Research On The Different Impact On Consumers' Behavior Between E-commerce Ewom And Social Media Ewom

With the rapid development and maturity of Internet technology,it has become an indispensable part of modern life.Dramatic changes are taking place in all walks of life under the tide of the Internet.Retail industry is just one of them.Internet technology is turning the traditional retail industry into the more convenient and efficient online retail,and electronic commerce develops rapidly.At the same time,with the gradual maturity of Web 2.0 technology,various kinds of social media websites have become popular,and have changed people's communication,business cooperation and even lifestyle in a subtle way.They have laid the foundation for the emergence of new business models.Social commerce is one of the results of the combination of e-commerce and social interaction.The key factor of social commerce is the social interaction in the form of electronic word-of-mouth(eWOM),because word-of-mouth can help make purchase decisions by eliminating or reducing consumers'perceived risks.With the growing number of eWOM websites,consumers have more and more channels to publish or obtain product-ralated word-of-mouth.The characteristics of these eWOM platforms and the characteristics of eWOM on these platforms are different.It is interesting for us to look into the questions when consumers face such a variety of eWOM platforms,how do they choose,and how do the impact of eWOM from different platforms differ?Through observation we find that there are many differences between e-commerce websites and social media in the core functions of the platform,as well as the content of eWOM and the presentation of eWOM.On the other hand,by analyzing the existing literature,we find that most of the current studies do not clearly distinguish the eWOM on these two types of platforms,or even treat them as equivalent.However,a few scholars find that eWOM on these two types of platforms have different impact on consumers' product evaluation and purchase decisions.The existing research on consumers',choice of eWOM platform and the mechanism of the impact of eWOM platform on consumers' perception is not thorough enough.Therefore,based on the limitations of previous studies,this paper regards e-commerce websites eWOM,social media eWOM as the research subj ects.Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model,Stimulus-Organism-Response theory,Information Adoption theory and Motivation Attribution theory,this paper synthetically uses the theories and methods of management,psychology,behavioral science,computer science and other disciplines to understand the deep sight of eWOM platforms.This paper builds a conceptual model to explain the different impact on consumers between e-commerce eWOM and social media eWOM,and empirical tests are made to verify the correctness of the model.The main conclusions of this study include the following three points:First,this paper finds that tie strength has positive influence on consumers',perceived credibility,which is moderated by eWOM platform category.And the relationship between eWOM platform category and perceived credibility is moderated by product-related risks.Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response theory,this study establishes a conceptual model of the relations between the eWOM platforms,tie strength,self-disclosure degree,product risk,perceived credibility and purchase intention.Then a 2(eWOM platform)×2(product risk)grouping experiment is designed to simulating online shopping scenarios,and questionnaires are used to collect data.This study uses multiple linear regression,grouping regression,multifactor analysis of variance and structural equation model with partial least squares method to analyse the relations within the conceptual model.The results show that:(1)Tie strength and self-disclosure degree in social media are higher than those in e-commerce websites.(2)Tie strength between eWOM publishers and receivers positively influences consumers'perceived credibility of eWOM,and perceived credibility further positively influences purchase intention.(3)The relation between tie strength and perceived credibility is moderated by eWOM platform.That is,for social media eWOM,tie strength has a more significant positive impact on the perceived credibility.(4)Product risk has a moderating effect on the relation between eWOM platform and perceived credibility.For low-risk products,eWOM from e-commerce websites is perceived to be more credible.Second,this paper makes an exploratory study on the differences in form and content between e-commerce eWOM and soial media eWOM,and the different factors include information quality,calance,language style,motivation attribution,source expertise and source trustworthiness.Firstly,the text analysis method is used to find the differences between e-commerce eWOM and social media eWOM in terms of the basic linguistic features,the topics and the sentiment polarity of the eWOM.By applying the comparative analysis,we find that there are obvious differences in these objective factors between e-commerce eWOM and social media eWOM.Then,we conduct in-depth interviews with 28 individuals,and conduct three-level coding analysis of the interview data to obtain consumers' subjective perception of the different features between the two kinds of eWOM.From the central route of ELM,we conclude that:(1)The accuracy,relevance and comprehensiveness of eWOM in e-commerce websites are higher than those in social media.(2)The valence of eWOM in e-commerce websites are more comprehensive than those in social media.(3)The literal language is more common in e-commerce eWOM,but the figurative language is more used in social media eWOM.(4)The motivation is more likely to be attributed to altruism for e-commerce eWOM,while be attributed to egoism for social media eWOM.From the peripheral route:(1)The source expertise of e-commerce eWOM is higher than social media eWOM.(2)The source trustworthiness of social media eWOM is higher than e-commerce eWOM.Third,this paper finds that the higher accuracy,relevance,comprehensiveness,source expertise,and the literal language style of e-commerce eWOM lead to higher credibility,usefulness and adoption intention of e-commerce eWOM.We innovatively use the motivation attribution theory to explain the mechanism of the above relations.Based on the information adoption model and motivation attribution theory,this study establishes a conceptual model,which takes the different factors of eWOM from different platforms as independent variables and consumers' attitude towards eWOM and eWOM adoption tendency as dependent variables.The data were collected with questionnaires.Regarding data analysis,first,we analyse the reliability as well as the convergent and discriminant validity of the variables.Then,we calculate the path coefficients and significance by partial least squares method.Finally,the mediating effects of motivation attribution are tested by Bootstrapping method.The results show that:(1)The accuracy differentia,relevance differentia and comprehensiveness differentia between e-commerce eWOM and social media eWOM have significant positive influence on consumers' perceived usefulness of e-commerce eWOM.(2)Motivation attribution only positively mediates the influence of accuracy differentia and relevance differentia on perceived usefulness.(3)The effect of language style differentia on perceived usefulness bias is totally mediated by motivation attribution.The effect of language style differentia on perceived credibility bias is partially mediated by motivation attribution.(4)Source trustworthiness differentia between the two platforms' eWOM has a significant negative impact on perceived usefulness bias and perceived credibility bias of e-commerce eWOM.(5)Consumers'perceived usefulness bias and perceived credibility biaas of e-commerce eWOM significantly promote their adoption tendencies of e-commerce eWOM.The theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows:First,this paper is one of the first research to look deep into the different features of eWOM from different platforms and their influence on consumers' perception and decision-making.Second,through exploratory research,this paper verifies and identifies the different factors between e-commerce eWOM and social media eWOM,including accuracy,relevance,completeness,language style,source trustworthiness and source expertise.Third,by combining motivation attribution theory and information adoption theory,this paper explains the influence of antecedent differentia of eWOM on consumers' perception bias.Fourthly,this paper introduces language style as a new antecedent shaping consumers' attitude towards eWOM.The management implications of this paper include the following three aspects:First,for e-commerce websites operators,they should be aware that e-commerce eWOM has an advantage in information quality but has a disadvantage in source credibility compared with social media eWOM.Second,for social media operators,they should reorganize the way product-related reviews are displayed to make them more readable and reasonable,and can make good use of the social network between users to make eWOM more reliable.Third,business managers should pay attention to the eWOM using literal language,and be aware of the negative emotions amoung users.Solve problems as soon as possible before the negative emotions explosing.