The literature suggests that the adoption and use of social media can derive a number of benefits to B2B firms (see Siamagka et al, 2015; Wang et al, 2016). Despite the benefits however, the adoption and use of social media in B2B setting is slow (Lacka and Chong, 2016), so is research examining social media adoption by B2B firms (Iankova et al, 2018). To date, only a handful of studies explored factors driving social media use for B2B marketing purposes (Siamagka et al, 2015; Lacka and Chong, 2016). Lacka and Chong (2016), for example, revealed that practical acceptability (perceived usefulness, usability and utility) drives adoption decision. They ignored however the role of social acceptability, referred to social factors, which according to Nielsen (1993) is crucial in the technology adoption decision. Social factors are conceptualised as subjective norms or group norms, which motive persuasion of specific behaviour (e.g. technology use). The importance of assessing social acceptability has been most recently highlighted by Brink (2017), who recognises the key role of leadership from senior managers in the adoption and use of social media by B2B firms. Empirical research is however yet to verify such an impact. In addition to limited research on B2B social media adoption, there is lack of research on the role culture plays in the adoption decision. Previous research has showed hat culture impacts adoption of social media and its use (e.g. Hsu et al, 2015). Yet, there is lack of research on the impact of culture on the social media adoption in B2B setting. This study aims to address this research gap. Specifically, in line with this conference call this study aims to examine the impact of Chinese culture on social media adoption by B2B marketing professionals. This will be achieved though exploratory quantitative study.

Existing literature provides strong evidence to suggest that e-commerce adoption is subject to the effect of culture. In this stream, researchers adopting Hofstede’s framework (1980) conceptualise culture at the aggregate level, and thus they assume country’s cultural homogeneity. Yet, the argument emerges that this view does not seem to be appropriate anymore, as every country having its unique mix of ethnic groups portrays cultural diversity (Cleveland and Laroche, 2007). Research exploring the adoption of e-commerce by ethnic minority consumers however, is scarce (Lacka and Yip, 2018). Considering growing migration levels, and particularly intra-European migration as well as the increase of ethnic consumers internet use (Kizgin et al, 2018), the investigation of migrants’ attitudes and behavioural intentions toward adopting e-commerce, as well as factors affecting adoption decision are important research topics for researchers, practitioners and policy makers. Although technology adoption has been extensively researched, previous studies on e-commerce adoption suffer from two limitations, which this study aims to address. First, most research on e-commerce adoption considers consumers to be a homogeneous group. However, within group differences exist, and they have an impact on the e-commerce adoption decision. So far however, only a handful of studies have explored the role of consumers’ individual characteristics on behavioural intentions to adopt e-commerce (e.g. Hasan 2010). Second, although the effect of culture on e-commerce adoption has been extensively studied, the simultaneous impact of various cultural influences that migrants are subject to has not been examined. To address these research gaps, the aim of this research is to assess the role of individual characteristics in e-commence adoption, and to reveal the impact of contact with heritage and host cultures on ethnic minority consumers’ attitudes towards behavioural intentions to adopt e-commerce.