Credibility of Electronic Word-of-Mouth: Informational and Normative Determinants of On-line Consumer Recommendations

Word-of-mouth (WOM) study is extended to the on-line context (eWOM) by examining the informational and normative determinants of the perceived credibility of on-line consumer recommendations. A survey of users of an on-line consumer discussion forum in China substantiated the effects of the determinants, although post-hoc analyses revealed that prior knowledge and involvement level moderate some of them. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

[1]  S. Asch Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments , 1951 .

[2]  Irene Pollach,et al.  Electronic Word of Mouth: A Genre Analysis of Product Reviews on Consumer Opinion Web Sites , 2006, Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06).

[3]  Charles J. Kacmar,et al.  The impact of initial consumer trust on intentions to transact with a web site: a trust building model , 2002, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[4]  C. Fornell,et al.  Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. , 1981 .

[5]  P. Briggs,et al.  Trust in Online Advice , 2002 .

[6]  Jennifer Crocker,et al.  Judgment of Covariation by Social Perceivers , 1981 .

[7]  Bernard C. Y. Tan,et al.  Can a GSS stimulate group polarization? an empirical study , 1999, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part C.

[8]  Yong Zhang,et al.  Responses to Humorous Advertising: The Moderating Effect of Need for Cognition , 1996 .

[9]  Mark A. Musen,et al.  The low availability of metadata elements for evaluating the quality of medical information on the World Wide Web , 1999, AMIA.

[10]  Wayne D. Hoyer,et al.  An Integrative Framework for Understanding Two-sided Persuasion , 1994 .

[11]  H. Kelley,et al.  Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change , 1982 .

[12]  S. Chaiken,et al.  The psychology of attitudes. , 1993 .

[13]  Robin L. Nabi,et al.  The Persuasive Effect of Host and Audience Reaction Shots in Television Talk Shows , 2003 .

[14]  Bernard C. Y. Tan,et al.  Group Polarization and Computer-Mediated Communication: Effects of Communication Cues, Social Presence, and Anonymity , 2002, Inf. Syst. Res..

[15]  William R. Dillon,et al.  Negative Information: Perspectives and Research Directions , 1981 .

[16]  Gianfranco Walsh,et al.  Electronic Word-of-Mouth: Motives for and Consequences of Reading Customer Articulations on the Internet , 2003, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[17]  Mike Allen,et al.  Determining the persuasiveness of message sidedness: A prudent note about utilizing research summaries , 1993 .

[18]  B. J. Fogg,et al.  Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do , 2002, UBIQ.

[19]  Lauren G. Block,et al.  When to Accentuate the Negative: The Effects of Perceived Efficacy and Message Framing on Intentions to Perform a Health-Related Behavior , 1995 .

[20]  Sheizaf Rafaeli,et al.  Information Sharing Online: A Research Challenge , 2005, Int. J. Knowl. Learn..

[21]  Cornelia Pechmann,et al.  Predicting when Two-Sided Ads will be More Effective than One-Sided Ads: The Role of Correlational and Correspondent Inferences , 1992 .

[22]  G. Belch,et al.  An Examination of Comparative and Noncomparative Television Commercials: The Effects of Claim Variation and Repetition on Cognitive Response and Message Acceptance , 1981 .

[23]  William R. Hersh,et al.  Filtering Web pages for quality indicators: an empirical approach to finding high quality consumer health information on the World Wide Web , 1999, AMIA.

[24]  L. Alloy,et al.  Assessment of covariation by humans and animals: The joint influence of prior expectations and current situational information. , 1984 .

[25]  M. Deutsch,et al.  A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgement. , 1955, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[26]  Henry Assael,et al.  Two-Sided versus One-Sided Appeals: A Cognitive Perspective on Argumentation, Source Derogation, and the Effect of Disconfirming Trial on Belief Change , 1987 .

[27]  James B. Lemert,et al.  DIMENSIONS FOR EVALUATING THE ACCEPTABILITY OF MESSAGE SOURCES , 1969 .

[28]  A Sunmade,et al.  Elaboration likelihood model , 2008 .

[29]  Wynne W. Chin,et al.  A Partial Least Squares Latent Variable Modeling Approach for Measuring Interaction Effects: Results from a Monte Carlo Simulation Study and an Electronic - Mail Emotion/Adoption Study , 2003, Inf. Syst. Res..

[30]  Jongwon Park,et al.  Mediators of Message Sidedness Effects on Cognitive Structure For Involved and Uninvolved Audiences , 1990 .

[31]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  Do I Trust You Online, and If So, Will I Buy? An Empirical Study of Two Trust-Building Strategies , 2006, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[32]  William Allen,et al.  The influence of source credibility on communication effectiveness , 1953 .

