Social Media Research in Hospitality and Tourism: A Causal Chain Framework of Literature Review

Purpose – The present study aims to conduct a systematic literature review to und erstand how current social media studies have adopted theories, used research constructs, and developed conceptual frameworks. Design – The current study examined 149 articles on social media published in the top eight hospitality and tourism journals between 2007 and 2017. Methodology – First, descriptive statistics were presented to show the status quo of theories and constructs used in social media-related articles. Second, three causal chain frameworks are developed based on the antecedent-moderator–mediator-outcome model. Findings – First, psychological theory is the predominant theory that has been applied to explain the behavior of social media users. Second, platform-related antecedents have been identified as the most prevalent antecedents. Third, consumer outcomes have attracted the most research interest. Fourth, only about half of the selected social media publications used moderators or mediators in their research models. Finally, there is a lack of cross-category causal relationships among the three causal chain frameworks. Originality – It is expected that the causal chain frameworks developed in this study will provide a research roadmap for academia as well as insights for the hospitality and tourism industry