Online WOM Research Articles

Analyzing the online word of mouth dynamics: A novel approach

In today's digital economy, virtually everything from products and services to political debates and cultural phenomena can spark WOM on social media. Analyzing online WOM poses at least three challenges. First, online WOM typically consists of unstructured data that can transform into myriad variables, necessitating effective dimension reduction. Second, online WOM is often continuous and dynamic, with the potential for rapid, time-varying changes. Third, significant events may trigger symmetric or asymmetric responses across various entities, resulting in “bursty” and intense WOM from multiple sources. To address these challenges, we introduce a new computationally efficient method—multi-view sequential canonical covariance analysis. This method is designed to solve the myriad online WOM conversational dimensions, detect online WOM dynamic trends, and examine the shared online WOM across different entities. This approach not only enhances the capability to swiftly interpret and respond to online WOM data but also shows potential to significantly improve decision-making processes across various contexts. We illustrate the method's benefits through two empirical examples, demonstrating its potential to provide profound insights into online WOM dynamics and its extensive applicability in both academic research and practical scenarios.

An Explorative Study on the Purchase Decision-Making Process of Sustainable Shoes Consumers

Sustainable fashion products have different characteristics from typical fashion products. Therefore, this study focuses on shoes while exploring the expansion and development of sustainable fashion consumption as well as consumers' perceptions of the sustainability approaches practiced by shoe companies. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 consumers, who had purchased sustainable shoes, in order to understand their purchase decision-making process and consumption characteristics, using the seven stages of the EBM model. In the “need recognition” stage, the survey participants' social background and family influences were categorized as macro factors, while their personal background influences were categorized as micro factors. In the “evaluation of alternatives” stage, participants reconfirmed whether or not to make a purchase based on the product's properties, such as price, brand value, and offered services. In the “purchase” stage, participants' purchase channels were determined according to their preferences as well as the selection pattern they followed until the final purchase within the chosen channel. In the “consumption” stage, the start of product ownership coincides with the start of using the products after making a purchase. In the “post-purchase assessment” stage, higher positive experiences led to a higher repurchase intention of sustainable shoes, while negative experiences caused participants to defer consumption and made them experience a sense of guilt for failing to consume sustainably. During the “post-purchase behavior” stage, which focused on the categories that the customers prioritized, many participants spread information about sustainable fashion to specific individuals through active online WOM behavior.

The Role Of Online Post-Sale Service Toward Repurchase Intention And Word Of Mouth

Considering that e-commerce has become a major requirement, e-commerce providers must improve their products and services. After-sales service is one that must be considered to reduce customer doubts in using e-commerce. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of e-commerce after-sales service (product returns, exchanges, and maintenance) on customer attitudes (relationship building) and behavioral aspects (developing customer repurchase intentions and word of mouth). This study used a judgemental sampling method in which 255 samples that met the requirements were adjusted to certain criteria. Structural Equation Model (SEM) supported by SmartPLS software is used to analyze the data. The findings in this study are that product returns and maintenance services have a significant effect on online customer satisfaction and satisfaction has a significant effect on customer trust. While product value has no significant effect on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction and trust, as indicators of relationship quality mediate the relationship between after-sales service (product returns, exchanges and maintenance), online customer repurchase intentions and WOM. Repurchase intention and WOM are positively influenced by trust and satisfaction. The research implications will be useful for policy makers, researchers, and the e-commerce industry in implementing and promoting the use of e-commerce.

