Revealing consumers’ hedonic buying in social media: the roles of social status recognition, perceived value, immersive engagement and gamified incentives

Purpose This study aims to explore how social status recognition, perceived value and immersive enjoyment drive attachment to influencers and endorsements, thus triggering consumers’ hedonic buying towards influencer endorsements in social media. Design/methodology/approach By following a purposive sampling strategy and collecting cross-sectional data from 379 valid responses in the UK, this study adopts structural equation modelling, artificial neural networks and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (SEM-ANN-fsQCA) as integrated methods for analysis. Findings This study reveals that social status recognition, immersive enjoyment, gamified incentives, attachment to influencers and endorsements are critical antecedents that drive hedonic buying. Originality/value In knowledge, this study concurrently adopts the perceived value theory and attachment theory that can enrich the inner elements and reveal the underlying connections under the theories. In method, the integrated analytical approach can explore deeper and more convincing results without the limitations of a single approach. In practice, this study helps practitioners ascertain customer perceptions of influencer endorsements and their attachment in the context of buying hedonically, thus developing effective strategies for employing influencers and marketing strategies to foster consumers’ hedonic buying behaviours.