Research on Influence Mechanism of Consumer Satisfaction Evaluation Behavior Based on Grounded Theory in Social E-Commerce

Abstract

For enterprises, exploring the influence mechanism of consumer satisfaction evaluation behavior (CSEB) holds significant research value for the advancement and further development of social e-commerce platforms. The existing literature primarily focuses on quantitative methods in investigating the influence mechanism of CSEB within social e-commerce platforms. This study endeavors to expand the theoretical boundaries of CSEB through qualitative research. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining primary data collected through in-depth interviews with 32 participants and secondary data gathered from 1000 users via web crawlers. Utilizing grounded theory as an analytical framework, the study meticulously summarizes, concludes, and refines the influencing factors of CSEB. Based on these findings, a robust CSEB model is constructed to provide a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. The study reveals that in the decision-making process of consumer evaluation, behavior is primarily driven by evaluation motivations. These motivations are intricately intertwined with product perception, social influence, and perceived behavior control. The interplay among these factors significantly shapes the manner in which consumers engage in satisfaction evaluation on social e-commerce platforms. This study complements existing quantitative research by providing nuanced insights into the complex interplay of factors, which drive consumer evaluation behavior. Furthermore, the study proposes actionable countermeasures and suggestions for businesses and platform managers to effectively promote and enhance consumer satisfaction evaluation activities, thereby contributing to the sustained growth and development of social e-commerce platforms.

1. Introduction

With the rapid development of e-commerce and social media, the “social” advantages of social e-commerce have gradually deepened, especially online social interaction among consumers, creating huge value and more application scenarios for the social e-commerce industry [1]. In the social e-commerce model, consumers are more inclined to trust consumer evaluations in view of social relationships, which may promote purchases or consumption [2]. Social relationships significantly affect the entire decision-making process of consumers—not only consumer purchase behavior but also consumer satisfaction evaluation behavior (CSEB) after purchase. CSEB is a way of self-expression in the whole shopping experience for consumers, and online reviews are not only a potential consumer information channel but have meaningful reference value in terms of purchase decision [3]. Online reviews are an important product of CSEB. Without CSEB, there would be no online reviews [4,5]. However, CSEB in the social e-commerce environment is affected by many complex factors, making it difficult for platforms and businesses to truly grasp the influence mechanism behind CSEB. Therefore, to use online reviews to influence consumer purchasing behavior, it is necessary to thoroughly study the influence factors and influence mechanisms of CSEB. Furthermore, it provides key theoretical basis and practical guidance for promoting CSEB activities in social e-commerce.

Generally, consumers promote the formation of satisfaction evaluation behavior in order to achieve a certain goal, so CSEB is a motivated behavior. What is more, it also accompanies the generation of online review information. Therefore, CSEB is a typical “black box” problem, which is regarded as a complex cognitive system and is difficult to accurately measure [6]. However, in the existing research on CSEB, the data source is often a questionnaire or online comments [5,7]. There is a lack of original data from in-depth interviews to analyze the influence mechanism of consumer product evaluation from the perspective of social e-commerce. As a result, the extracted factors affecting the evaluation behavior of consumer satisfaction are not comprehensive, and the influence mechanism is still unclear. In addition, few studies focus on the role of social factors or reveal the internal influence mechanism of CSEB.

To solve the above problems, based on grounded theory (GT) and from the perspective of consumers, this study fundamentally explores the influence mechanism of CSEB and then clarifies the antecedents and consequences of CSEB. GT, proposed by Glaser and Straus [8], is a bottom-up scientific research method for exploring interpersonal interactions in social phenomena, and it attaches importance to the collection and inductive analysis of original data. This method is not for verifying the theoretical model but for constructing the theoretical model from the data [9]. Obviously different from the top-down empirical research process, GT does not need to put forward research hypotheses but starts from original data, refines concepts and inductive categories from the bottom up, and then sublimates them into theoretical models based on the relationship between categories. Therefore, based on qualitative research, this study summarizes the influencing factors of CSEB from consumers’ historical shopping experiences, and then constructs a CSEB model to reveal the internal mechanism of CSEB in social e-commerce platforms. This study is helpful for social e-commerce platform managers and businesses to better understand the mechanism and results of consumer behavior decisions and contribute to the sustainable development of the social e-commerce industry. And this research is also illuminating for the social e-commerce platforms and businesses that carry out information management of online reviews and customer relationship management.

The innovation of this study lies in exploring CSEB in the special context of social e-commerce. Different from the previously explored CSEB, it has two obvious characteristics: First, CSEB has a clearer background—social e-commerce platforms. Different from traditional e-commerce, the “social” attribute of social e-commerce has significantly changed consumer behavior. Second, GT can further explore the influence mechanism of CSEB. Because of the “black box” problem of CSEB, the questionnaire survey method and machine learning method often ignore the actual behavior of consumers and deviate from reality.

The research contributions of this paper are as follows: First, in terms of theory, this study adds the key influencing factors of social interaction, which makes up for the deficiency of theoretical research on CSEB. This paper emphasizes the value of social influence in CSEB. Social influence influences consumers’ intrinsic motivation to evaluate products or services by shaping their values and expectations, thus influencing their satisfaction. In fact, in terms of data, previous studies on GT mostly used primary data. In this paper, primary data and secondary data are integrated to improve the reliability and validity of grounded research. At the same time, it also expands the number of samples collected, which makes this study more universal. Finally, in terms of research methods, and different from the previous quantitative research methods, this paper uses the qualitative research method of GT and adopts systematic procedures to reveal the mechanism behind the formation of CSEB.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Social E-Commerce

Social e-commerce has not yet reached a unified level, involving multiple fields such as marketing, social psychology, and computer science, thus presenting diverse characteristics. Among them, in marketing, it is considered that enterprises use social media and information technology as direct marketing methods to help consumers complete purchase decisions and business transactions [10]. Turban et al. [11], Esmaeili and Hashemi [12], and Leong et al. [13] also summarized the definition of social e-commerce. Still, they emphasized that its concept includes social media and business transaction models, especially social interaction, which significantly impacts this process.

