The Influence Boundary And Mechanism Of The Electronic Word-of-mouth

The rapid development of Internet and maturityof e-commerceprovides a more convenient communicating platform for the reputation. More and more consumers began to use this platform to express their personal opinions, share information and get resources which makes the growing importance of electronic word-of-mouth. This paper explores the influence boundary of electronic word and the influence of electronic word-of-mouth behavioron speaker’s brand attitude through empirical research methods.Previous studies for the generation of electronic word-of-mouth(eWOM) tend to be concentrated in the areas of motivation, few people involved in the interdependent relationship; and studies for the impact of eWOM mostly focus on companies and consumers(audience), the study for influence to speakers isoverlooked. Firstly, this paper introduces e WOM, self-construction and psychological distance, and analyzes the characteristics, causes and effects of eWOM. Then reviews and comments social cognitive theory and shared reality theory. Finally, according to the theoretical basis and previous studies, constructs two conceptual models, Model 1: Impact boundary model ofconsumers’ eWOM behavior; Model 2: mechanism model of eWOM affect speakers’ original brand attitudes.In the empirical phase, in order to meet the internet needs of this study, we use electronic questionnaires and simulate purchase situation on TaoBao, through three experiments to investigate the effect mechanism of eWOM intention and learn howeWOM behavior affect speakers’ original brand attitude. The results show that:(1) theintention of positive eWOM is stronger than the negative eWOM;(2)While it is quite the contrary for independent self-construal that the intention of positive eWOM is weaker than negative eWOM, this confirms the moderating effect of self-construal;(3)The behavior eWOM strengthens the speaker’s brand attitude which confirms the mediating effect of psychology distance.Finally, this paper summarizesthe study results, which enrich the research of eWOM’santecedences associated with the individual characteristics of research achievements of the impact of eWOM. Then combined with the conclusion provides some suggestionsfor enterprises to guide positive eWOM and avoid the negative eWOM reasonably. At the same time, points out the lack of this study and direction of future research clearly.