Beyond buying in social commerce: fostering customer citizenship behaviours through experience quality

Purpose Focusing on customer experience quality (CEQ) as a central mechanism, this study aims to examine how social commerce stimuli influence continued engagement intention (CEI) and, ultimately, intended customer citizenship behaviour (CCB). Design/methodology/approach A sequential mixed-methods design was employed: qualitative interviews contextualised established CEQ dimensions and identified context-specific manifestations of social commerce stimuli, followed by a survey testing a model that integrates Belk’s situational framework with the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) framework and Social Exchange Theory. Findings Results show that most platform attributes (stimuli), including social support, interactivity, community, personalised recommendation and perceived discount, influence selected CEQ dimensions (organism), although the effects are dimension-specific. Interestingly, cognitive and social experiences predict both CEI and intended CCB, whereas affective–sensory and behavioural experiences predict intended CCB only indirectly through CEI. Notably, interdependent self-construal has a statistically significant, although modest, effect on the CEI–CCB linkage. Practical implications The findings offer theoretical and managerial implications for experience-driven social commerce in emerging markets. Originality/value This study identifies a situated experiential reciprocity process in which social commerce situational cues generate distinct dimensions of CEQ, which in turn translate into intended CCB through CEI. Interdependent self-construal further provides a boundary condition for this process. The study also offers exploratory evidence of possible differences between brand and seller pages.