Against the backdrop of the digital economy, social commerce platforms have become a crucial driver of China’s e-commerce development, in which user-generated content (UGC) plays a central role in shaping consumer trust and purchasing behaviour. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory, this study constructs and empirically tests an integrated framework that examines how multidimensional UGC quality influences purchasing behaviour through the mediating role of platform governance, while accounting for the moderating effect of users’ educational attainment. UGC quality is conceptualised along five dimensions, namely information quality, interaction quality, presentation quality, the appropriateness of emotional arousal, and political correctness. Based on questionnaire data collected from users of major social commerce platforms in China, structural equation modelling is employed for empirical analysis. The results indicate that most dimensions of UGC quality exert a significant positive effect on consumer purchasing behaviour, and that platform governance functions as a stable and significant mediator between UGC quality and purchasing behaviour, whereas the moderating effect of educational attainment is selective and emerges only in certain cognitively and value-sensitive dimensions. These findings extend the behavioural explanatory framework of multidimensional UGC quality, enrich the application of S-O-R theory in digital consumption contexts, and provide empirical evidence to support social commerce platforms in optimising content governance mechanisms, enhancing conversion efficiency, and implementing differentiated operational strategies.
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Gan, W., Xiao, M., Zhang, Y., Zhao, L. (2025) How Does User-generated Content Quality Translate into Purchasing Behaviour? The Mediating Role of Platform Governance and the Moderating Effect of Educational Differences. Scientific Research Bulletin, 2(4), 18-52. https://doi.org/10.71052/srb2024/EIGQ8039