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Research Proposal Impact of Source Credibility and Information Quality on Adoption of Electronic Word of Mouth
Submitted to: Sir Ahmad Arif
Submitted By : M.Abdullah M.Shoaib M.Safdar Yaseer Zafar11/11/2013
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Contents
Chapter 1- Introduction...................................................................................................................3
1.1 Introduce the generalized topic.............................................................................................3
1.2 Importance and significance of the research area..................................................................5
1.3 Background information.......................................................................................................6
1.4 Problem Statement................................................................................................................7
1.5 Aim or purpose of study.......................................................................................................7
1.6 Rationale of study.................................................................................................................7
1.7 Research questions................................................................................................................8
1.8 Objectives of the study.........................................................................................................8
1.9 Significance of the Study......................................................................................................8
1.10 Delimitations......................................................................................................................9
Chapter 2-Literature Review........................................................................................................11
Chapter 3- Conceptual Model.......................................................................................................27
3.1 Theoretical framework........................................................................................................27
Figure 1.................................................................................................................................27
3.2 Proposed Hypotheses..........................................................................................................29
Chapter 4 - Research Methodology..............................................................................................31
4.1 Type & Approach of study.................................................................................................31
4.2 Population of study.............................................................................................................32
4.3 Sample of study..................................................................................................................32
4.3 Sample Size........................................................................................................................33
4.4 Characteristics of Sample Size............................................................................................33
4.5 Type of Data.......................................................................................................................33
4.6 Data collection....................................................................................................................34
References....................................................................................................................................35
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Chapter 1- Introduction
1.1 Introduce the generalized topic
Marketing has always tried to influence the product image and placement in
customer’s minds. This struggle to grip customer’s psychology has become more difficult
since internet media has become a major participant in channeling information from the
company to the customer. The internet came into the business industry as an information
accessing tool in the early1990’s (Fourth Edition e-Marketing: The essential guide to
digital marketing By Rob Stokes, 2011); this is the time when the marketer’s breadth of
functions increased by a large margin as web 1.0 was created.
Web 1.0 provided the opportunity for marketers to publish their marketing
messages through the internet. This was hard to grasp with the traditional marketing
techniques when web 2.0 was launched where internet became a two way
communication’s platform.
Web 2.0 thus paved the way for social networking sites such as Facebook and
various other blogging, visual and pictorial sharing websites. In the traditional marketing
word of mouth was used to spread positive views about the company or products through
the consumer’s referral and suggestion. But since the emersion of web 2.0 web
communication channels, controlling and influencing the customer’s views and opinions
online over the internet has created drastic difficulties for the marketers. Still Word of
mouth has always been very valuable to the marketers because of social structure that the
human trusts and wishes to communicate.That is why it is the single handedly most
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important non paid promotion that the marketers always wish to increase. Electronic
Word of Mouth is in fact more important because brick stores have the leverage of first-
hand experience meaning customers can touch and feel and the products where they can’t
do the same online. That is why the significance of Electronic Word of Mouth have
enhanced so much, as it also single handedly builds or destroys the relationship of trust
with businesses. There have been researches conducted on all the four communications
modules which are communicator, receiver, stimulus and response.
There have been various constructs and concepts examined in each of these four
modules, but as the topic is relatively new being only about a decade old there needs
extensive research on many parts of Electronic Word of Mouth to be widely accepted as a
theory to base further deductive studies.
It is for this reason that marketers have started spending so heavily on the digital
marketing and experts are predicting that in the near future Chief Marketing Officers
would spend more of the company resources on the Information Technology then the
Chief Information Technology Officer would (Jeffrey Bussgang). Out of the World
Economy of 70 trillion of US Dollars, Marketing has 1 trillion US Dollar share (Jeffrey
Bussgang) and this market budget is fast changing from a traditional marketing
dominated budget to a digital marketing one.
This research is focusing on the Electronic Word of Mouth adoption by the
Pakistani students who have looked to read or watch reviews of portable electronic
devices. Therefore we are studying the two variables impacting Electronic Word of
Mouth adoption. The first one is Source Credibility; how much the student deems the
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source of the information review to be credible. We are measuring this phenomenon
through the Expertise level of the review maker and the level of trustworthiness that the
student denotes with the source of information.