Essentially, social e-commerce has developed based on e-commerce. In addition to possessing e-commerce characteristics, it presents other features such as sociality, diversity, and integration. For example, Leong et al. [13] proposed that social e-commerce has obvious social interaction attributes, which significantly affect consumers’ purchase intention. The stronger the social interaction, the more prosperous the development of social e-commerce. Attar et al. [14] analyzed the structural characteristics and application structure of social e-commerce, indicating that the most important difference between traditional e-commerce and social e-commerce is that traditional e-commerce is “product-centric”, while social e-commerce is “people-centered”. At the same time, they also stated that social interaction has improved the interaction between consumers and between consumers and businesses on social e-commerce platforms. Compared with traditional e-commerce features, social e-commerce exhibits the following important characteristics: firstly, social e-commerce has a more obvious “social” attribute, which is centered on “social relationships” for commodity transactions; secondly, social e-commerce aims to socialize and involve more consumers, attract more traffic, and convert traffic into economic value; thirdly, social e-commerce not only values information exchange between merchants and consumers but also places greater emphasis on online social interaction among consumers, encouraging them to engage in online interaction and information exchange, injecting vitality into social platforms. Social e-commerce provides a platform for sellers to interact socially with each other. Among them, sellers make full use of social media functions such as instant messaging, message boxes, and feedback systems to cultivate a “look now, buy now” mentality among consumers. Buyers achieve diversified social activities through group chats, like/share/follow buttons, and social recommendation systems. Therefore, social commerce further reveals how social psychology and social factors drive consumer behavior [15].

However, with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, the limitations of social distance have led to changes in the structure and relationships of social e-commerce [16]. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, social e-commerce has led people to lean toward localization rather than globalization. Research on social e-commerce tends to focus more on consumer behavior, business models, structures, etc. [14]. Among them, the factors that affect consumer satisfaction behavior have evolved from information quality, product quality, reverse logistics, and perceived price to factors such as security and privacy, information availability, transportation, quality, pricing, and time savings [17].

In addition, in terms of research methods, the vast majority of studies focus on quantitative research, using empirical analysis, machine learning, or virtual reality methods to explore social e-commerce-related research deeply. A small number of studies use qualitative research to analyze the development of social e-commerce. For example, Attar et al. [18] conducted a literature analysis comparing e-commerce, social e-commerce, and shared e-commerce to determine the benefits and challenges of the concept of links.

2.2. CSEB

CSEB specifically refers to the evaluation behavior of consumers after purchasing products, which is the last link in the consumer behavior decision-making process and also has important research value [19]. Consumer satisfaction evaluation refers to the overall perception of the purchasing experience by consumers after the purchase behavior occurs and ultimately forms online reviews. According to the satisfaction level of consumers’ shopping experience, consumer reviews can be divided into positive and negative reviews.

In recent years, scholars have tended to use empirical methods to analyze the mechanism of CSEB, while in the field of data mining, scholars focus on using machine learning algorithms to deeply explore the future development trends of CSEB. Most scholars believe that the emergence of CSEB stems from satisfaction, which depends on the difference between pre-purchase expectations and actual utility after purchase. They usually use classic models such as the Theory of Planned Behavior [19], the SOR Model [20], and the Technology Acceptance Model [21] as theoretical foundations and conduct empirical analysis by constructing structural equation models. However, other scholars have indicated that machine learning methods are more capable of accurately predicting CSEB [22]. The star rating, quantity, usefulness of information, and emotional inclination of online comments reflect consumers’ satisfaction with the product [23]. Therefore, reverse mining or predicting CSEB through online comments has important research significance. This type of research uses online reviews as the data source and constructs models using data mining techniques to address the subjectivity and low prediction accuracy of qualitative analysis in consumer reviews [24].

In the vast majority of studies, the influencing factors of CSEB in the context of social e-commerce platforms mainly include product quality, service quality, perceived value [25], social influence [26], evaluation motivation [19], self-efficacy [27], emotions [28] and other influencing factors. The empirical results indicate that these influencing factors have a significant positive impact on CSEB. In the context of traditional e-commerce, the influencing factors of CSEB mainly include product quality, service quality, evaluation motivation, perceived trust, etc. [29,30]. By comparison, it can be found that social influence is a key factor that distinguishes CSEB in two different scenarios. Social influence is considered a perception with a certain degree of subjective initiative. That is, when perceiving social influence, individuals improve their adaptability and are encouraged to take certain supportive actions. More importantly, social influence emphasizes the help or support that individuals receive in interpersonal relationships that is beneficial for their development. It can affect individuals’ emotions, cognition, and behavior [31]. Social influence profoundly influences CSEB through various means such as word-of-mouth communication, conformity psychology, guidance from opinion leaders, and social comparison. Beyari and Abareshi [26] used social exchange theory to confirm that consumer satisfaction is predicted through social influence. In addition, evaluation motivation is also one of the key factors affecting CSEB. Evaluation motivation, as the internal driving force that triggers behavior, plays a crucial role in CSEB [19]. Shiau and Chau [32] and Zhang et al. [33] confirmed through empirical research that evaluation motivation significantly positively influences CSEB.

2.3. GT

GT belongs to the category of qualitative research, which is often used to construct theoretical models and focuses more on the strong correlation between primary data and theory. Charmaz [34] argued that GT was based on primary sources, processed with flexibility and systematic standards, and inductively analyzed the data to obtain a conceptual or theoretical framework. The special feature of grounded theoretical research lies in the grounded research situation, through first-hand observation, close, deep, and flexible induction and deduction of the operation mechanism of the phenomenon, and finally, the construction of theoretical models [35,36]. Therefore, GT is the most effective and most suitable research method when research lacks enough induction and summary.

The purpose of GT is to construct a data-consistent theoretical model that reveals the nature and idea of a phenomenon. GT has been widely applied, especially in the field of management, and it has attracted the attention of scholars [37]. Programmatic GT is more suitable for consumer behavior research, which can not only explore the mechanism of consumer psychology from the bottom up but also eliminate the common methodological bias problem in quantitative research [38,39]. This programmatic approach can not only fundamentally trace the source of consumer behavior but also repeatedly verify it to improve the credibility and validity of the research. Kaur and Malik [40] used the GT method to explore the psychology behind consumers’ panic buying behavior, to deeply understand the influencing factors of this behavior, and to deduce new theories about the formation phenomenon. Finally, through the qualitative data collected, the identified concepts were repeatedly analyzed to verify the new theoretical model.

