation as stimuli and the urge to buy impulsively as a response via consumption vision and telepresence as organism. To further unravel the intricate relationships among stimuli, organism, and response, the moderating role of impulsivity is also integrated as the boundary condition between stimuli (i.e., vividness and personalisation) and organism (i.e., consumption vision and telepresence). The direct, indirect, and moderating effects were tested on a sample of 376 live-streaming viewers with the partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) technique with SmartPLS software version 4. The findings indicate that stimuli have an influence on organism which in turn increases response, and the association between stimuli and organism is enhanced by impulsivity. Furthermore, organism mediates the impact of stimuli on the response. Based on the results, this study offers some significant theoretical and practical implications.