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Browsing by Subject "eWOM"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Congruence Effects in Online Customer Reviews: The Mediating Role of Perceived Information Relevance
    (2020-05) Lee, Garim
    Research addressing the message appeals of online customer reviews has arisen to deepen our understanding of consumer decision-making in online retail environments. Prior research suggests that there are two types of message appeals: emotional and rational (Huang et al., 2013; Kotler & Keller, 2008; Liu et al., 2018; Wu & Wang, 2011). The former can elicit consumers’ emotions to induce purchase willingness, whereas the latter appeals to their cognition and reasoning highlighting product functions and practical benefits. Retailing research (e.g., Kang & Park-Poaps, 2010) to date has widely explored consumers’ shopping orientations, which are largely originated from hedonic and utilitarian conceptions. However, the congruence effect between a message appeal of online customer reviews and shopping orientation has not been sufficiently established. To address this research gap, the purposes of this study were (a) to investigate how a congruence between a message appeal of online reviews and shopping orientation affects perceived relevance of information presented in an online customer review and, in turn, leads to consumers’ purchase intention and (b) to examine the role of cumulative customer satisfaction and overall perceived risk in directly affecting purchase intention as well as in moderating the relationship between perceived relevance and purchase intention. A 2 (message appeal of online customer reviews: emotional vs. rational) x 2 (shopping orientation: hedonic vs. utilitarian) between-subjects experiment was conducted with 227 U.S. participants through Amazon Mechanical Turk. The results confirmed the congruence effect between a message appeal of online customer reviews and shopping orientation, ultimately leading to purchase intention. The participants who had a hedonic (vs. utilitarian) shopping orientation perceived a higher congruence when they viewed an emotional (vs. rational) review than a rational (vs. emotional) one. The relationship between perceived congruence and purchase intention was partially mediated by perceived information relevance. Contrary to the hypothesis, the participants were more willing to purchase a product that has a relevant review when they had been less (vs. more) satisfied with an e-tailer over time. However, both direct and indirect effects of perceived risk were found to be insignificant. The results of this study contribute to the literature on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) by providing empirical evidence of congruence effects in online customer reviews. In addition, this study extends the findings of prior research by confirming the role of perceived information relevance. This study offers actionable guidelines to practitioners in ways to increase perceived information relevance.
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    The Effects and Underlying Mechanisms of Sponsorship Disclosure in eWOM
    (2018-08) Pfeuffer, Alexander
    Using a set of two experimental studies, this dissertation’s objectives were twofold. The first study examined the effects of sponsorship disclosure modes (written-only, spoken-only, and written-and-spoken disclosure) in sponsored online consumer product reviews on consumers’ attention to and perceived persuasive intent of sponsored eWOM. The second study explored the level of detail (low vs. high) and extent of disclosed commercial gain (general sponsorship, free product, payment for review, or sales commission) on attitudes toward the reviewer and a brand via proposed competing mechanisms of cue-based trust and persuasion knowledge. In both studies, effects were explored for search goods and experience goods. Study 1 found that, consistent with limited cognitive capacity theory and the Limited Cognitive Capacity Model of Mediated Message Processing, the spoken-only and written-and-spoken conditions generated incrementally higher attention when compared to written-only. However, perceived persuasive intent was not affected by disclosure mode. Key insights from Study 2 furthermore identified that, for experience goods, high detail level disclosures led to a more favorable attitude toward the reviewer, while the level of detail did not affect attitudinal responses for search goods. The results also showed that, in terms of extent of disclosed commercial gain, only the disclosure of receipt of a free product affected persuasion knowledge, trust, and attitude toward the brand. The receipt of a free product condition emerged as the only condition that did not exhibit lower trust and less favorable attitude toward the brand. Furthermore, persuasion knowledge, not trust, emerged as the indirect mediator facilitating extent of disclosed commercial gain effects on attitudes toward the brand and the reviewer for the disclosures of the receipt of a free product or a sales commission. The study contributes to the understanding of limited cognitive capacity, sponsorship disclosure effects, and to persuasion knowledge model and trust literature. Practical implications for eWOM stakeholders including advertisers, content creators, and policy makers are also discussed.
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    The Role of Trust in Rumor Suppression on Social Media: A Multi-Method Approach Applying the Trust Scores in Social Media (TSM) Algorithm
    (2019-08) Kim, Hyejin
    Commercial rumor about an organization or brand, especially on social media, presents a special challenge for marketers and communication practitioners because of the fast flow and exchange of information among peers. Despite the importance of refuting rumors quickly and effectively, research on the effects and effectiveness of refuting rumor messages has been limited. To advance the literature in this emerging research area, the current project examines the impact of an interpersonal relational factor on the dissemination and effectiveness of rumor-refutation communication. The role of interpersonal relational factors is particularly important given that rumors spread through word-of-mouth (WOM) communication. Rumor-refutation communication should also utilize the same communication conduit for rapid and effective refutation. To advance rumor-refutation research and address the rising problem of commercial rumors, this dissertation project aimed to examine 1) how interpersonal influence among peers affects the belief and retransmission of rumors and rumor-refutation messages, and 2) potentially influential message characteristics that could help enhance interpersonal influence on readers’ belief of the rumors and rumor refutation messages, and the retransmission of rumor-refutation messages. To achieve these research goals, this study adopted a multi-method approach. Study 1 is a between-subjects repeated-measures experiment with a 2 (high-trustworthy vs. low-trustworthy source) x 2 (presence vs. absence of a trust cue) design that examines how the trustworthiness of the message source and a trust cue designed to induce message trustworthiness affect the belief and retransmission intention of rumors and rumor-refutation messages. Study 2 utilizes a computational research approach using the Trust Scores in Social Media (TSM) algorithm to test how mathematically captured trustworthiness scores of the sources of rumor-refutation messages influence actual message retransmission and how such an effect is moderated by the presence of trust cues included in the messages. The key findings in Study 1 revealed that a high-trustworthy source compared to a low-trustworthy source led to higher levels of rumor-refutation message belief and retransmission intention, but source trustworthiness did not affect the extent of reduction in the rumor belief and retransmission intention. Inclusion of a trust cue also did not moderate the impact of source trustworthiness on the belief and retransmission intention for both the rumor and rumor-refutation messages. Instead, it showed main effects in increasing the rumor-refutation message belief and retransmission intention, and a decreasing rumor belief and retransmission intention. The findings in Study 2 further confirmed the effects of the trustworthiness of the source on rumor-refutation message retransmission. However, inclusion of trust cues did not augment the source trustworthiness effects. The results indicated that the influence of source trustworthiness was stronger when the rumor-refutation message had no embedded trust cue. This study advances the rumor and electronic word-of-mouth research field by revealing how interpersonal influence among peer social media users can contribute to the effects and effectiveness of rumor-suppression communication. The findings also offer useful practical implications for identifying effective rumor-refutation dissemination hubs and refutation message-crafting strategies for a successful rumor-suppression campaign.