The adoption of new technology by listed companies: the case of Twitter

ABSTRACT This study investigates the adoption of Twitter by Australian listed companies for disseminating marketing information (including corporate promotion) and for directly interacting with consumers. Based on a sample of the Top 200 Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed companies, we find that companies with larger market capital are more likely to adopt Twitter for static advertising, a one-way communication approach, and direct interaction with consumers, a two-way communication approach. Companies with smaller market capital that adopt Twitter for marketing communication appear to disseminate more corporate promotion information, a static advertising approach. Overall, our results indicate that the level of a company's access to resources can influence their adoption of a new technology and the manner in which it is used. This study calls for further clarification of regulation regarding marketing communication on social media and experience sharing between industry practitioners.

[1]  Carl E. Larson,et al.  Speech communication; concepts and behavior , 1972 .

[2]  R. Grant.  The Resource-Based Theory of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Strategy Formulation , 1991 .

[3]  Hui Du,et al.  Do Social Media Matter? Initial Empirical Evidence , 2015, J. Inf. Syst..

[4]  Isabell M. Welpe,et al.  News or Noise? Using Twitter to Identify and Understand Company‐Specific News Flow , 2014 .

[5]  R. Hiebert,et al.  Mass media: An introduction to modern communication , 1974 .

[6]  A. Kaplan,et al.  Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media , 2010 .

[7]  Michael Meskon,et al.  The resource-based theory of competitive advantage : implications for strategy formulation , 2018 .

[8]  B. Wernerfelt,et al.  A Resource-Based View of the Firm , 1984 .

[9]  Richard D. Waters,et al.  Teaching Blog Management: Preparing Professors for the Opportunities and Challenges of Teaching Web 2.0 in the Classroom , 2009 .

[10]  Daniel Lewis,et al.  What is web 2.0? , 2006, CROS.

[11]  Chris Murdough.  Social Media Measurement , 2009 .

[12]  Gregory S. Miller,et al.  The Role of Dissemination in Market Liquidity: Evidence from Firms' Use of Twitter , 2013 .

[13]  Michael Y. Hu,et al.  Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B sales , 2016 .

[14]  D. Schwartz.  Users of the world unite , 2000 .

[15]  Aikaterini C. Valvi,et al.  Determinants of social media adoption by B2B organizations , 2015 .

[16]  J. Grunig.  Paradigms of Global Public Relations in an Age of Digitalisation , 2012 .

[17]  M. Mcluhan.  Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man , 1964 .

[18]  Feng Xiong,et al.  The business use of Twitter by Australian listed companies , 2015 .

[19]  Maria Prokofieva,et al.  Twitter-Based Dissemination of Corporate Disclosure and the Intervening Effects of Firms' Visibility: Evidence from Australian-Listed Companies , 2015, J. Inf. Syst..

[20]  Marius Bulearca,et al.  Twitter: a Viable Marketing Tool for SMEs? , 2010 .

[21]  Xuwei Pan,et al.  Identifying digital traces for business marketing through topic probabilistic model , 2015, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[22]  Benjamin Pfaff,et al.  Theories Of Human Communication , 2016 .

[23]  M. Pichlak.  The innovation adoption process: A multidimensional approach , 2015, Journal of Management & Organization.

[24]  Billy Bai,et al.  The Marketing Effectiveness of Social Media in the Hotel Industry , 2015 .

[25]  J. Grunig,et al.  Managing public relations , 1984 .

[26]  N. Schillewaert,et al.  Organizational innovation adoption: a multi-level framework of determinants and opportunities for future research , 2002 .

[27]  Carl J. Case,et al.  Twitter Usage in the Fortune 50: A Marketing Opportunity? , 2011 .