2.4. Research Review

From the above literature analysis, social e-commerce platforms have obvious social attributes and are centered around “socializing”. However, existing research mostly focuses on quantitative research and lacks the use of qualitative research to fundamentally explore the mechanisms of consumer behavior formation. There are significant differences in the research on CSEB between social e-commerce and traditional e-commerce, such as influencing factors and research methods. Compared with general qualitative research, the biggest feature of GT is that its research direction and process are bottom-up, constructing new theoretical frameworks by exploring behavior in specific contexts. From this, it can be seen that GT can fundamentally explore CSEB in the special scenario of social e-commerce, summarize the important influencing factors and mechanisms of CSEB, and thus build a CSEB model.

3. Research Design and Data Collection

3.1. Research Method

GT has a set of standardized research processes; the main idea is based on primary data, using induction and deductive methods, with the help of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, three processes from which to mine and construct a theoretical framework [41]. Among them, the most critical step is data analysis. Through three levels of coding, data are processed step by step, and then the main categories are gradually separated. Through the question-raising stage, data collection stage, data analysis stage, and model construction stage, we analyze and explore CSEB in depth to reveal the real mechanism of CSEB in the context of social e-commerce. The specific research stage is shown in Figure 1.

3.2. Interview Outline Design

The design of the interview outline adopts the question-focused interview method to obtain more original data from the interviewees using inductive and deductive thinking. Based on the literature review, this study focused on social reality problems to be solved, and an interview outline was designed by one professor and three doctoral students from the field of consumer behavior. The interview outline consists of three parts: First, briefly grasp the basic situation of the interviewees; Second, guide interviewees to express their views on social e-commerce platforms and recall historical review experiences; Third, ask interviewees to express their views on satisfaction evaluations and what factors they think affect the generation of satisfaction evaluations. Before the formal interview, a pre-interview was conducted with five consumers with rich evaluation experience. Through their feedback, the interview outline was revised and optimized to determine the formal interview outline. See Appendix A for details.

3.3. Selection of Research Subjects and Data Collection

Interview data are the first choice for qualitative research, which truly reflect the ideas and concepts that form social phenomena, and summarize the theoretical framework through the relationship among categories. However, interview materials are often subjective and cannot fully reflect social phenomena [42]. Academics believe that secondary data also contain great research value, so to improve the reliability and validity of grounded research, secondary data are used to assist and verify [43].

This article selects consumers who have had satisfaction evaluation behavior on social e-commerce platforms as the research subjects, and the selection of research subjects follows the principle of typically two large samplings. From a typical perspective, the offline research subjects are, firstly, all teachers and students from a university in China, whose research directions include social e-commerce and consumer behavior. On the one hand, they are all over 18 years old, have independent thinking and decision-making abilities, and have more time to participate in in-depth interviews. On the other hand, their professional direction is highly consistent with the research background of this article. Secondly, the online research subjects come from consumers who have already evaluated social e-commerce platforms. It is easier to capture their evaluative behavior through their online comments.

After determining the research subjects, this study decided to use two data collection methods: the first is to conduct in-depth interviews to form first-hand interview texts. The interview process adopts a face-to-face interview method, and each interviewee’s time is between 60 and 90 min. We focus on the interview outline and use a semi-open interview method throughout the entire process to ask flexible questions to the interviewee. At the same time, we encourage them to express themselves about their historical evaluation experiences, understand their most authentic thoughts, and record their answers in detail. After the interview, ask the interviewee if they have any additional information or explanations to fully understand their true views on satisfaction evaluation behavior. The second method is to use data crawlers to crawl online comment materials from social e-commerce platforms. According to the typicality principle of qualitative research [44], it is known that online comments in communities such as clothing, computers, and digital communication are often used by scholars for academic research. Therefore, this study selected clothing and computer stores with high sales and evaluation on a certain social e-commerce platform and used Python software 3.10 to crawl online product review data, including consumer names, review text, follow-up reviews, replies, and like fields.

The official interview will take place from 1 March 2024 to 30 March 2024, and the entire interview will be recorded. After the interview is completed, the interview content will be transcribed and manually proofread. Eventually, 32 standardized transcription documents of approximately 40,000 words were formed. The time for data crawling is from 2 April 2024 to 8 April 2024. This study selected two stores on a certain social e-commerce platform in China and crawled the online comments of the top 1000 consumers. Finally, a total of 2920 comments were crawled, including online comments, follow-up comments, group buying, and replies.

The basic information of interviewees is shown in

Table 1. Basic information of interviewees.

Item	Category	Number of Samples	Proportion
Gender	Male	14	43.8%
	Female	18	56.2%
Age	20–30	24	75%
	30–40	5	15.6%
	>40	3	9.4%
Education	Undergraduate	7	21.9%
	Master	12	37.5%
	Doctor	13	40.6%
Occupation	Student	17	53.1%
	Government-affiliated institutions	5	15.6%
Online shopping years	Enterprise unit	10	31.3%
	<3	2	6.3%
	3–5	5	15.6%
	>5	25	78.1%

. It consists of 32 interviewees, which is considered a fairly large sample size for qualitative studies [45]. In addition, the top 1000 consumers in the two stores were crawled to a total of 2920 reviews, including online reviews, follow-up reviews, spelling orders, and replies.

4. Data Analysis

Next, with interview data as the main data and crawler data as the auxiliary data, this study uses the programmed GT to conduct coding analysis, including open coding, axial coding, and selective coding steps [41]. Two-thirds of the samples were used for coding to enable concept and category extraction, while the remaining samples were used for saturation testing to verify whether new categories were emerging. The entire coding process adhered to the principle of theoretical saturation; that is, when the remaining samples were added, no new categories and theories would be generated, indicating that the theory had reached saturation and could be stopped. In NVivo software 12.6.1, 22 interview materials and 1333 consumer data were imported, encoded, and analyzed.

4.1. Open Coding

Open coding refers to the identification, comparison, and categorization of collected data sentence by sentence, and it conceptualizes and categorizes them. To ensure the reliability and validity of the coding, two other doctoral students were invited to complete it together. The consistent conceptualization results were retained; otherwise, discussions would continue for a third conceptualization. The specific processing process was as follows: in the in-depth interview data, the original sentence was used as the label, sentence-by-sentence repeated analysis, and the initial concept was extracted. Due to the large amount of data, it was necessary to condense words in online review materials, which have a frequency of more than 3 times, in order to obtain initial concepts and categories. Then, all the initial categories were further refined and summarized to obtain the subcategories.