The second variable is Information Quality. The quality of information that the
online review in questions represents. There are again two concepts; namely Relevance
and Comprehensiveness. Relevance measures the relatedness of the electronic device’s
review with the student’s requirements and Comprehensiveness denotes to the
completeness of the review message covering all aspects which the student
reading/viewing has in mind. The target population for our study is one of the fastest
growing online communities as Asia has the most number of internet user’s worldwide
covering 44.8 % of the world internet users (http://www.internetworldstats.com/).
The social media alone has already captured millions of internet users with
Facebook leading the group at more than 1 billion users, second comes Twitter at 500
plus million users; followed Google plus having 400 plus million, LinkedIn at 300 plus
million, Tumblr at 100 plus million blogs and Pinterest at 25 plus million users
(http://giselleaguiar.com/socialmedia/blog/realtors-why-arent-you-using-social-media/).
1.2 Importance and significance of the research area
The emerging era of digital media has changed marketing altogether now
marketers are focusing on digital media to influence current and potential customers
across to the globe so this research will give insight to marketer how to capture
consumers and what really affect them to adopt electronic word of mouth in order to
make purchase intention of electronic devices. This research identifies how consumers
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adopt electronic word of mouth in terms of source credibility and information quality.
this research also give insights to marketers how to market their brands and products
while promoting them onto social media or websites. This will be beneficial for firms to
know the perception of university students.
1.3 Background information
Word of mouth has been very dear to the marketers because of social structure
that the human trusts and wishes to communicate. That is why it is the single handedly
most important non paid promotion that the marketers always wish to increase.
Electronic Word of Mouth is in fact more important because brick stores have the
leverage of first hand trust meaning customers can touch and feel and the products where
they can’t do the same online. That is why the significance of electronic word of mouth
has enhanced so much, as it also single handedly builds or destroys the relationship of
trust with online businesses.
There have been researches conducted on all the four communications modules
which are communicator, receiver, stimulus and response. There have been various
constructs and concepts examined in each of these four modules, but as the topic is
relatively new being only about a decade old there needs extensive research on many
parts of electronic word of mouth to be widely accepted as a theory to base further
deductive studies. In online community people have a different perception judging the
quality of products and services.
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1.4 Problem Statement
Although there has been momentous research done generally on Electronic word
of mouth but almost none in Pakistan. This research provides the trend of Electronic
word of mouth in terms of usage and adoption in Pakistani technical-savvy young
population and differentiate how students adopt electronic word of mouth while
purchasing electronic gadgets (mobile phones, personal computer, laptops, tablets. iPods
etc). The rate at which Pakistani internet community is growing, marketers can obtain
research data specifically on the Pakistani market to target this market. For making the
right choice and effective targeting firms must know the most effective factors for
adoption of electronic word of mouth by students in this fastly growing digital era.
1.5 Aim or purpose of study
This research finds out the perception of university students. This research checks
that students of universities how much they pay attention to Electronic word of mouth
and how message source credibility and information quality influence them to make an
online purchase intention about electronic gadgets.
1.6 Rationale of study
Electronic word of mouth is very popular and all business are operating through
websites. Students are essential part of our economy and they contribute in society so this
study evaluates for students how much message source credibility and information
quality are influential for adoption of Electronic word of mouth. Moreover students
influence their peers and families as well in terms of purchasing electronic devices so
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knowing their online purchase intention is an essential activity to make it pleasant for
marketers in terms of targeting this huge segment.
1.7 Research questions
Q1. How electronic word of mouth effective for students to buy online?
Q2. How much source credibility is influential for adoption of electronic word of mouth?
Q3. What is impact of information quality on Electronic word of mouth?
1.8 Objectives of the study
1. To know the impact of source credibility on the adoption of electronic word of
mouth
2. To know the impact of information quality on electronic word of mouth
3. To know the influence of electronic word of mouth for purchase intention.
1.9 Significance of the Study
This research will be significant to establish marketing norm of emphasizing
electronic word of mouth marketing to capture consumer’s attention. Especially this
research will help how students evaluate electronic word of mouth and on what criteria
do they adopt an online opinion either its source credibility or information quality or
both. This research even highlights the main indicators of source credibility and
information quality for their effectiveness.
