TY - JOUR
T1 - What drives consumers to spread electronic word of mouth in online consumer-opinion platforms
AU - CHEUNG, Christy M K
AU - Lee, Matthew K.O.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge with gratitude the generous support of the Hong Kong Baptist University for the project (HKBU 240609 ) without which the timely production of the current report/publication would not have been feasible. In addition, the work described in this paper was partially supported by a grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project No. 7002640 ).
PY - 2012/4
Y1 - 2012/4
N2 - The advance of the Internet facilitates consumers to share and exchange consumption-related advice through online consumer reviews. This relatively new form of word-of-mouth communication, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication, has only recently received significant managerial and academic attention. Many academic studies have looked at the effectiveness of positive eWOM communication, examining the process by which eWOM influences consumer purchasing decisions. eWOM behavior is primarily explained from the individual rational perspective that emphasizes a cost and benefit analysis. However, we felt there was a need for an extensive study that examines consumers' motives for eWOM. In this paper, we focus on the factors that drive consumers to spread positive eWOM in online consumer-opinion platforms. Building on the social psychology literature, we identified a number of key motives of consumers' eWOM intention and developed an associated model. We empirically tested the research model with a sample of 203 members of a consumer review community, OpenRice.com. The model explains 69% of the variance, with reputation, sense of belonging and enjoyment of helping other consumers significantly related to consumers' eWOM intention. The results of this study provide important implications for research and practice.
AB - The advance of the Internet facilitates consumers to share and exchange consumption-related advice through online consumer reviews. This relatively new form of word-of-mouth communication, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication, has only recently received significant managerial and academic attention. Many academic studies have looked at the effectiveness of positive eWOM communication, examining the process by which eWOM influences consumer purchasing decisions. eWOM behavior is primarily explained from the individual rational perspective that emphasizes a cost and benefit analysis. However, we felt there was a need for an extensive study that examines consumers' motives for eWOM. In this paper, we focus on the factors that drive consumers to spread positive eWOM in online consumer-opinion platforms. Building on the social psychology literature, we identified a number of key motives of consumers' eWOM intention and developed an associated model. We empirically tested the research model with a sample of 203 members of a consumer review community, OpenRice.com. The model explains 69% of the variance, with reputation, sense of belonging and enjoyment of helping other consumers significantly related to consumers' eWOM intention. The results of this study provide important implications for research and practice.
KW - Electronic marketing
KW - Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication
KW - Enjoyment of helping
KW - Online consumer reviews
KW - Public good
KW - Reputation
KW - Sense of belonging
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84862798172&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.dss.2012.01.015
DO - 10.1016/j.dss.2012.01.015
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84862798172
SN - 0167-9236
VL - 53
SP - 218
EP - 225
JO - Decision Support Systems
JF - Decision Support Systems
IS - 1
ER -