After gradual induction, thirty-eight initial concepts, twenty-four initial categories, and nine subcategories were finally obtained; as indicated in

Table 2. Results of conceptualization and categorization of open coding.

Subcategories	Initial Categories	Concepts	Representative Original Statements
B1 Product perception	A1 Positive perception	aa1Good quality	Anti-season to buy cotton clothing simply earned, cotton clothing quality is good, touch quite thick, beautiful color without color difference, size is appropriate.
		aa2 Complete functions	It’s thick. It should keep you warm.
		aa3 High-cost performance	Cotton-padded jacket received simply beyond my expectation, so cheap and quality so good really earned, put on the try is what I want.
		aa4 Good service attitude	Customer service is very patient, very warm, always answer questions, a word “satisfied”!
		aa5 Fast logistics speed	The delivery is quick and the order is received in three days.
		aa6 After-sale protection	It’s much better than I expected, and the after-sale is good.
	A2 Negative perception	aa7 Poor quality	The quality is also poor, are second-hand refurbished old accessories! The store is a fraud, the first to receive goods did not use long computer problems.
		aa8 Incomplete functions	Results received the goods excitedly open, no line can connect, with their own HDMI connected to the TV, the screen directly all kinds of flash back, 10 s once the display driver has stopped responding, and then crash more than ten times.
		aa9 Low cost performance	Second-hand computers, the price is a little bit cheaper better
		aa10 Bad service attitude	The customer service is very unresponsive, very bad, very bad.
		aa11 Slow logistics speed	The delivery speed and logistics are also very slow, which will make me complain directly or make a bad comment. (03)
		aa12 No after-sales guarantee	I contacted the after-sales, which means that various steps are required to disassemble and re-plug the graphics card. Also let me cut the cable tie. Result: the screwdriver could not reach in, a scissors went down, thinking that it was a cable tie, but in fact it was the wire of the graphics card.
B2 Social pressure	A3 Social identity	aa13 Be consistent with community members	I don’t comment when I disagree with others. If I agree with other people who have purchased this item, it is a positive review, and a negative evaluation when there is a disagreement. (04)
		aa14 Sense of community achievement	Sharing the satisfied products through online comments will give you a sense of accomplishment and pleasure and make you feel that you have chosen the right product. (15)
	A4 Business requirements	aa15 Require high praise	The shopkeeper has requested that I help publicize more. (02)
B3 Social support	A5 Family support	aa16 Family support	The evaluation of family members can have a certain impact, and the impact is not small. (19)
	A6 Friends support	aa17 Friends praise	The quality is very good, the first time to receive the goods opened to see, very good, very satisfied, I bought s size, put on or very fit, friends say very good-looking, ha, really good, like.
	A7 Other support	aa18 Comments from other consumers	The comments of other netizens will also affect it. (05)
B4 Self-efficacy	A8 Knowledge and experience	aa19 Historical experience	Reviews from consumers who have already purchased the product will have an impact on my purchase decision. (21)
		aa20 Knowledge acquisition	In particular, the customer service Lily little sister took pains to guide me patiently, so that I have a basic understanding of the computer, learned some basic knowledge.
B5 External control force	A9 Cost of capital	aa21 Low cost	General small objects, whether good or bad, will not be commented on. Items with slightly higher price (300RMB+) will be commented on. (20)
	A10 Time Resources	aa22 Time and energy	Will give time for spontaneous evaluation. (10)
	A11 Rights Protection Resources	aa23 Solve the problem	There are some small problems in the middle, the customer service are very patient to help me solve.
		aa24 Returns	The computer flagship store is really incomparable, the attitude is poor, and the purchase is broken and returned.
B6 Positive evaluation motivations	A12 Self-expression	aa25 Self-disclosure	I feel that at least I have truly expressed my own use experience. (04)
	A13 Help businesses	aa26 Supports businesses	Support such conscience business, let it bring benefits to more people. (07)
	A14 Social benefits	aa27 Social relationships	In the community shop group, I already know many like-minded members.
	A15 Economic benefits	aa28 Red envelopes	A few times out of the store’s reward. (05)
		aa29 Cashback	Under the incentive of cash back from merchants, will evaluate. (21)
B7 Negative evaluation motivations	A16 Penalize businesses	aa30 Harassment	Let the shopkeeper pay the price for his black heart. (07)
	A17 Vent negative emotions	aa31 Emotional intensity	The greater the emotional intensity, the greater the desire to comment, express feelings and emotions. (09)
	A18 Altruistic motivation	aa32 Helping others	It will serve as a reference for other consumers, so that they can judge whether to buy such products or not. (08)
	A19 Product improvement	aa33 Improved products	It’s also good feedback to the vendor or product developer. (15)
B8 Online reviews	A20 Illustrated	aa34 Text, pictures, videos	I will post very detailed comments on the platform and post pictures of the products. (02)
	A21 Score	aa35 Star	Full five-star high quality praise!
	A22 Single again	aa36 Repo	I will buy it back again. Happy!
B9 Social interaction	A23 Reply	aa37 Inquiry	And if they ask me about my experience with something, I’ll tell them the truth.
	A24 Share	aa38 Share	Special good will recommend sharing, buy agricultural products on it. (07)

Note: Remark (*) represents the original material of interviewees, where “*” refers to the interviewees’ number, and no remark (*) represents online reviews of the two shops.

and Figure 2, each subcategory showed the initial categories, corresponding concepts, and corresponding representative original statements.

4.2. Axial Coding

Axial coding is to cluster and encode multiple categories formed by open coding, explore the logical relationship among categories, and then dig out the main categories. At this stage, it is important to discover the logical relationship between categories of resumes. Common logical relationships include structural relationships, functional relationships, causal relationships, etc. Corbin [46] proposed a coding method that connects different categories: causal relationship, phenomenon, scenario, mediation condition, action/interaction strategy, and result. Drawing on this coding method, we link the different categories based on causality, as shown in

Table 3. Canonical model of main category.

