Motivations and emotions in social media: Explaining users' satisfaction with FsQCA

Abstract

This study aims to explain how motivations and emotions combine to influence users’ satisfaction with social media. Motivations are decomposed into four attributes, entertainment, information, social-psychological, and convenience, while emotions are divided into their two main categories, that is positive and negative emotions. In order to examine the interplay of these factors and their combined effect on satisfaction, a conceptual model is developed, and validated on a data sample of 582 social media users, through fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The findings indicate eight configurations that lead to high satisfaction, which show the importance of high convenience, followed by entertainment and information in being satisfied with social media, while emotions and social-psychological factors are less important. This study contributes in social media literature by identifying specific patterns of users for whom these factors are important and influence greatly their satisfaction.