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1.10 Delimitations
This research has used two variables like source credibility and information
quality. Other dimensions like website design, attractiveness and message appeal are not
used in this research. This research focuses on students of different universities and
checks their attitudes regarding electronic word of mouth. This research has focused
university students of Islamabad and more importantly universities are Shaheed Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology Islamabad, IQRA University Islamabad
and Islamic International University Islamabad.
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Chapter 2-Literature Review
Word of mouth
(Jillian C. Sweeney, 2012) discusses that Word of mouth is known as informal
communication between different parties about the evaluation goods and services. Many
organizations consider word of mouth as a powerful tool for marketing and that’s why
organizations cutting their budgets on other marketing approach.
Three most important dimensions of word of mouth are 1) Cognitive content 2) Richness
of content 3) Strength of delivery
The message content should be cognitive it should be rationale base and base on logic,
message should provide every detail related to goods and services. Hence word of mouth
is not a simple activity as it cannot be measured by number of occasion a comment is
passed about a product or a service.
(Lang, 2011) discusses that word of mouth satisfaction and service quality are related to
each other. It depends on what type of service is encountered. Satisfied customer tells to
five people while people who are dissatisfied they tell to 15 other people. Marketer’s
emphasis on customer’s feedback to service quality because they know that consumers
will spread a word of mouth about their product and services as word of mouth gives
more without investing.
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Their study suggests that the engagement level of satisfied and less satisfied customers in
word of mouth is different. consumers who are satisfied will engage more in word of
mouth as compare to consumers who are not satisfied.
(Wang, 2011) says final word of mouth has greater impact on consumer purchase intention
as compare to initial word of mouth because in the end all opinions are cumulated and
consumers can easily recognize that which type of opinions are more about product and
services. It is not necessary that satisfied customers will engage in positive word of
mouth but somehow dissatisfied customers will communicate negative message about
product and service which can be a big challenge for company to avoid altogether
(Wang, 2011) further discusses that service quality perception is very important to make a
purchase intention. When positive word of mouth is generated prior to purchase or usage
then it will effect on to buying decision of a consumer. Finally service quality and
purchase intention gets affected by word of mouth which are almost in the end.
(Tim Mazzarol, 2013) discusses the loyalty factor in generating a word of mouth. loyalty
generates when a consumer consistently repeats the usage of a product of service.
Similarly word of mouth from the loyal consumer will be considered more efficient and
will be adopted. The cognitive appeal of the message tells how much person is into the
usage of product and service and how much loyal he/she is. The cognitive message bases
on the rationale and logical point which appeal to the consumer and make sense to them
in order to adopt the word of mouth and give that particular product and service a try.
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(Tim Mazzarol, 2013) further says that cognitive message reduces the related risk of the
product and service that’s why a word of mouth with cognitive appeal is considered
effective.
(Cheng-Hsi Fang, 2011) discusses that word of mouth weighs differently for different
product types. Some products are adopted due to positive word of mouth some are not.
Word of mouth reduces perceived risk either functional or financial and when perceived
risk is considered low about a product and services their adoption level will be high.
Word of mouth sometimes considered more effective for services as compare to products.
Since services are not tangible in nature so their outcomes are not accurate that’s why
consumer rely onto other’s opinion how the service is? products and services that are
really high in quality and which are not a part of daily buying consumer do rely on their
word of mouth before purchase.
Electronic Word of Mouth
(Burton, 2006) discusses that there is a lot of importance of peer opinion and
recommendation about any product or service. Due to digital world people have a lot of
peers across the borders and oceans and people are connected. People these days do
discussion electronically about products before buying them. Different website are
dedicated for this purpose and different type of content is uploaded onto them. Some
website is purely dedicated in terms of quality and features and some website are for
general discussions. These days’ people are highly engaging in online community’s
discussions and these discussions influence purchase intention of a lot of people. These
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websites have people from all around the globe with different culture and different point
of views about products. Hence difference websites have different power of influence on
consumers regarding products with different country of origins.
