E-WOM’s Influence on the Consumer’s Behavior at different levels of perceived risk in Online Education Service Industry

Abstract

Online education service industry has been developing quickly in Korea and China, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has made the market scale even larger. Since the result of online education usually takes long time to show, consumers might consider online education service as high-risk taking in terms of time waste. Under this circumstance, e-WOM has became an important way to help the consumers alleviate uncertainty and make purchasing decision more easily and quickly. In China almost all the online education companies consider e-WOM as an important marketing tool. This research aims to study the underlying factors that influence the e-WOM information adoption processing and consumers’ purchasing intention in online education information service industry, especially on how the perceived risk moderates the information adoption process. For this purpose, a dual- route structure are established based on Elaboration likelihood model (ELM), Information Adoption Model (IAM), and Trust Transfer Theory. The new model was validated through structural equation modeling (SEM) based on surveys of 460 questionnaires which were sent to consumers in China with the experience of purchasing online education services. E-WOM usefulness (by the influence of quality of e-WOM and informative CSII; Consumers Susceptibility to Interpersonal Influence) and e-WOM emotional trust (by the influence of credibility of e-WOM information, normative CSII, and subject knowledge) are both proved to have a positive influence on e-WOM information adoption. Perceived risk is proved to play a moderating role in the process. In addition, academic and managerial implications are discussed.