Causal Relationship	Influence Mechanism of CSEB
Phenomenon	Praise by default or do not post reviews
Scenario	Under the action of different influence factors in social e-commerce
Mediation condition	For some evaluation motivations
Operation strategy	Post online reviews
Result	Produce actual CSEB

:

Through axial coding, five main categories were finally formed, namely product perception, social influence, perceived behavior control, evaluation motivations, and CSEB. As shown in

Table 4. Axial coding results and relationship connotation.

Main Categories	Subcategories	Relational Connotations
Product perception	B1 Positive perception	Individuals’ positive evaluations of the whole consumption experience
	B2 Negative perception	Individuals’ negative evaluations of the whole consumption experience
Social influence	B3 Social pressure	Individuals’ pressure to be consistent with other consumer evaluations or because of business requirements
	B4 Social support	Support from groups with important relationships, such as families, friends, or community members
Perceived behavioral control	B5 Self-efficacy	The degree of confidence that individuals use their own internal resources to carry out satisfaction evaluation
	B6 External control force	Individuals use their time, energy, funds, rights protection, and other resources to implement the control of satisfaction evaluation
Evaluate motivation	B7 Positive evaluation motivations	The positive driving force for individuals to implement satisfaction evaluation
	B8 Negative evaluation motivations	The negative driving force for individuals to implement satisfaction evaluation
CSEB	B9 Online reviews	Individuals express their evaluations of products or services in the form of star ratings, text, pictures, or videos on the platform
	B10 Social interaction	Individuals respond to questions from other consumers or share purchased products

, it contains main categories and the corresponding subcategories and relational connotations.

4.3. Selective Coding

Selective coding is a further induction of the axial coding, according to the relationship between the main categories, and the “story line” is generated, and the core category is excavated. Through the discussion and analysis of three doctoral students, the core category of “influence mechanism of CSEB” was determined. The logical idea could be summarized as product perception, social influence, perceived behavior control (antecedents), evaluation motivations (mediation), and CSEB (consequences). Finally, a CSEB model is constructed, as shown in Figure 3. The model explains that consumers produce evaluation motivations as the mediating factor under the action of product perception, social influence, and perceived behavior control and form a purposeful CSEB.

4.4. Theoretical Saturation Test

Finally, the remaining samples were tested by theoretical saturation. The results showed that no new concepts and categories appeared in the coding process, which fully indicated that the concepts and categories proposed earlier had covered all; that is, the influence mechanism of CSEB had reached a saturated state in theory.

4.5. Validation

Triangulation is often validated in qualitative studies to test the same phenomena using multiple methods [47]. It effectively avoids the limitations of a single research method and can improve the credibility of the research results. Therefore, this study validated the proposed theoretical model by means of three methods: peer debriefing, member checking, and validation with existing literature.

(1)

Triangulation technique 1: Peer debriefing

Peer debriefing refers to the joint evaluation of a knowledge product by experts in a given field [48]. Five professors from professional fields gave advice and corrections to the entire research process, which contributed to the validation of the study.

(2)

Triangulation technique 2: Member checking

Membership checking is the review of research findings by interviewees to check their validity [48]. We used face-to-face and social media tools (such as WeChat, QQ, email, etc.) to share research results with interviewees. Due to some uncontrollable factors, only 87.5% of interviewees accepted the return interview. After discussion and interpretation, the consistent result was finally determined.

(3)

Triangulation technique 3: Validation with existing literature

Finally, the research results of the existing literature were compared to verify the credibility of this study.

Product perception. Barari et al. [49] and Ismagilova et al. [50] all confirmed that product attitudes include both positive perceptions and negative perceptions. The effects of positive and negative perceptions on CSEB have been discussed separately in past studies [51,52].

Social influence. However, social support was considered a social influence in most studies [53,54]. Social stress also belongs to social influence. Social pressure tends to come more from pressure from non-essential groups than from individuals rather than support.

Perceptual behavioral control. Ajzen [55] argued that individuals’ performance of a certain behavior was constrained by the control of perceptual behavior, where perceptual behavior control came from actual control conditions such as individual ability, opportunity, and resources. The perceptual behavior control proposed in this study is the same concept, but it is divided into self-efficacy and external control force. Self-efficacy refers to personal ability, which comes from the internal of individuals and belongs to behavior control. External control force refers to external resource conditions, which belongs to cognitive control [56].

Evaluation motivations. Hennig-Thurau et al. [57] summarized eight kinds of motives in their research on the motivation of online word-of-mouth release, which could be roughly classified into two categories: positive evaluation motivations and negative evaluation motivations. In different motivational studies, these eight motivations were often studied separately [58].

CSEB. In most studies, the results of consumer satisfaction evaluation were online reviews, which were equivalent to some extent [24]. The satisfaction evaluation behavior of this study included online reviews and social interaction. Mainly because of the particularity of the research object, the social e-commerce platform can not only make online comments but also make online replies, that is, social interaction.

5. Model Explanation and Discussion

From the above sorted-out “story line” and constructed model, it is obvious that CSEB is a decision-making process in which individuals have carefully planned information. To put it simply, product perception, social influence, and perceived behavior control, as important antecedents, stimulate consumers to form strong evaluation motivations. These evaluation motivations stimulate the generation of CSEB, and evaluation motivations play a mediating role in the entire behavior decision-making process.

5.1. Influence of Product Perception on Evaluation Motivations

Firstly, it was found that product perception significantly affected the evaluation motivations. Product perception refers to consumers’ cognition and emotions of the entire consumption process, including positive perception and negative perception. Under the influence of product perception, consumers will have certain evaluation motivations. Evaluation motivations refer to certain evaluation purposes generated by consumers driven by influencing factors, including positive evaluation motivations and negative evaluation motivations. According to motivation theory, there is a close relationship between consumer experience satisfaction and motivation. In general, satisfied consumers are motivated by positive reviews, while dissatisfied consumers are motivated by negative reviews.

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Positive perception and evaluation motivations

Positive perception refers to individuals’ positive evaluation of the entire consumer experience, indicating consumers’ satisfaction with factors such as product quality, functions, cost performance, service attitude, and logistics. To encourage more consumers to purchase the merchant’s high-quality products, they will generate motivation to help promote or support the merchant. Effective communication or meeting like-minded friends gained by individuals from community members are considered social motivations. In addition, satisfied consumers, driven by economic incentives such as cashback and red envelopes, will also increase their willingness to post positive online reviews. It can be seen that there is a significant positive correlation between positive perception and positive evaluation motivation.