Negative eWOM and perceived credibility: a potent mix in consumer relationships

PurposeBased on the foundations of the schema theory, the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and customer experience literature, this research examines how the interplay between a consumer's previous shopping experience(s) and perceived credibility of negative online word-of-mouth (PCNWOM) leads to improved consumer–firm relationship quality (RQ).Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilised series of scenario-based experiments (N = 918) to test the research hypotheses.FindingsThe authors show that a focal customer's previous shopping experiences attenuate the perceived credibility of negative word-of-mouth on social media by other customers, which in turn weakens consumer–firm RQ. The authors also show that positive and negative perceptual experiences are asymmetric.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, the online shopping experiences described in the experimental scenarios were generic and did not refer to any particular product/service. Thus, calibrating products and services into categories, and studying how product type differences impact online shopping experiences warrant further research.Practical implicationsFrom a practical perspective, the authors demonstrate that not only does enhancing consumer–firm relationship quality demand meticulous integration of consumers' website and social media experiences but also in positive vs negative perception scenarios, RQ wane as review frequency increases.Originality/valueThe authors contribute significant insight into the existing literature by specifically adopting the premise that consumers' previous online shopping experience(s) will influence how credibly they will perceive negative online WOM posted on social media.

Impact of Word of Mouth Communication on Consumer Purchase Decision

Corporate executives are searching for new ways to make consumers aware of a product or service as the market is highly competitive. They adopt different methods to achieve this goal. Consumers make decisions using a variety of methods, including word of mouth. Therefore, this study was done to investigate the effect of WOM communication (word of mouth) on the outcome of a brand or the brand image effect on the decisions of consumers to purchase a television. The study focuses on television brands mainly. A sample of 552 was collected from Karaikal, Puducherry State, using the questionnaire method. The data thus generated was analysed with the help of PLS-SEM. The findings reveal that offline WOM, online WOM, E-WOM quality, and information consumption all have a significant impact on the brand image, whereas the brand image has a direct influence on the consumer purchase decision of television. The impact of prior purchase satisfaction and expertise of the sender was found to be not significant.

From horizontal to vertical relationships: how online community identification fosters sport fans’ team identification and behavioural intentions

PurposeWith the remarkable advancements in information and communication technologies, comprehending online sport fan communities is being pushed further up in the agenda of sport teams worldwide. Based on social identity theory, the main purpose of this research paper is to test the mechanism of how horizontal relationships developed through online communities lead to vertical relationships such as team identification and behavioural intentions.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of online baseball fan community members in South Korea (N = 400) and employing structural equations modelling, the current research examined the structural relations among online community identification, team identification, behavioural intention and WOM intention while testing moderating effect of perceived authenticity.FindingsThis study finds that online community identification has a significant positive impact on team-level consumer outcomes: team identification, behavioural intention and WOM intention. Team identification is verified as a significant determinant of both behavioural intention and WOM intention. Moreover, the partial mediating role of team identification in the relationships between online community identification and behavioural intentions are corroborated.Originality/valueThe present study furnishes essential information for identifying the underlying mechanism of how fan-to-fan horizontal relationships cultivate team-to-fan vertical relationships in the context of the virtual fan community.

Understanding Digital Social Responsibility in the Social Media Context: Evidence from Thailand

Purpose: Organizations across the world consider social responsibility to be one of their most important strategic obligations. In the digital era like nowadays, firms have transformed social responsibility programs into digital platforms - digital social responsibility (DSR). The purpose of this study is to see how DSR affects online word of mouth (Online WOM) and purchasing intent (PI) in the setting of social media. Methodology: Data were collected via an online survey among a sample of 157 students from higher education institutions in Thailand. The proposed hypotheses were analyzed and evaluated using structural equation modelling (SEM) in this study. Findings: The findings revealed that customers' perceptions (CPN) and online WOM are highly influenced by perceived DSR. CPN slightly mediated the link between DSR and online WOM, and totally mediated the relationship between DSR and PI, according to the mediation analysis. Research, Practical & Social implications: Our analysis verifies the influence of DSR on customers' perceptions and online WOM, despite the fact that few previous studies have looked into the impact of DSR on online WOM and PI. This empirical study can help managers better grasp the effects of DSR on consumer perceptions and online WOM via social media. Originality: This study is a pioneering attempt to test the applicability of the DSR activities in social media context on customer’s perception and behavior. The findings should also motivate businesses to conduct DSR activities in order to improve favorable consumer perceptions and spread positive word of mouth about their businesses.

