Abstract
Nowadays, word-of-mouth is a very important component of e-commerce activity because consumers are very sensitive to other people’s opinions. Depending on the companies’ politics, these opinions can be incentivized or non-incentivized. One of the major dilemmas consists in establishing which kind of word-of-mouth has more influence on customers’ perceptions. The purpose of this study is to assess the relationships between perceived argument quality (PAQ) and perceived source expertise (PSE), on the one hand, and electronic word-of-mouth adoption intention on the other hand, for an incentivized message compared to a non-incentivized message. We processed answers from two different random groups by using adapted PAQ and PSE inventories of questions. The constructs, latent variables and items were analyzed in IBM Amos software, and our findings confirm the hypotheses regarding the relationship between the attributes of the message (argument quality and source expertise) and message credibility. Additionally, we found a significant positive relationship between message credibility and electronic word-of-mouth adoption intention. Our research also explores the moderating role of the message type (incentivized vs. non-incentivized) in the relationships above, and we discovered that the message type significantly moderates the relationship between perceived argument quality and credibility, but the type of message does not moderate the relationship between message credibility and eWOM adoption intention.
Highlights
E-commerce is an increasingly important component of modern companies’ business, regardless of their size
Through the scientific analysis of structural equation modeling, we identified the relationships between perceived argument quality, perceived source expertise, message credibility and electronic Word-Of-Mouth (eWOM) adoption
We propose the following research hypotheses: Hypoyhesis (H3): There is a positive relationship between message credibility and intention to adopt eWOM
Summary
E-commerce is an increasingly important component of modern companies’ business, regardless of their size. They have access to a multitude of sources of information in the electronic environment. Research in the field shows various relationships between the type of message, the type of consumer, the perceptions of potential customers and the influences on future purchasing decisions. [1] analyzed the effects of sponsorship disclosure on persuasion knowledge and electronic word of mouth in the context of Facebook. The study conducted by [2] revealed the impact of eWOM regarding the adoption of online opinions in online customer communities. The importance of our research is justified by a recent article written by [3] which discusses motives and antecedents of electronic word of mouth communications in the context of consumers’ online information adoption behavior. The role of the consumers’ internet experience was partially studied by [4]
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