(Jose´ Luı´s Abrantes and Cla´udia Seabra, 2013) discusses that different social networks have
different paradigm to work and they have different settings. Some social networks focus
on in-group discussion and some social networks indulge out of group discussions.
Moreover different factors such as experience learning, mood enhancement effect on in-
group and off- group discussions and level of interaction among people also is an
important factor. Experience learning has proven more effective in group discussion and
electronic word of mouth. Social interaction and electronic word of mouth are very
important because if people are not fully interacted then they don’t trust each other’s
reviews. When consumers receive experienced based reviews then they start enjoying
because they think that their learning level is increasing about product in discussion and
they feel joy and due to feeling of joy they make a favorable decision about product.
(Tor W. Andreassen, 2009) discusses that electronic word of mouth become persuasive
when a non commercial sender of information is indulged in communication with a
product or service concerned information receiver. Conversation context also impact on
the adoption of electronic word of mouth such as conversation is done in a context of
usage experience, and commercial usage of that product and services. In order to provide
most relevant information to consumer it takes a lot of time to search relevant
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information needed. Social media is considered as a source of information capital so a lot
of people engage themselves to get the opinion.
(Marianne Kulmala, 2013) discusses different level of electronic word of mouth. Electronic
word of mouth can be generated either consumer (non commercial) organic source or by
company personnel which is known as amplified source of electronic word of
mouth .organic source tells brand related tips features and different usage styles while
amplified source tells brand related advices problems to solutions. Organic and amplified
sources of electronic word of mouth are coproduced in the online social setting. Organic
source of electronic word of mouth is generated when a consumer gives his/her opinion
to other person it is a non paid form. Amplified source occurs when some personnel is
getting paid for his recommendation and tips given to different consumers.
(Mohammad Reza Jalilvand, 2012) discusses that in online communities different people
engage so it becomes very crucial to trust on whom. In these kind of settings people are
of with different experiences and with different knowledge and each gives opinion
according to their own perception. Consumers who seek electronic information have
different motives and expectations example in tourism industry consumers seek online
information about destination and they adopt information about that place online and
even online ticket transaction happens. This thing facilitates consumers a lot.
(Song, 2010) discusses that the high quality of electronic word of mouth generates
consumer trust, association, affiliation with that electronic word of mouth. This electronic
word of mouth then change purchases intention of consumer regarding a particular brand.
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This electronic word of mouth can be about any shopping mall and brand outlet. When
shopping mall will have good reputation among consumers then consumers will go a
shop there. Online shopping has more risk as compare to online shopping because
consumers are virtually ordering things and they are not physically checking product
hence a quality based electronic word of mouth is more useful. Hence online trust is very
important and that’s why companies focus on building it.
Factors Effecting Electronic Word of Mouth
(Keith S. Coulter, 2012) discusses different factors which effect electronic word of
mouth. these factors contribute a lot in adoption of electronic word of mouth. different
consumers react differently to source, network, relationship etc. Closeness to an online
member isn’t an important factor like it’s in traditional word of mouth in which person
rely on friends and family or peers reviews but in electronic word of mouth consumers
don’t rely on it rather than it consumers see what is the source network of that person and
whether that person is a friend of any member or not? Hence to evaluate any electronic
word of mouth a long term relationship is very important either consumer to consumer or
consumer to business.
When electronic word of mouth is effective then it surely effects on brand image and
consumer purchase intention as well. People do evaluate others reviews about brand
image and it shapes their purchase intentions.
(Jiyoung Kim, 2013) discusses extension to Mehrabian and Russell’s Stimulus-Organism-
Response model which include both internal and external source of information which
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contains reputation and website quality. Website quality is most important for the
perceived information which is given on the website that motivate to consumer buying
decision/intention.
Researcher show the all dimension which effect the consumer intention, Dimensions,
Website design, Reliability, Customer services, Security/privacy. According to these
dimensions this study shows that reputation of website has positive effects on consumer
emotions and has negative impact on the perceived risk.
All four dimension of the website which discuss in this study have negative effect on the
perceived risk and have positive impact on the consumer emotion excluding customer
services. According researcher perceived risk has negative impact on the consumer
emotions and both these perceived risk and emotions have a positive relation with buying
decision of the customer.