Interestingly, historical research has shown that evaluation motivation positively impacts product positive perception [59,60]. They advocate that consumer motivation influences purchase intention through consumer attitudes. This viewpoint is opposite to the perspective of this study. We found during the coding process that when consumers are satisfied with a product, they want to express their true feelings about the product or service through text or ratings, that is, self-expression motivation for meeting their own needs.

In social e-commerce platforms, many successful products benefit from consumers’ positive perceptions and positive evaluation motivation. For example, products from well-known brands such as Apple, Huawei, and Samsung are widely praised by consumers for their high quality, innovation, or excellent user experience. These positive reviews not only enhance the product’s brand image but also attract more potential consumers’ attention and purchase intention. Therefore, enterprises can enhance consumers’ positive perception by continuously improving product design and production processes, improving product quality and performance [61].

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Negative perception and evaluation motivations

Negative perception refers to individuals’ negative evaluation of the entire consumer experience, indicating the degree of consumer dissatisfaction with factors such as product quality, functions, cost performance, service attitude, and logistics. When consumers encounter an unsatisfactory consumer experience, they feel that they have the responsibility to help other consumers avoid the same negative shopping experience, that is, altruistic motives. Dissatisfied consumers will also retaliate to a certain extent or punish businesses’ dissatisfaction by posting negative online reviews to prevent other consumers from buying unsatisfactory products or wanting to damage the image of businesses. Dissatisfied consumers post negative online reviews on the platforms to vent their anxiety caused by negative emotions. In addition, to improve the quality of products, consumers will also be motivated to help businesses improve their products by posting negative online reviews to point out areas for product improvement. It can be seen that negative perception is positively correlated with negative evaluation motivations.

Similar to previous studies, positive perception of products has a positive impact on evaluation motivation [19]. Ladhari et al. [62] stated that the generation of negative perception mainly depends on individual subjective judgment. Once a negative attitude is formed, individuals are likely to exhibit the consistent motivation to vent negative emotions to seek psychological balance. The empirical results show that the more negative the perception, the stronger the motivation to vent negative emotions.

In social e-commerce platforms, it is not uncommon for some well-known brands to experience a sharp decline in their reputation and brand image due to quality issues. Negative perception of products not only harms a company’s market share but may also trigger a series of chain reactions, such as a decrease in consumer trust and brand loyalty. Therefore, businesses and enterprises should pay attention to consumers’ negative perceptions and respond to and handle consumer complaints and dissatisfaction promptly to improve the quality of products or services and consumer satisfaction. Enterprises should establish an effective negative review monitoring mechanism and collect real-time negative perception information from consumers through channels such as social media and online review platforms. Once negative perception information is discovered, companies should respond quickly, contact consumers, understand the specific situation, and solve the problem as soon as possible. This can not only reduce consumer dissatisfaction but also prevent the spread of negative reviews.

5.2. Influence of Social Influence on Evaluation Motivations

Secondly, it was found that social influence significantly affected evaluation motivations. Social influence refers to the pressure and support that consumers perceive when deciding whether to evaluate, and this pressure and support is mainly derived from the norms formed by groups with important social relationships (e.g., families, friends, and community members) that consumers perceive. Previous studies found that normative social influence had the greatest impact on individual behavior and was a powerful persuasion lever [63,64]. Then, the “social” attribute of social e-commerce makes consumers significantly affected by social relationships in the evaluation process. Social influence is reflected in both social pressure and social support, which directly affects evaluation motivations.

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Social pressure and evaluation motivations

Social pressure refers to the pressure formed when consumers are faced with other social groups and businesses, including two categories: inconsistency with online reviews and demands from businesses. Online reviews have a certain valence, reflecting other consumers’ satisfaction with the product or service. It enhances or weakens consumer perception to some extent. When the consumer’s perception is inconsistent with the online reviews, it will weaken the individual’s perception, and the vast majority of consumers will choose to follow the evaluation of other consumers. Another important source of pressure is demands from businesses, who often ask for good reviews through private messages, text messages, or phone calls. When faced with these two kinds of pressure, consumers may have positive evaluation motivations because of compliance psychology or negative evaluation motivations because of reverse psychology. It can be seen that there is a correlation between social pressure and evaluation motivations.

However, there is little exploration of the relationship between social stress and evaluative motivation in existing research. In other consumer behavior studies, scholars have found a close relationship between social stress and evaluative motivation, suggesting that social stress can stimulate or inhibit evaluative motivation [1].

In social e-commerce platforms, users are often influenced by their social circles. To integrate into the group, gain recognition, or avoid isolation, users may have a strong motivation to leave reviews, like, share, and showcase their shopping experience and attitude. Therefore, social e-commerce platforms can introduce third-party evaluation agencies or experts to enhance the authority and credibility of evaluations. On the other hand, it can guide users to make rational evaluations and avoid excessive reliance on social pressure or emotional evaluations. For example, evaluation standards and guidelines can be set up to remind users to publish truthful and objective evaluations. At the same time, punishment and crackdown can be imposed on malicious or false evaluations to maintain the authenticity and fairness of evaluations.

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Social support and evaluation motivations

Social support includes family support, friend support, and other supports, especially from these socially important groups. During the interview, it was found that the vast majority of interviewees believed that the opinions of families, friends, and others on products would directly affect their evaluation of the product. When the influence of family and friends was great, they even reversed their original perception. As an emotional and behavioral resource support, social support can increase individuals’ ability to face difficulties and promote the formation of positive evaluation motivations. However, social support may also alleviate or exacerbate individuals’ negative emotions or retaliatory psychology, thereby reducing or enhancing negative evaluation motivations. In other words, social support leads to qualitative changes in evaluation motivations. It can be seen that social support is related to evaluation motivations.

Unlike previous studies, scholars have proposed that the level of social support can, to some extent, enhance or weaken an individual’s cognitive and emotional expression toward a product. Therefore, they argue and confirm that social support plays a moderating role between product perception and evaluation motivation [19].

