Data analysis

As the objectives of this study had an exploratory nature due to the scarcity of the theoretical knowledge of the phenomena under investigation, and were aimed at developing a theory, the diary entries, narratives and interviews were analyzed through standard qualitative data analysis procedures (Glaser & Strauss 1967;

Strauss & Corbin 1990; Spiggle 1994) and were guided by the systematic combining approach that allows for combing the deductive and inductive approaches by moving back and forth between the data and existing literature (Dubois & Gadde 2002), instead of strictly following the a priori theoretical

framework or starting without any theoretical framework in mind (Piekkari, Plakoyiannaki, & Welch 2010).

The data analysis of the collected 33 diary entries and 126 narratives started just after the data was collected, as recommended by Silverman (2010), in order to allow the data to shape the focus of the next data collection – interviews (Eriksson & Kovalainen 2008). The data analysis involved 379 diary entries gathered from 33 respondents. 238 pages of personal narratives and 93 pages of interview tape-recorded transcripts were transcribed verbatim.

The reports were scrutinized sentence by sentence with the purpose of identification of preliminary categories by open-coding otherwise referred to as initial coding (Charmaz 2006; Strauss & Corbin 1998) of each of the diary booklet and diary entries. Open coding can be referred to as identification of the concepts within textual data, thus involving the categorization of the studied phenomenon (Sinkovics et al. 2008). First, any emerging motives for engagement were coded using an in vivo descriptor (e.g. ‘I have tagged a friend because I know she was looking for a dress like this’, was coded as ‘a friend was looking for this’; or ‘I shared that post because many of my friends will find it relevant to know’, was coded as ‘many friends find it relevant’. To reduce the data to fewer and conceptually abstracted codes (Strauss & Corbin 1990) data was given a descriptor which was then grouped into concepts representing what motivated informants to engage with the content, for different engagement behaviors, e.g. ‘to benefit others’, ‘to help a friend’, ‘to guide others’.

Afterwards, to relate those initial categories to each other requires axial coding (Strauss & Corbin 1990). Axial coding constitutes of establishing the relationships between those identified concepts into categories. This step involved identification of the concepts that could be grouped together, and analyzing the incidences of occurrence, depending on whether they were qualitatively similar, or dissimilar in the motivation pursued by the informant. To ensure that those categories were internally consistent and discrete, two questions guided the categorization (Jarzabkowski 2008): (1) Is this code similar to the other code? (2) Is this code different from the other code? This step involved identification of the concepts that could be grouped together by analyzing the occurrences, making sure specific motivation is mentioned by multiple informants, and is not constrained to a very specific context. This process resulted in forming categories e.g. ‘providing value to others’. As recommended by Charmaz (2006), in order to understand the relationships between the categories, the data was analyzed on an interaction-by-interaction basis (where entry by entry (in case of diaries, and paragraph by paragraph in

case of the narratives and interviews) coding resulted in initial descriptors) and then on a whole-case basis (where analysis of the diary questionnaire allowed for seeing how those descriptors work together). In the next step, the diary by diary/narrative/interview transcript (between-case comparison) allowed for identification of the differences and similarities between informants.

Further, the selective coding which involves the integration and refinement of the established categories through comparing and interpreting led to an explanation of the studied phenomenon. Throughout the process, I was moving back and forth between inductive thinking, existing literature and deductive thinking in order to include the emerging themes (Sobh & Perry 2006). In the iterative process of comparing the categories against the terms in the existing literature (Suddaby 2006), the final categories of ‘providing value’, and ‘accessing information’ may seem related to the concepts of ‘altruism’ (Teichmann et al.

2015; Ho & Dempsey 2010), and ‘purposive value’ (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo 2004). While this check provides important validation as no similarities with the previous literature could be debatable (Eisenhardt 1989), I decided not to use the previously used terms, as they do not capture the full context of the collected data, and imply different context.

The whole process was supported by memo taking, as suggested by Stern (2007) and Birks and Mills (2008, 2011). Furthermore, a research diary was kept for the duration of data analysis in order to follow and record emerging themes and to track any possibly changing theoretical focus, which should aid in authentication of the findings and their presentation (Andersen & Skaates 2004). The data was read six times. Throughout the process, the researcher was moving back and forth between inductive thinking, existing literature and deductive thinking.

Moreover, another researcher familiar with the research objectives of the study provided a ‘member check’ and his comments were favorable and supported that the text constitutes an accurate insight into the users’ motives for engagement.

Table 13 summarizes the codes used during the data analysis.

Table 13. Codes

Motive Definition and coding

INFORMATION ACCESS The user reports he/she engaged with the content to access the information about the product.

FINANCIAL GAIN

The user reports he/she engaged with the content to benefit from the information on the deals, sales, promotions or participate in a competition or lottery.

LEARNING MORE ABOUT A PRODUCT

The user reports he/she engaged with the content to ask about product features, pricing, availability etc. or inquiring about other users’ opinions.

KEEPING IN TOUCH

The user reports he/she engaged with the content to connect with others, or kept in touch with them, to have something to do with them, to be included in the conversations, to feel closer to others, or to make others feel closer to himself/herself.

PROVIDING VALUE

The user reports he/she engaged with the content in because he/she thought it would be useful to the people he/she shared it with as the majority of his/her connections will benefit from it by either being able to take advantage of the opportunity or be warned.

EXPRESSING SUPPORT

The user reports he/she engaged with the content because he/she liked the brand and wanted to support it, or to express his/her support for the person or company who posted it.

To test for the face validity of the interview informants, five of the personal narratives informants were also asked to read the findings and provide their comments (for the purpose of a member check). Their favorable comments supported that the presented interpretations represent the motivations. Because the study had an exploratory character, and that the data saturation was reached, the content validity has been established (Bowen 2008).