Validating the Antecedent Effects of Hallyu WOM on Chinese Consumers’ Intention to Buy Korean Products

Abstract

Currently as the growing global influences of Korean Pop-Culture(commonly named Hallyu) invites scholarly and practitioner’s attention, it seems quite appropriate to investigate the key factors driving Hallyu’s success from a wide spectrum of perspectives including cultural, communicational and behavioral manifestations. Based on this rationale, this study seeks to accomplish the three research objectives; First, this study aims to confirm whether Chinese consumers’ prior Hallyu experiences impact on their WOM (word-of-mouth) specific to Hallyu. Second, the study aims to confirm whether individual consumer’s social network properties (tie strength and centrality) influence Hallyu WOM. Third, the study purports to verify whether cultural orientation (collectivism and uncertainty avoidance) moderates the relationship between the Hallyu experiences and Hallyu WOM. To achieve these objectives, we administered a large scale survey of Chinese consumers residing in China’s big and medium sized cities which have high level of cultural exposure to Hallyu. The findings suggest that Hallyu owes much of its success to not only Chinese consumer’s cultural experiences which result in WOM, but also to consumer’s social network configurations and cultural orientation. Finally, the study discusses managerial and theoretical implications on country-of-cultural-origin.