History Matters: The Impact of Online Customer Reviews Across Product Generations

We examine how online customer reviews for one generation of a product affect sales of another generation in the same product series. The main intriguing result is that previous generation valence has a positive impact on current generation sales; however, current generation valence has a negative impact on previous generation sales. The positive impact of previous generation valence becomes even stronger (1) as the uncertainty (standard deviation) in reviews for the current generation increases and (2) when the current generation valence is high. In contrast, it becomes weaker (1) as the uncertainty in reviews for the previous generation increases and (2) when the current generation has been on the market for a longer period of time. Other results are discussed. Our data consist of intergenerational pairs of point-and-shoot cameras on the largest online seller of such devices, Amazon.com. We estimate the current and previous generation models jointly allowing for errors to be clustered at the daily and product levels. In addition, we address endogeneity concerns over the online WOM measures by using instrumental variables.

The application of online marketing tools in marketing communication of the entities with the tourism offer in 2020 in Slovakia

This article discusses the situation on the online tourism market in Slovakia in 2020 and it focuses on the utilization of effective online marketing channels in the online environment during the year of pandemic. The utilization rate of selected online marketing channels has been identified and clearly described and compared according to the detailed content analysis and observation of the marketing approaches of analyzed entities with the tourism offer in Slovakia. The areas that the article focuses on the most are web pages, SEO, marketing on social media: Facebook and Instagram. As well as on the other factors influencing tourists’ behavior directly or indirectly, where it is possible to include online WOM, blogging, vlogging, and mainly influencer marketing as well as online PR.

Analyzing the Online Word of Mouth Dynamics: A Novel Approach

At least three challenges hinder the analysis of online WOM. First, the process of transform unstructured online WOM data can generate many variables, increasing the need for dimension reduction. Second, the volume and valence of online WOM may dramatically change in a short period before and after an incident. Third, important events might trigger symmetric or asymmetric reactions in online WOM across rival products or services. We introduce a new method—multi-view sequential canonical covariance analysis to solve the myriad WOM conversational dimensions, detect WOM dynamic trends, and examine its concurrent effects across multiple firms. This new method also provides greater computational efficiency, and thus can be referred as a more advanced manifold optimization approach. We illustrate the advantages of this new method through an empirical example—the 2017 United Express Flight 3411 incident. We find that United Airlines and its rivals all experienced a sudden increase of negative emotions and a sudden decrease of positive emotions because of the Incident, yet the magnitudes of the changes were more dramatic for United Airlines. This new method provides a novel insight into the online WOM dynamics and can contribute to a wide range of fields.

The effects of online negative word‐of‐mouth on dissatisfied customers: A frustration–aggression perspective

AbstractConceptualizing how customers construe online negative word‐of‐mouth (nWOM) following failure experiences remains unsettled, leaving providers with inconclusive recovery strategy programmes. This empirical study recognizes online nWOM as a co‐created encounter between the complainant (i.e., the initiator of the online nWOM) and the recipient (i.e., the consumer who engages with the online nWOM), examining their idiosyncrasies to discern their understanding of the experience. It introduces frustration–aggression theory to online WOM literature, recognizing that it can support a higher‐order understanding of phenomena. Through phenomenological hermeneutics, interviews and focus groups, data were collected from millennials in Albania and Kosovo that provided accounts of nuanced and distinctive online nWOM realities. The emerged insights extended extant theory to a three‐fold online nWOM typology (i.e., lenient online nWOM, moderate online nWOM and severe online nWOM) recognizing the negative impact customers have on a provider, which is controlled by frustration–aggression tags. Frustration–aggression variations across online nWOM led to the construct of three types of customers that engage in online nWOM, namely tolerable online nWOM customers, rigorous online nWOM customers and confrontational online nWOM customers. Findings culminated with satisfactory recovery strategies aligned to customer inferences regardless of the nWOM context.