Website design
(Young Ha, 2012) discusses that this research shows that how website design influence
the consumer emotional and cognitive response that leads to satisfaction and generating
positive word of mouth. When customer willing to buy? Which thing motivate them to
buy and generate positive word of mouth? What is the satisfaction level of customer?
Which content/dimension of website influence more? After the research conducted
researcher give results that showed website design quality has direct and positive relation
with customer joy and stimulation, and what customer perceived about quality is
indirectly influence the customer satisfaction and generating positive word of mouth
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intention. The result of this research showed satisfaction mediate the relationship of
positive word of mouth and cognitive and emotional response.
Perceived risk
(Shu-Yun Cheng, 2012) discusses that this study trying to mix up all the factors which affect
in online buying, It contains perceived risk and how social group influence the buying
intentions of customer, This study also focus on the customer perception regarding
perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.
This study shows that minimum amount of risk has maximum effect on purchase
intention through online group buying. The finding of this study shows that perceived
usefulness and community on the website have positive effect on the online buying, and
also both perceived ease of use and the quality of website effects to perceived usefulness.
From this study it is clear that perceived risk has negative relation with online
buying/intention.
(Neda Samiei, 2012) discusses that in digital media information speedily flow from one
place of the world to another place. If the information is positive then the impact will be
positive and if the information is negative the impact will be negative and its effect
ultimately on the purchase intention of a consumer. For building great image electronic
word of mouth through social media is very important when great and positive image is
built about a brand more favorable results will be for that brand in any industry, if
electronic word of mouth is about that a particular brand is better in usage in comparison
to other brand then the prior brand will be sold even more. On different social media a lot
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of consumer who are satisfied they contribute with pleasant words about positive brand
image.
There are a lot of other factors are influencing on electronic word of mouth in which one
of them is following.
Message Appeal
(Paul C.S. Wu, 2011) discusses that there are different factors of message appeal that make
electronic word of mouth effective and results in adoption of electronic word of mouth.
The message appeal has two types 1) rational appeal. Which deals with the logical part of
information and it is based on facts. 2) emotional appeal in which message deals with the
emotional part of message to influence the reader of comments. In this message focuses
to evoke feelings about brand or product.
Level of Involvement
(Paul C.S. Wu, 2011) further says that level of product involvement also effects on adoption
of electronic word of mouth. When the involvement level will be high the electronic
word of mouth will be useful more and when level of involvement is low electronic word
of mouth is considered less.
Incentives
(Jan Ahrens, 2013) discusses that different incentive strategies also effect on adoption of
electronic word of mouth, when higher incentives will be given to consumer more
consumers will adopt electronic word of mouth more signups will be done on websites
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for adoption of electronic review. By this strategy consumers feel encouraged and get
attracted. This equity concept tells that higher will be incentives more the effective will
be strategy and more people will adopt electronic word of mouth.
Information Quality
(Do-Hyung Park, 2007) discusses that in social media and digital world consumers reviews
are considered as an informants. These reviews will be effected on the basis of
information given. Not every information is going to be adopted but only information
will quality will be considered by consumers. the quality of information makes up a
consumer mind to adopt the review and ultimately consumer buy that product. Since
quality is subjective term so every consumer evaluate message quality onto their own
judgment level. Regarding quality generally a comment with more logics and persuasion
will be considered as a more quality comment.
(Do-Hyung Park, 2007) further discusses The importance of online reviews have
impacted the e-commerce industry significantly; mainly due to the reason that online
businesses do not have the strategic advantage of providing the tangible touch and feel
but online reviews have provided that customer oriented feedback or analysis giving
confidence to the consumer leading to purchase intention .
Electronic word of mouth whether as a source of information or recommendation
contribute largely to a product sales or decision making. The level of involvement as a
moderating factor for the relationship between electronic word of mouth and purchase
intention and they came up with three findings with this study. First of them being that
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the quality of the stimulus (online review) directly and positively affects the purchase
intention of consumers, secondly the quantity of customer reviews in terms of number of
reviews also increases positively the chances of customer’s purchase intention; and lastly
the customer’s level of involvement e.g. low involvement leads to considering the
quantity of reviews rather than the quality of those reviews.