[33]  Stephanie Watts,et al.  Knowledge Adoption in Online Communities of Practice , 2003, ICIS.

[34]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  Effects of need for cognition on message evaluation, recall, and persuasion. , 1983 .

[35]  Ingoo Han,et al.  The Effect of On-Line Consumer Reviews on Consumer Purchasing Intention: The Moderating Role of Involvement , 2007, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[36]  Charles J. Kacmar,et al.  Factors of Information Credibility for an Internet Advice Site , 2006, Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06).

[37]  B. J. Fogg,et al.  What makes Web sites credible?: a report on a large quantitative study , 2001, CHI.

[38]  Jacquelyn A. Burkell,et al.  Believe it or not: Factors influencing credibility on the Web , 2002, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[39]  R. E. Burnkrant,et al.  Informational and Normative Social Influence in Buyer Behavior , 1975 .

[40]  Dwayne D. Gremler,et al.  Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: What motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the Internet? , 2004 .

[41]  B. J. Fogg,et al.  Credibility and computing technology , 1999, CACM.

[42]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[43]  Gunther Eysenbach,et al.  Consumer health informatics , 2000, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[44]  Jan-Bernd Lohmöller,et al.  Latent Variable Path Modeling with Partial Least Squares , 1989 .

[45]  Dan Brickley,et al.  MedCERTAIN: quality management, certification and rating of health information on the Net , 2000, AMIA.

[46]  William R. Swinyard,et al.  The Interaction between Comparative Advertising and Copy Claim Variation , 1981 .

[47]  M. Evans,et al.  Consumer interaction in the virtual era: some qualitative insights , 2001 .

[48]  E. McGinnies,et al.  Studies in persuasion. 3. Reactions of Japanese students. to one-sided and two-sided communications. , 1966, The Journal of social psychology.

[49]  Lauren G. Block,et al.  When to Accentuate the Negative: The Effects of Perceived Efficacy and Message Framing on Intentions to Perform a Health-Related Behavior , 1995 .

[50]  Charles E. Miller,et al.  Group decision making and normative versus informational influence: Effects of type of issue and assigned decision rule. , 1987 .

[51]  Michael Etgar,et al.  One-Sided versus Two-Sided Comparative Message Appeals for New Brand Introductions , 1982 .

[52]  Donna L. Hoffman,et al.  A New Marketing Paradigm for Electronic Commerce , 1997, Inf. Soc..

[53]  L. Alloy,et al.  Assessment of covariation by humans and animals: the joint influence of prior expectations and current situational information. , 1984, Psychological review.

[54]  S. Chaiken,et al.  Causal inferences about communicators and their effect on opinion change , 1978 .

[55]  Shelby D. Hunt,et al.  Attributional Processes and Effects in Promotional Situations , 1978 .

[56]  F. Bookstein,et al.  Two Structural Equation Models: LISREL and PLS Applied to Consumer Exit-Voice Theory , 1982 .

[57]  M. Sherif,et al.  The psychology of attitudes. , 1946, Psychological review.

[58]  Chris Higgins,et al.  Information Acquisition and Mental Models: An Investigation into the Relationship Between Behaviour and Learning , 1996, Inf. Syst. Res..

[59]  C. I. Hovland,et al.  The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness , 1951 .

[60]  Stephanie Watts,et al.  Informational Influence in Organizations: An Integrated Approach to Knowledge Adoption , 2003, Inf. Syst. Res..

[61]  C. Vogt,et al.  The Effects of Integrating Advertising and Negative Word‐of‐Mouth Communications on Message Processing and Response , 1995 .

[62]  David E. Kanouse,et al.  Explaining Negativity Biases in Evaluation and Choice Behavior: Theory and Research , 1984 .

[63]  Lawrence J. Marks,et al.  An examination into the effectiveness of two-sided comparative price appeals , 1988 .

[64]  Paul A. Pavlou,et al.  Consumer Acceptance of Electronic Commerce: Integrating Trust and Risk with the Technology Acceptance Model , 2003, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[65]  Henry Assael,et al.  Moderating disconfirmation of expectations through the use of two-sided appeals: A longitudinal approach , 1987 .

[66]  Jonathan E. Butner,et al.  Compliance with a Request in Two Cultures: The Differential Influence of Social Proof and Commitment/Consistency on Collectivists and Individualists , 1999 .

[67]  Wynne W. Chin Issues and Opinion on Structural Equation Modeling by , 2009 .

[68]  V. Zeithaml Consumer Perceptions of Price, Quality, and Value: A Means-End Model and Synthesis of Evidence: , 1988 .

[69]  J. Gotlieb,et al.  The Moderating Effects of Message Framing and Source Credibility on the Price-perceived Risk Relationship , 1994 .