An Investigation Into The Intention To Generate Negative Electronic WOM

With the development and application of internet technology, the spread of the electronic word-of-mouth, especially the negative ones, is gaining much influence and importance over the past dozen of years. However, the causes of negative electronic word-of-mouth (EWOM) have been in lack of an in-depth and sufficient study although a growing number of scholars have begun to focus on it and the industry has put more emphasis on EWOM marketing practice.This study comes to indentify four problems through literature review. Firstly, as to EWOM valence, the influence of negative EWOM has been recognized as opposed to positive EWOM, but the negative EWOM is still less researched and not given a systematic interpretation. Secondly, as to the research area, the current study focused more on the diffusion and effect of EWOM, less on the sender’s aspect of EWOM. In fact, it is this sending end that leads to the generation of EWOM and thus accounts as the fundamental research question. The problems need to been further probed that the individual factors of the consumers who generated the negative EWOM and the interrelationship between situational factors and the consumers’ intention to generate EWOM. Thirdly, among the research of the sending end of EWOM, it could be seen that the theoretical framework used is of less explanatory power and the internet as a new media is not well taken into account. The traditional WOM communication theory, which is often adopted by the present research of EWOM. needs to be improved in internet context, considering the discrepancies between the traditional and internet channels. Therefore, not only the theoretical framework with better explanatory power should be introduced, but also the new factors brought by internet, such as internet involvement should be examined. Fourthly, EWOM communication is a social phenomenon that is subject to individual values. However, the current researches are carried out so much in the western context, less in other countries, not to say in China, that the influence of cultural differences exerted on EWOM behavior is unfortunately ignored. Thus, it is worthwhile to carry out such a research in Chinese cultural context.Given the insufficiencies in the above four aspects, this study endeavors to carry out a study in Chinese context supported by Theory of Planned Behavior and also open-ended questionnaires that elicit salient beliefs of consumers’negative EWOM intention. A comprehensive model of consumers’negative EWOM intention is established by taking Big Five Model of Personality and factors such as forbearance values, internet involvement, motivation factors, failure of direct complaint, and perceived reputation of the firm, into the theoretical framework, the attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control as mediating variables.The empirical study employs quantitative approach, including procedures like questionnaire formation, information and data collection, and use of statistical analysis tools to validate the proposed hypothesis of the model and the mediating effect of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control.To meet the requirement of relative familiarity and availability on internet, the study chose the college students as the main sample for either the paper or the electronic questionnaires, while the members of virtual communities such as Forum of Renmin University of China, and also friends and colleagues of the author as the compensating research sample.The preliminary questionnaire has been formed based on the salient beliefs elicited by two open-ended questionnaires and the sample questionnaire of Theory of Planned Behavior designed by Ajzen (2002.2006). To measure the variables, we adopt existing scales, the translation from English scales, and new scale development based on literature.After modification and adjustment of the preliminary questionnaire items according to the suggestions from experts and colleagues, the final questionnaire is formed consisting of55items to measure consumers’ intention of generating negative EWOM. And then the questionnaires are collected on the spot, by email and by interactive chat online, which ensure the authenticity and sufficiency of the data.The empirical study goes first to the descriptive statistical analysis, next to the evaluation of reliability and validity of the data by the recognized standard, then to the test of study hypothesis by correlative and regression analysis, finally to the examination of the mediating effect. Two software are employed. SPSS17.0and Amos17.0.The following conclusions are reached: First, among the influence of individual factors to the three mediating variables, this study finds that the social profit motive owes the largest proportion of explanation to attitude, followed by altruistic motive, emotional release and forbearance values; internet involvement the largest proportion of explanation to subjective norm, followed by openness; openness the largest proportion of explanation to perceived behavioral control. Among the influence of situational factors to the three mediating variables, this study finds that the negative EWOM from other consumers explains the largest proportion, which reflects in a way their group psychology, followed by perception of the business reputation mainly in that the good reputation helps to ease the negative influence resulted by failure of certain service.Second, among the influence of the three mediating variables to the consumers’ intention of generating negative EWOM, attitude takes the largest impact, even exceeds the subjective norm and perceived behavioral control combined. Thus, it can be inferred that the consumers get less influenced by others when they generate negative EWOM. Moreover, with the more frequent use of internet, the consumers will find it much easier to generate their negative EWOM, hence their attitude towards the generating of negative EWOM will account most to whether or not they generate the EWOM. This is an important factor for the seller to consider.Third, by the study of immediate influence of individual and situational factors on the consumers’intention of generating negative EWOM, it is found that the proposed hypotheses are verified except the agreeableness. extraversion, and conscientiousness. The forbearance values, the buyer-seller relationship, perception of business reputation, and perceived risk, are negatively correlative to the consumers’intention of generating negative EWOM. Among all the independent variables, altruistic motive owes the most explanation to dependent variables, followed by failure of direct complaint. It is worth noting that among all the situational factors, consumers’failure of direct complaint has the greatest impact on the generation of negative EWOM. Hence, the effective management of complaint, the in-time and successful service recovery can offset the consumers’intention to do so and this means much to the firms. Meanwhile, the relationship marketing and enhancement of reputation are important to the sellers as could been seen from the correlation of buyer-seller relationship, perception of business reputation to the consumers’ intention of generating negative EWOM. Finally, this study verifies the negative influence of Chinese unique forbearance values on the negative EWOM, contributing to the study in Chinese context.Fourth, after the examination of the mediating effect, this study finds that attitude is the mediating variable between the intention and altruistic motive, social profit motive, emotional release, retaliation of sellers, forbearance values, neuroticism, negative EWOM from other consumers, the failure of direct complaint, seller-buyer relationship, perception of business reputation and severe un-satisfaction. It can also be found out that subjective norm is the mediating variable between the intention and the internet involvement, openness, product and purchase decision involvement, negative EWOM from other consumers, perception of business reputation and perceived risk. And it follows that perceived behavioral control is the mediating variable between the intention and internet involvement, forbearance values, openness, negative EWOM from other consumers, perception of business reputation, perceived risk and severe un-satisfaction. Therefore, it is verified that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control work to the mediating effect.To sum up, this dissertation has made the following innovations to the present study:First, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and open questionnaires that elicit salient beliefs, a model of consumers’ negative EWOM intention is established by taking Big Five Model of Personality, factors such as internet involvement, failure of direct complaint, and perceived reputation of the firm, into the theoretical framework.Second, this study identifies the mediating factors between the consumers’ personal factors, situational factors and the generating intention of negative EWOM, that is, the three variables based on Theory of Planned Behavior, namely attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control.Their mediating effect and the research hypothesis have been verified by empirical study.Third, this study recesses the potential influence of Chinese unique forbearance values on the consumers" generation of negative EWOM, providing a cultural explanation to the negative EWOM. Fourth, the findings of this study can be referred to by the enterprises to formulate complaint management strategies, and establish intelligence and early warning, negative EWOM immune mechanism so as to gain long-term competitive advantage.