So in a nutshell for a consumer to consider a product in terms of purchase intention, the
online consumer review content must be persuasive through quality and quantity
(Xia Liu, 2008) discusses that Chinese online customers’ shopping satisfaction and what
factors influence that satisfaction. This paper deals with a holistic perspective in terms of
variables affecting online consumer satisfaction. The results found eight constructs and
indicated that response time for customer satisfaction isn’t very significant, and the rest
seven main constructs have considerable positive effect on customer online shopping
satisfaction. These are customer service, delivery, payment, security/privacy, transaction
capability, merchandise attributes, website design layout, information quality.
Relevance
(Dan Wu, 2012) discusses that it is the digital world everything is available on the internet
so it is very difficult to distinguish which is relevant and which is irrelevant .information
is available in different language so it is need of time to access different libraries to
understand the meaning to check relevancy of information available on internet.
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In this study researcher aim is to study the effectiveness of relevant information and
translation enhancement to get the maximum information from online.
(Christy M.K. Cheung M. K., 2008) discusses that in online communities consumer adopt that
information which is relevant to the topic and precise.
Comprehensiveness
(Christy M.K. Cheung M. K., 2008) discusses that the information should be complete and
full so that consumer may relate to them and this will affect the overall quality of
information and eventually electronic word of mouth will be adopted.
Source Credibility
(Kelley O’Reilly, 2011) discuses that the characteristics of the information seeker;
specifically how they assess and credibility leading to adoption. Their sample population
targeted youngsters who were tech-savvy so they could find out the impact of such
population in adoption and assessing electronic word of mouth. Their findings found out
that tech-savvy receivers were now inclining more towards the clicks from the bricks.
They indulge in online reviews to increase their knowledge and self enhancement as well
as to avoid any online risks. Other findings included that receivers assessed online
reviews credibility by examining the polarity of reviews (difference in views), logic of
reviews, the number of online posts, articulation of online reviews, their ability to
discover corroborating sources (supporting statements)and the past experiences the
receivers have had with certain sellers
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(Paul C.S. Wu, 2011) discusses that the relationship of message appeal and the
credibility of the source affecting the brand attitude in terms of brand trust, brand
affection and purchase intention. Positive electronic word of mouth settings have been
used to effectively study this relationship. The results indicated that positive message
plus higher message source credibility leads to improved brand attitude but with positive
message and lower source credibility the brand attitude has a decreasing effect. The study
also found out that with high-involvement in products the rational appeal in messages
met with more favorable brand attitude result than emotional appeal.
(Christy M.K. Cheung M. K., 2008) discusses that the impact of electronic word of mouth in
relation to adoption of online reviews in online customer communities. This study also
focuses on the extent by which opinion seekers would adopt online information and what
persuasive factors would lead them to do so. They found out that argument quality
engages and attracts customer to adopt information, particularly comprehensiveness and
relevance were found to be most effective in terms of argument quality. Source
credibility and information quality effect on adoption of electronic word of mouth as
consumers adopt that suggestion which they find most authentic and complete.
(Christy M.K. Cheung D. R., 2010) discusses that on electronic word of mouth source
credibility and information have a significant effect. Source credibility is going to be
determined by expertise and trustworthiness of a message source means message source
must have a experience about that product in consideration. Information quality is also
impactful on adoption of electronic word of mouth and information relevance, accuracy
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and information completeness are dimension which also effect on electronic word of
mouth.
(Richard Buda, 2000) discusses that many studies on consumer reacting to different
product messages as in this era of information, there are so much advertised messages
flashing in the direction of consumers through various marketing communication
channels. This has caused a red flag for marketers as the message’s effectiveness is
becoming more and more questionable. To determine the effectiveness of the message,
three variables were selected namely the message framing, source credibility and
presentation order. In an experiment; the presentation of the message being positive or
negative information presented, the credibility of the source of information e.g. some half
the subjects were told that the information was reviewed by experts and the other half
was told that it was reviewed by customers, and lastly the presentation order where
subjects were given positive information either in the beginning of the product
information and others were given positive information at the end. The result showed that
these variables alone are not sufficient to understand the full effect of advertised
information to the consumer.
