The Mediating Effect of Social Media Marketing Adoption between Competitive Intelligence and SME Performance

SMEs play an important role and have been major contributors to the socio-economic development of Malaysia. However, due to increasing number of competition, many organisations, either in the public or private sector, are instigating their own competitive intelligence (CI) services to guide their decision makers. However, most companies still do not establish a formal department of CI even though it is apparent that CI is becoming increasingly vital to a company?s survival in today?s dynamic economies. In addition, in studies of internet adoption by Malaysian SMEs in a developing country, it is found that although access to social media has improved, engagement and use of the Internet is still at low levels in small companies. Thus, this study was conducted to identify the mediating effect of social media marketing adoption between competitive intelligence and SME performance. Theoretical framework of this study was derived from Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that figure out whether the user were able to adopt the new technologies. The study was carried out in East Coast Region of Malaysia using 339 respondents and analysed using Smart PLS 3.0. Overall, the study provides supportive evidence that social media marketing adoption mediates the relationship between competitive intelligence and SME performance. Competitive intelligence also found to be significantly affect the SME performance.