A study of antecedents influencing eWOM for online lecture website

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify the antecedent factors – perceived usefulness (PU), perceived switching cost (PSC) and perceived web security (PWS) – affecting learners’ attitude toward online lecture website (ATW), which, in turn, affects electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and finds the factor that online lecture business should focus on the most to make learners have positive attitude.Design/methodology/approachThis paper investigates the functional relationship among those five constructs; and examines the moderating role of personal interactivity. Data were collected from learners who had taken online lectures and were using social network sites, and a research model was analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results show that PU and PSC positively influence ATW but PWS has no significant influence on ATW; PU is the most influential factor to ATW; ATW positively influences eWOM; personal interactivity has a moderating effect on some paths; and path coefficients are higher in the high-interactivity group than the low-interactivity group for all the links except the link from PU to ATW.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to online lecture business by understanding learners’ perception and behavior to the websites. Unlike many previous studies, this study designates eWOM as dependent variable and personal interactivity as moderation variable. This study shows interesting results occurred between low- and high-interactivity groups.