Page 76 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.78, # 1, 2021, pp. 66-85

MULTI-GROUP ANALYSIS: EXAMINING THE MODERATION EFFECTS

In the current study, almost the same number of smartphone users were included in
male and female subsamples (see Table 3). Based on the findings, mostly gender
does not moderate the relationship between variables; apart from the relationship
between habit and actual use, other examined pathways showed almost the same
results for both subsamples. These are hedonic motivation, habit, and symbolic
brand image. However, social influence has an impact on hedonic motivation in both
samples with a stronger effect on the female subsample (see Table 3). In the case of
the other pathways, (SI → HT; SI → SBI, and HT → USE) effect is stronger for
males. Among all the relationships, the effect size of the relationship between social
influence and symbolic brand image is highest.

Interestingly, there is no significant relationship between Social Influence and Brand
Awareness (p>0.05; tmale(SI → BA) = 0.308; tfemale(SI → BA) = 0.612) and Price value
(p>0.05; tmale(SI → PV) = 1.309; tfemale(SI → PV) = 1.161). For significant relationships
value of T statistics must be higher than 1.96 (Joseph. F. Jr Hair et al., 2017, p. 216).

Table 1: PLS-MGA results for the effect of the gender moderator

F square F square T-value T-value P-value P-value
PATHWAYS Male Female Male Female Male Female
subsample subsample subsample subsample subsample subsample
H1. SI AZ → BA AZ 0.001 0.001 0.308 0.612 0.758 0.541
H2. SI AZ → SBI AZ 0.145 0.132 4.705 4.885 < 0.001 < 0.001
H3. SI AZ → HM AZ 0.061 0.085 3.632 4.246 < 0.001 < 0.001
H4. SI AZ → HT AZ 0.084 0.071 3.162 4.356 0.002 < 0.001
H5. SI AZ → PV AZ 0.023 0.012 1.309 1.161 0.191 0.246
H6. SI AZ → USE AZ 0.029 0.024 2.121 1.657 0.034 0.098
H7. HT AZ →USE AZ* 0.036 2.827 0.005

Note: BA – Brand Awareness; SBI- Symbolic Brand Image; HM – Hedonic
Motivation; HT – Habit; PV – Price Value; SI – Social Influence; USE – Actual
Usage.
Note: * results were calculated for overall sample (N=394);
Source: own editing based on the results of the analysis

DISCUSSION
The current study aimed to identify factors that impact smartphone owners through
social influence channels. The framework of the study was based on the UTAUT2
(2012), however, the author paid special attention to the emergence of attitude
towards handset use through the social environment.

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