The community on social e-commerce platforms is an important place for users to communicate, share, and interact. In the community, users can gain support and help from others by sharing shopping experiences, asking questions, and answering questions. This kind of community interaction not only helps users establish trust but also stimulates their evaluation motivation. Therefore, social e-commerce platforms should attach importance to the construction and management of communities and attract users to participate by creating interesting community activities and providing valuable content. At the same time, the platform should establish effective community rules and management mechanisms to ensure the healthy development of the community and a good user experience. This will help stimulate users’ evaluation motivation and enhance their trust.

5.3. Influence of Perceived Behavioral Control on Evaluation Motivations

Then, it was found that perceptual behavior control significantly affected evaluation motivations. Perceptual behavior control refers to individuals’ perception of the difficulty of implementing a certain line when facing obstacles. Perceived behavioral control is embodied in self-efficacy, determined by internal factors, and external control force, determined by external factors. The strength of perceived behavior control directly determines the strength of consumer evaluation motivations, which plays a vital role in the process of evaluating.

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Self-efficacy and evaluation motivations

Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s confidence degree in performing a certain behavior using his or her own internal resources. Self-efficacy includes not only one’s own historical experience but also the knowledge learned from it, and it reflects consumers’ confidence in their own capabilities. Consumers with high levels of self-efficacy have a strong motivation to evaluate positively and are more inclined to engage in that behavior. Even if they encounter obstacles in the evaluation process, they will try to solve problems on their own. However, self-efficacy can also exert the subjective initiative of individuals, regulate negative evaluation motivations, and reduce the impact of negative emotions or revenge on individuals. It can be seen that self-efficacy is related to evaluation motivations.

As with previous studies, scholars also support this view, believing that self-efficacy stimulates individuals’ behavioral motivation, enabling them to utilize their own resources and skills, thereby demonstrating competence in the behavior [19,65]. When individuals have a strong sense of self-efficacy, they develop a strong confidence to help other individuals solve problems and stimulate their intrinsic motivation for evaluation.

In social e-commerce platforms, users with strong self-efficacy are more likely to actively participate in platform activities, such as posting reviews, sharing shopping experiences, and participating in community discussions. Users with high self-efficacy often have a deeper sense of trust in the platform because they believe they can make wise shopping decisions and share valuable experiences. Therefore, social e-commerce platforms can establish user growth systems, such as point systems, level systems, etc., to allow users to feel their growth and progress on the platform. This helps to enhance users’ self-efficacy as they can see their efforts and achievements being recognized.

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External control force and evaluation motivations

External control force refers to the control individuals have over the use of their resources such as time and energy, funds, and rights protection to implement CSEB. Specifically, when there is enough time and energy, consumers are more willing to evaluate. This is because, in the actual evaluation process, more and more consumers are unwilling to actively evaluate because of limited time and energy, and they directly choose to default on praise. The more funds they have, the less difficult they perceive it to be in the act of commenting and the weaker the motivation to evaluate. In addition, rights protection resources are also an important influencing factor, and dissatisfied consumers are more likely to find customer service or a third party to protect their rights. When they succeed in safeguarding their rights, they may form positive evaluation motives to help businesses, or they may form negative evaluation motives to retaliate against businesses. However, when rights protection is unsuccessful, they will have negative evaluation motivations to punish or retaliate against the business. It can be seen that there is a correlation between external control forces and evaluation motivations.

In the study of consumer satisfaction evaluation behavior, there is little evidence to verify the impact of external control factors such as time, funding, or resources on evaluation motivation. However, in consumer purchasing behavior research, the focus is on exploring the impact of external control on purchasing motivation [14,66]. This is also a major highlight of this article, filling the gap in existing research.

In social e-commerce, resources such as time and energy, funds, and rights protection have a significant impact on evaluation motivation. Therefore, fast social e-commerce platforms can set up quick evaluation functions, such as click evaluation, template evaluation, etc., allowing users to easily complete evaluations. Reward mechanisms can also be set up to incentivize users to invest more effort in writing high-quality reviews through the establishment of evaluation reward mechanisms such as points, coupons, etc.

5.4. Influence of Evaluation Motivations on CSEB

Next, it was found that evaluation motivations significantly affected the generation of CSEB. CSEB is driven by evaluation motivations and belongs to a kind of motivational behavior. CSEB is an actual behavior that occurs and is the outcome variable of this study. Motivation is a predisposing factor for behavior and cannot be ignored. Studies had proposed that consumers’ online CSEB had an obvious purpose, and if consumers did not have a purpose, CSEB would not occur at all [67]. In fact, this purpose is the evaluation motivations, which may originate from consumers themselves or the consideration of other consumers. Driven by evaluation motivations, consumers will post online reviews on the platforms in the form of texts, ratings, videos, etc., which are the result of behavior. Different evaluation motivations often lead to different results, such as positive online reviews or negative online reviews. At the same time, in the face of other consumers’ inquiries, they will also respond to them accordingly, forming online social interaction. Therefore, the stronger the evaluation motivations, the more it can stimulate consumers to produce CSEB.

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Positive evaluation motivations and CSEB

Positive evaluation motivations include helping businesses, economic benefits, self-expression, and social interests. Helping businesses means that individuals want to help businesses promote or hope that businesses will prosper for satisfactory products. Economic benefits refer to individuals giving praise driven by the economic rewards of businesses. Self-expression is an individual’s expression of cognition or emotion about products, which is a desire to express. Social interests are individuals’ order to maintain social relationships and benefit other members, which is a kind of information-gift purpose. Positive reviews drive consumers to post positive online reviews. In addition, after posting online reviews, they will also give other consumers positive responses. It can be seen that positive evaluation motivations positively affect CSEB.

Undoubtedly, the results of this study are consistent with the conclusions of historical research [42,68]. As is well known, motivation is the intrinsic cause and driving force behind the occurrence of behavior.

In the field of social e-commerce, the impact of evaluation motivation on satisfaction evaluation behavior is evident, as it directly relates to whether users are willing to share their shopping experiences and how these experiences affect the purchasing decisions of other users. Therefore, the platform should establish an incentive mechanism to motivate users to post reviews through reward measures such as points, coupons, gifts, etc. At the same time, rankings such as “Best Reviews” and “Popular Reviews” can be set up to increase users’ sense of honor and participation. In addition, the platform can guide users to participate in evaluations through platform push notifications, SMS reminders, and other methods. At the same time, a review reminder function can be set up to remind users to post reviews promptly.