(Frost, Source Credibility:Do We Really Believe Everything We're Told?, 2002) discusses that
there have been always stories told down by the generations so these stories slowly
become rumors and from there legends and myths. There is of course another type of
information that is passed on by looking at facts and figures of past and present and how
would they formulate in the future. These two types of information have everything
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common in each other as far as it’s going viral is concern and the demand for both type of
this information. So the only difference between the two is the truth. Nowadays the news
and rumors are both fed to the public by the same source of information e.g. journalist
which of course give most of their published information as news based on facts and
figures but if the story poses enough interest and is likely to be true, these stories are also
passed on to the receiver of this published media who holds high credibility of its source.
This is creating a problem and may impact how message receiver would look at source
credibility in the future.
(Schwarzkopf, 2007) discusses that Source credibility is evaluated by message receiver
through an articulation of various methods to judge the credibility of the source of the
message. One is the message itself showcases the level of quality and authenticity with
information that the message receiver is already aware of. Others are how the source’s
accountability and how independent that source is from any external influences
(Kenneth E. Clow, 2006) discusses that the message design for services is far difficult as
products can be shown through the presentation of their physical attributes. Therefore to
make the source of that message more credible different models and celebrities are used.
But the source credibility through such influencers on its own cannot impact the attitude
towards the message appeal. It also requires the perception that the message receiver
develops or has of the service quality
(Jyh-Shen Chiou, 2012) how much the severity of negative messages presented to
message recipients formulate their perception of it, given the brand attachment the
E l e c t r o n i c W o r d o f M o u t h P a g e | 28
recipient has and the credibility of the source of information that the recipient holds. The
results showed that negative message information contributes more to the negative image
of the company about which the message refers given the source of that message is
deemed credible by the message recipient
Expertise
(Wu, 2013) discusses that skills competency and knowledge of a person about product is
very important, the more source will be expert the more information will be considered as
a credible and authentic.
Trust worthiness
(Wu, 2013) further discusses that personal identifying information has a great influence on
information receiver like how much time a information sender spend on online
community how quickly that person sends information this also increase source
credibility
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Chapter 3- Conceptual Model
3.1 Theoretical framework
Figure 1
Theoretical Framework of Effectiveness of Electronic Word of Mouth
E l e c t r o n i c W o r d o f M o u t h P a g e | 30
Figure 1 shows that the information quality and source credibility has an impact
on electronic word of mouth in an online community. This research model shows that the
source credibility is being measured in terms of expertise and trustworthiness and they all
together effect on source credibility and then source credibility effects on adoption of
electronic word of mouth. Similarly information quality is being quantified by relevance
and comprehensiveness and information quality then effects on adoption of electronic
word of mouth
3.2 Proposed Hypotheses
H1: Source credibility has positive relationship with electronic word of mouth.
Hıa: The higher the perceived expertise of a message source, the more the source will be
credible.
Hıb: The higher the perceived trustworthiness of a message source, the more the source
will be credible.
H2: Information quality has positive relationship on electronic word of mouth.
H2a: The more the relevance of information, the higher information quality will be
perceived.
H2b: The more comprehensiveness of information, the higher information quality will be
perceived.
E l e c t r o n i c W o r d o f M o u t h P a g e | 31
The source credibility and information quality have positive effect on adoption of
electronic word of mouth. This research studies that source expertise and trustworthiness
are important dimension of source credibility to investigate in detail. Source expertise
means that the person who is providing information has experience with that related
product and trustworthiness is the trust of consumer on source that whether the source is
capable of delivering what has been promised and how much promised value is delivered.
In online community, people are free to give their opinion about product and
services without telling about themselves. It is on to users to judge the expertise and
trustworthiness of the message source regarding the adoption and rejection of information
given. If a person views that opinions and reviews are uploaded by high credible
individual then he/she will adopt electronic word of mouth.
In virtual environment students buying intention about electronic devices can be
identified by the perceived quality of information which they get from source. When
students think that the information fulfill their criteria, they adopt the information. It is
very important to know the perception of the students about the information quality in
online community to know their purchase intention.
In this research two dimension are used for information quality: relevance and
comprehensiveness. Students are more concerned about their time therefore relevance of
message is very crucial. Students scan the web-pages to get the desire information
instead of reading every web page in detail because they don’t have enough time.
