Social Bonds and Buying Power: Exploring Digital Kinship and Consumer Behavior on TikTok

This study investigates the impact of digital kinship on consumer actions in Malaysia's TikTok-led online marketplaces, which consist of emotional connections, digital trust, and digital reciprocity. The study applies social exchange theory and guanxi literature to understand how relational dynamics influence electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and consumer purchase intentions. Researchers gathered 420 valid survey responses online and processed them with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Purchase intention emerges strongly from both emotional connections and digital reciprocity between users. Digital trust affects purchase behaviour through its indirect impact on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM mediates digital trust and purchase intention but does not mediate the relationship between emotional bond or reciprocity and purchase intention. The research findings demonstrate trust-based engagement as a critical factor for prompting consumer behaviours while presenting useful directions for brands and influencers who want to establish stronger consumer relationships on algorithm-based platforms. This research adds to academic knowledge by introducing digital kinship as a culturally unbiased extension of guanxi, which is suitable for platform-specific studies in social commerce behaviour analysis.