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Negative evaluation motivations and CSEB

Negative evaluation motivations include punishing businesses, venting negative emotions, and improving products. Punishing businesses is trying to damage the image of businesses or products by posting negative reviews. Usually, to retaliate against businesses, consumers will publish and spread negative reviews on the platforms so that other consumers will no longer buy the products and businesses will bear the negative consequences. Venting negative emotions is to express inner dissatisfaction and reduce emotional pressure. It is the main driving force for individuals to express negative shopping experiences. An altruistic motive is to save other individuals from the same suffering, which is a spontaneous act of helping others to obtain benefits regardless of their interests. Product improvement is to let businesses understand the shortcomings of products, improve products in time, and improve product quality. Negative evaluation motivations drive consumers to post negative online reviews while also giving other consumers negative responses. It can be seen that negative evaluation motivations positively affect CSEB.

As expected, the results of this study are consistent with the conclusions of historical research [19]. Previous studies have confirmed that negative evaluation motivation has a positive impact on consumer satisfaction evaluation behavior. Generally, the stronger the negative motivation, the more likely it is to promote the generation of evaluative behavior.

In social e-commerce platforms, negative evaluation motivations often hurt businesses and consumers. Therefore, when merchants receive negative reviews, they should respond as soon as possible and propose effective solutions. At the same time, businesses should conduct an in-depth analysis of the issues reflected in negative reviews and identify shortcomings in their products or services. By optimizing product design, improving service quality, and enhancing logistics and distribution, we continuously enhance the shopping experience for our customers.

5.5. Mediating Role of Evaluation Motivations

Most importantly, we found that evaluation motivations played a significant mediating role in the overall behavioral decision process. From the previous analysis, it is clear that product perception, social influence, and perceived behavior control either positively or negatively stimulate evaluative motivations, while evaluative motivations determine the generation of CSEB. Specifically, when consumers experience a satisfying shopping experience, positive antecedents such as positive perceptions, social support, and self-efficacy stimulate positive evaluation motivations, which then lead to positive CSEB. Conversely, negative CSEB is generated.

This research finding is consistent with historical research findings, and empirical studies have confirmed the significant mediating effect of evaluation motivation as an antecedent and outcome variable [59,60].

In social e-commerce platforms, evaluation motivation has a profound impact on the process of consumer satisfaction evaluation behavior. Therefore, merchants and platforms should attach great importance to it, and they can stimulate consumers to publish online reviews by establishing a sound evaluation mechanism and feedback system, optimizing products and services, encouraging user participation in evaluations, and other means.

6. Conclusions and Suggestions

6.1. Conclusions

This study uses GT to explore the influence mechanism of CSEB in the context of social e-commerce, focusing on the influence factors of CSEB, which makes up for the shortcomings in the existing research on the influence mechanism of CSEB. Through three-level coding, the interview data and crawler data were analyzed and summarized sentence by sentence, and finally, five main categories were obtained: product perception, social influence, perceived behavior control, evaluation motivations, and CSEB. According to the logical relationship between categories, the CSEB model is constructed. This research method is theoretically helpful in analyzing the causes and consequences of CSEB in the context of social e-commerce. In practice, it helps social e-commerce platform managers and businesses to effectively use the influence mechanism of CSEB to implement product marketing, function development, and customer relationship management activities. At the same time, this study also lays a solid theoretical foundation for the formulation of subsequent research hypotheses and the construction of theoretical models.

6.2. Suggestions

The above research results have important management implications for social e-commerce platforms and businesses. In practical application, the platforms and businesses can improve the platforms’ customer relationship management and information management capabilities through a series of measures and promote two-way interaction between businesses and consumers, thereby increasing the economic benefits of businesses, enhancing the influence of the platforms, and improving consumer satisfaction.

On the one hand, from the perspective of businesses, we must pay attention to product quality and service perception. It can be seen from the interview data that the basis of consumer evaluation is whether products are satisfactory or not, and consumers who are often satisfied with products will have positive evaluation motivations and will publish positive online reviews. At the same time, service attitude is also an important factor affecting the performance of CSEB; if the customer service attitude is relatively poor, consumers will give bad reviews directly. Therefore, the key to sustainable development of businesses lies in product quality and service attitude. On the other hand, economic incentives should be developed to fully mobilize the activity of consumers and motivate them to publish and disseminate useful positive online reviews. Under the rewards of red envelopes, coupons, etc., consumers are encouraged to express themselves and publish authentic and objective online reviews content. At the same time, consumers are also encouraged to recommend purchased products to consumers with social relationships or use social media to push products to share their real experiences with other consumers so as to guide them to buy.

From the perspective of platform managers, the first is to strengthen the development of social functions of the platforms, vigorously develop social communities, and enhance social relations among consumers. When designing social functions, developers should pay attention to the two-way interaction among consumers and improve the information interaction ability among consumers. In this way, consumers are stimulated to be active, and their relationship strength is improved, mainly because a good social atmosphere provides consumers with more information support, emotional support, and even evaluation support, which helps them quickly make correct evaluation decision-making behavior. The second is to correctly guide consumers to publish online reviews. In the complex social e-commerce environment, consumers are more willing to trust the reviews of consumers with social relationships or online reviews of websites. Through social relationships, consumers can be positively guided to post positive online reviews, which in turn amplifies the impact of online reviews. The third is to strictly control the information quality of online reviews. The platforms should audit online reviews posted by consumers to prevent the impact of false comments such as malicious evaluations, inappropriate evaluations, and induced evaluations, thereby improving the usefulness and usability of online reviews.

6.3. Shortcomings and Prospects

As an exploratory study, this study inevitably has some limitations such as the inability to quantitatively characterize the degree of influence between various categories and test the accuracy of the proposed model. In follow-up research, quantitative research or a combination of qualitative and quantitative research is required to accurately quantify and test the relationship between variables. At the same time, there are also deficiencies in the sample size. Although interview data and online comment data are collected, the amount of data is not large enough, which results in the deletion of keywords with low frequency in the research process, resulting in insufficient comprehensive influence factors. In a later study, the sample size will be expanded, more key influence factors will be excavated, and a more comprehensive CSEB model will be constructed. Finally, as this study was conducted in China, cultural differences in other countries and regions were not considered. Therefore, we encourage future research to conduct cross-regional and cross-cultural validations.