Abstract
PurposeThis research investigates consumer intention to follow online community advice. Applying the technology acceptance model (TAM) to the context of online restaurant communities, the study empirically examines the effects of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude and trust on the intention to follow online advice.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected from 360 members of online restaurant communities on Facebook and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsThe findings revealed that trust, perceived usefulness and attitude are key predictors of the intention to follow online restaurant community advice.Originality/valueExtant research on the influence of online reviews on consumer behavior in the restaurant industry has largely focused on the characteristics of the review, reviewers or readers. Moreover, other studies have investigated consumers' motivations to write online restaurant reviews. This study, however, takes a different approach and examines what drives consumers to follow the advice from online restaurant communities.
Highlights
The advent of Web 2.0 and the ensuing growth of user-generated content (UGC) have transformed the way individuals search for and share information
By applying the technology acceptance model (TAM) in the context of online restaurant communities, this study investigates the effects of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude and trust on the intention to follow online advice
Based on the literature, identifying the antecedents of following an online advice calls for a model that combines the following: (1) characteristics of the technology facilitating the knowledge exchange (TAM) and (2) factors related to the uncertainty in the online environment
Summary
The advent of Web 2.0 and the ensuing growth of user-generated content (UGC) have transformed the way individuals search for and share information. In computer-mediated environments, consumers share opinions, knowledge and personal experiences by posting reviews of products, services and brands on social networking sites (SNSs), third-party review sites or firms’ own websites (Kannan and Li, 2017). Consumers evaluate products by checking online reviews as a trustworthy information source (Filieri et al, 2018). Experiential nature of hospitality services, it is challenging to evaluate their quality before consumption (Liu and Park, 2015; Ruiz-Mafe et al, 2020). This uncertainty felt by consumers in their decisions causes them to seek information (Yang et al, 2018)
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