Consumer resource integration and service innovation in social commerce: the role of social media influencers

Social media technologies have given rise to influencers who shape the purchasing behaviors of their followers (peer consumers), thus enabling consumer-initiated social commerce. However, few studies have explored how social media influencers, and more broadly, consumers, actively integrate resources to engage in service innovation in social commerce. This qualitative study (involving two firms and their influencers) examines the emerging roles of social media influencers and their resource integration behaviors in service innovation. Drawing on the service-dominant logic and the technology affordance theory, the study advances a framework that identifies the resource integration behaviors that underlie two primary roles of influencers—communicator and innovator—and explains how social media technology affordances facilitate these behaviors, and thereby, the ensuing innovation outcomes. By focusing on the technology-mediated processes of social media influencers’ engagement in service innovation, we contribute to research and practice in consumer-led service innovation in the emerging digital world.