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Top1. Introduction
In this modern era, social network sites (SNS) have become an essential medium for communication among individuals, families, and firms (Larosiliere & Leidner, 2012) within and across nations. With the prevalence of SNS sites such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter among others, individuals can easily communicate, create and share information from any part of the world (Larosiliere, Carter, & Meske, 2017). According to a Statista (2018) report, the number of SNS users around the globe in the year 2017 stood at approximately 2.46 billion, an increase of over 50 million from the 2014 number of users that stood at 1.91 billion. However, it is predicted that the number of SNS users worldwide will increase to over 3.02 billion in the year 2021. The increase in SNS use globally can be attributed to the increasing usage of mobile devices which has enabled mobile social networking applications and allows individuals to access visual blogging sites which so much ease (Clement, 2018). As at the fourth quarter of 2018, five countries were ranked with the highest number of social media users. This included; China, India, United States (US), Brazil and Indonesia with number of users approximately standing at 673 million, 326 million, 243 million, 95 million and 85 million respectively (Statista, 2019a). Furthermore, Facebook which is currently the world’s SNS market leader in terms of reach and scope boast of 2.3 billion active monthly users worldwide with YouTube and WhatsApp been its close competitor having 1.9 and 1.6 billion active users worldwide (Statista, 2019b). Boyd & Ellison (2007a, p. 211) defined SNS as “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”. One extraordinary element of SNS is that they do not only allow individuals to meet with strangers, but also enables individuals to connect and make known their social networks (Boyd & Ellison, 2007b).
Over the last decade, the world has experienced an increase in technological innovations. This rise has led to the acceptance of technological innovations by individuals and businesses around the globe. As such, Information Systems (IS) researchers have delved into studies that explores the critical factors that influence the adoption or acceptance of these technologies in contexts such as financial technologies (Chuang, Liu, & Kao, 2016; Ryu, 2018; Yonghee, Young-Ju, Jeongil, & Jiyoung, 2016), e-business and e-government (Elenezi, Tarhini, Masa’deh, Alalwan, & Al-Qirim, 2017; Srivastava & Teo, 2010; Krishnan et al.,2013; Richter et al., 2009). However, whilst research on SNS adoption has also been widely explored, only a few studies examine its adoption at the global level (Larosiliere et al., 2017; Sun & Wang, 2012; Krishnan et al., 2013). This is because social media adoption has widely been seen as an individual phenomenon investigated at the individual level and this presents a narrow view of social network adoption. The few studies that have examined social media adoption at the global level have largely concentrated on the effects of internal resources such as technological, organizational and environment on SNS adoption at the national level (Larosiliere et al., 2017). Research on the relationship that exists between the major internal factors such as technology, organization, and environment at the global level and how they affect SNS adoption at the global level is lacking.