Investigating the Role of Online WOM Content and Sender-Receiver Similarity in Social Learning

In this research, we develop an analytical model to investigate how the content of Online Word of Mouth (OWOM) impacts prices, product adoption, and profit when consumers have uncertainty about both the product quality and their own appreciation of quality. We consider how pricing is impacted by the presence of both satisfaction- and information-focused OWOM content with preference correlation between OWOM senders and receivers. There are several findings from this research. First, we find that when there is a mix of OWOM content, increasing the proportion of satisfaction-focused OWOM will increase price and profit for the low-quality firm, but has a U-shaped impact on the high-quality firm profit. Second, we find that profitability can be increased by restricting the type of OWOM content. Specifically, both high- and low-quality firms earn greater profit from an online platform with only satisfaction-focused OWOM than from a platform with a mix of both satisfaction- and information-focused OWOM. However, only the high-quality firm can earn greater profit from a platform with only information-focused OWOM than a firm with a mix of each, and this greater profit is only achieved if consumers have a strong enough incentive to send OWOM. Third, we find that preference similarity between senders and receivers of OWOM negatively impacts the low-quality firm but has a U-shaped effect on the profitability of the high-quality firm. Moreover, preference similarity can not only impact the consumers’ incentive to send a satisfaction vs. information review, it also affects how receivers of the OWOM update their beliefs about product quality and their own appreciation of quality. We discuss how firms can formulate appropriate strategies in response to OWOM by understanding its different dimensions (valence, focus, and similarity among senders and receivers).

Can Online Rating Reflect Authentic Customer Purchase Feelings? Understanding How Customer Dissatisfaction Relates to Negative Reviews

ABSTRACT The fast growth in online word of mouth (online WOM) reviews has witnessed their wide applications in assisting customers in their purchases. While many positive factors about these reviews have been identified, biases may result from reviewers’ self-selection behavior. To examine whether online WOM ratings reflect authentic customer purchase feelings, this study focuses on the relation between customer dissatisfaction and negative reviews. First, the reviews are fine grained into feature-opinion pairs, after which three explanatory variables are designed to represent the individual, collective, and comprehensive (individual and collective) complaints, with the online rating being considered as the explained variable. Finally, a simple linear regression model is built to determine the relation between customer dissatisfaction (represented by discounting marks of ratings) and negative reviews. Our analysis finds that personal complaints have a positive effect on rating and the most frequent customer complaints have no significant effect on customer ratings.

모바일앱에서 상품특성과 촉진마케팅의 조절효과에 초점을 둔 상품평과 구전의도 및 재구매의도의 구조적관계 탐색

모바일앱에서 상품특성과 촉진마케팅의 조절효과에 초점을 둔 상품평과 구전의도 및 재구매의도의 구조적관계 탐색

온라인 여행 구전 커뮤니케이션에서 구전의 발생 과정에 관한 연구

The process of travel product consumption strongly depends on WOM because travel products cannot be evaluated by objective measures and commonly involve a high level of perceived risk. Therefore, the current study aimed to provide theoretical and practical implications by examining the causes and motivations of WOM in the process of online WOM communications. To analyze the structural relationship among self-presentation, WOM motivation, and WOM intentions, an online survey of 337 adults who had generated online WOM associated with travel products was conducted. The data were analyzed by multiple regression and step-wise regression. First, the results showed that self-presentation significantly influenced WOM motivation. In particular, it was shown that self-constructive self-presentation affected internal motivation more than external motivation, while audience pleasing self-presentation affected external motivation more than internal motivation. Second, the indirect influence of self-presentation on WOM intention was bigger than the direct influence. Third, both internal and external motivations significantly influenced WOM intention; therefore, to increase online and offline WOM activities, different marketing strategies should be applied to travel consumers, whose self-presentation types and impacts always vary.