E l e c t r o n i c W o r d o f M o u t h P a g e | 32
Students want maximum information in less time with little bit of efforts. Hence
relevancy of information is more preferable in online communities as relevance of
information is important indicator in buying intention. Comprehensiveness shows the
completeness of a message by which student’s perceived detailed information. The more
the information and reviews generated by others consumers in complete and detail way
the more the student will acquire and retain that information.
Chapter 4 - Research Methodology
4.1 Type & Approach of study
This study is quantitative in nature as we are using empirical method where the
primary data is converted into numerical form to quantify the results for unbiased
analysis by measuring through its dimensions and statistical analysis which is being
achieved through a questionnaire that will end in conversion of information into
numerical data. The testing population for this research’s hypothesis is university
students mainly from the institutes of Islamabad namely Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
Institute of Science and Technology, Iqra University and Islamic International University.
The reason to limit as such the Sample of this study is to create better Quantifiable data
as time and resources spent on this sample would be efficiently processed and taken care
of. If we increase the sample population any further than three to four Universities, we
might get filled questionnaires but not filled information as these questionnaires would be
E l e c t r o n i c W o r d o f M o u t h P a g e | 33
haphazardly filled due to lack of time and resources and therefore we might get biased
data as ample time would not be spent in the questionnaire’s consideration.
The second type of this study is Causal as two independent variables called
Source Credibility and Information Quality are studied of their effect in terms of
Adoption of Electronic Word of Mouth. Source Credibility is concluded through its two
concepts which is the Expertise of the source and the level of trustworthiness that the
message recipient has on the message source. The other Independent variable;
Information Quality is also concluded by its two concepts which are the relevance of the
message information with the message recipient and the Comprehensiveness of the
message. The relationship of Source Credibility and Information Quality is analyzed in
this study as causes to the effect of adopting that message information through electronic
word of mouth.
4.2 Population of study
The population of this research is young students belonging from the middle and
upper middle class. These students are pursuing some academic degree and have
exposure to urban living life style. These are technology savvy individuals meaning they
have basic knowledge of the usage of Web 2.0 and its applications. These units of
population are literate and understand reasonable level of written and verbal English
language so they can interact online and receive electronic word of mouth. These units
are both male and female and they spent at least 1 hour on the internet using some web
2.0 applications such as social media.
E l e c t r o n i c W o r d o f M o u t h P a g e | 34
4.3 Sample of study
The sample crafted out of the population has same characteristic but most of the
dimensions of characteristics of these units have been further defined and narrowed down
in the below sections. Due to limited resources and other delimitations, the sample for
this study is taken from 3 universities which are Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of
Science and Technology (SZABIST), Iqra University and Islamic International
University. All of these Universities and the sample is taken from Islamabad again due to
scarce resources. The qualification level of the units in sample is in pursuit of Bachelor’s
Degree from one of these universities. These students come between the age group of
eighteen to twenty three years.
4.3 Sample Size
One hundred students are used as our sample size to quantify our independent
variables by students of the above mentioned three Universities. Our circle of research is
around these students. We have collected data in shape of questionnaires from these one
hundred students and we chose one hundred samples size due to lack of time and
resources as well as to not decrease the quality of the filled questionnaire through
haphazard filling.
4.4 Characteristics of Sample Size
Gender: Male and Female
Age: 18-24 years
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4.5 Type of Data
To view and understand the developments of the framework of this topic, we have
used secondary data presented in the literature review, which is taken mostly from
marketing journals and books published in the context of digital marketing or
conventional marketing. The other data that we have used is of course the primary data to
test our hypothesis and to conclude results and implications through tangible facts and
figures which are numerically measured. This type of data is taken from universities in
Islamabad.
4.6 Data collection
This research has used questionnaire to gather data from student of Shaheed
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology Islamabad, IQRA University
Islamabad and Islamic International University Islamabad. The data is collected by
visiting the three universities mentioned above in the research paper, and convenience
sampling is used to select units of the sample but these units of course would be in a
setting of university that satisfies all the criteria and characteristics set for the sample of
the study.
E l e c t r o n i c W o r d o f M o u t h P a g e | 36
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