온라인 구전정보의 체험적 특성과 네트워크적 특성이 신뢰성과 구전수용을 매개로 구전확산 및 구매의도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 수신자 전문성의 조절효과

온라인 구전정보의 체험적 특성과 네트워크적 특성이 신뢰성과 구전수용을 매개로 구전확산 및 구매의도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 수신자 전문성의 조절효과

NPS and Online WOM: Investigating the Relationship Between Customers' Promoter Scores and eWOM Behavior.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is, according to Reichheld, the single most reliable indicator of company growth, and many companies use this recommendation-based technique for measuring customer loyalty. Despite its widespread adoption by many companies across multiple industries, the debate about NPS goes on. A major concern is that managers treat NPS as being equivalent across customers, which is often very misleading. By using a unique data set that combines customers’ promoter scores and online word-of-mouth (eWOM) behavior, this research studies how individual customers’ promoter scores are related to eWOM, including its relationship with the three categories of customers that are identified by the NPS paradigm (i.e., promoters, passives, and detractors). Based on a sample of 189 customers, their promoter scores and corresponding eWOM, the results show that there is a positive relationship between customers’ promoter scores and the valence of online messages. Further, while detractors and promoters are homogeneous with respect to the valence of the eWOM messages they spread, passives show message valence heterogeneity. Thus, although passives, the largest group of customers, have no weight in calculating the NPS, our results reveal that companies should flag passives for further attention and action.

소셜미디어에서 생산되는 구전정보의 활용가능성과 질적 성과에 관한 연구

소셜미디어에서 생산되는 구전정보의 활용가능성과 질적 성과에 관한 연구

온라인 구전정보특성이 정보수용의도와 재구전 의도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 수신자의 전문성을 중심으로

본 연구는 구전정보 수용에 영향을 미칠 수 있는 발신자의 전문성, 구전정보의 생생함과 동의성을 고려하여 온라인 구전정보특성이 구전정보 확산에 미치는 영향관계가 수신자의 전문성 수준에 따라 어떻게 차이가 나는지 확인하고자 실증 분석하였다. 분석결과 첫째, 발신자의 전문성이 높고 구전정보가 생생하고 동의성이 높을수록 정보수용의도에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 정보수용의도가 재구전의도에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 수신자의 전문성 수준은 온라인 구전정보 특성이 정보수용의도에 미치는 영향력을 조절하는 것으로 나타났다. An actual analysis was made regarding how different the effect of the online WOM information characteristics on the expansion of the WOM information characteristics was depending on the level of the receiver's expertise in consideration of the sender's expertise, the vividness and Consensus of WOM information which can affect the acceptance of WOM information in this study. To begin with, the analysis results showed that the online WOM information characteristics had the positive effect on the information acceptance intention in proportion to the sender's expertise and the vividness and Consensus of WOM information. Secondly, the information acceptance intention was found to have a positive effect on the re-WOM intention. Finally, the level of receiver's expertise was found to control the effect of the online WOM information characteristics on the information acceptance intention.

The impact of social media and offline influences on consumer behaviour. An analysis of the low-cost airline industry

This study analyses the impact of social media as well as offline environments upon tourist online purchase and recommendation behaviour of low-cost airline services. Drawing on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), this research considers the effect of offline social influences (interpersonal and external influences) and analyses online Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) information exchanges as a driver of customer attitude towards online purchases. We propose that these factors improve online repurchase intentions and positive word-of-mouth communication (WOM and e-WOM) in low-cost settings. Using structural equation modelling, the conceptual model is tested with a sample of 441 Spanish Internet buyers of low-cost airline services. Interpersonal offline influences (e.g. friends, relatives, and family) have a significant effect on online repurchase intentions and WOM but do not affect e-WOM. External offline influences (e.g. media and experts), however, only affect consumer intentions to recommend future purchases of low-cost airline services on social networking travel sites and have no effect on online repurchase intentions or WOM. Findings also show that online C2C information exchanges influence attitude which, in turn, has a significant effect on repurchase intentions WOM and e-WOM.