Research On Motivations Of Producing Negative Electronic Word-of-Mouth Under The Context Of Online Short-Term Rental

With the development of Internet technology,communications between users are no longer limited to face-to-face communications.Users are more and more inclined to reduce the risk of products or services through online information.Traditional word-of-mouth has gradually developed into electronic word-of-mouth.Electronic word-of-mouth is the viewpoint shared by users and the perception and evaluation of products or service.As electronic word-of-mouth can reduce product uncertainty and increase users' trust,it significantly affects users' behavior intention and companies'profitability.Electronic word-of-mouth can be divided into positive electronic word-of-mouth and negative electronic word-of-mouth according to its valence.Positive electronic word-of-mouth is the positive evaluations of a product or service while negative electronic word-of-mouth is the negative evaluations of a product or service.Studies have shown that the influence of negative electronic word-of-mouth is more significant than that of positive electronic word-of-mouth,as negative information is easier to take the attentions of users and has more value.In addition,anonymity,low cost of production and wide distribution,which are characterized as features of negative electronic word-of-mouth,have made it easy to cause destructive effects on companies.Therefore,it is very necessary to investigate the role of negative electronic word-of-mouth.In previous studies,scholars have studied negative electronic word-of-mouth in terms of its consequences and factors,as well as explored the impact of multiple user motivations on negative electronic word-of-mouth.However,in prior studies,the effect of negative electronic word-of-mouth has not been distinguished by stakeholders(i.e.,consumers and providers).Instead,it is generally considered as an inseparable concept,or is only categorized according to the publishers' own interests.Second,egoism motives such as self-expression are often applied to positive word-of-mouth and are rarely considered in negative electronic word-of-mouth and emotion release is one of the motives for producing negative electronic word-of-mouth,but few scholars have explored the impact of these two egoism motives on different types of negative electronic word-of-mouth.Third,the impact of altruism on consumers has been investigated,but the impact on the providers is rarely studied.Finally,since negative electronic word-of-mouth may be harmful to providers,it is also valuable to study negative electronic word-of-mouth from a moral perspective.However,little previous literature has considered moral motivations as far as we know.In order to fill these gaps,this study takes online short-term rental platform as an example.According to the stakeholders,negative electronic word-of-mouth is divided into rational negative electronic word-of-mouth and emotional negative electronic word-of-mouth.Based on the motivation theory and the techniques of neutralization,three types of motives,namely egoism motives(i.e.,self-expression and emotion release),altruistic motive(i.e.,altruism),and moral motives(i.e.,denial of victims and appeals to higher loyalties)are used to study the impact on rational and emotional negative electronic word-of-mouth.Combined with structural equation modeling method,this study found that users' self-expression,altruism,denial of victims and appeals to higher loyalties have positive effects on rational negative electronic word-of-mouth.Altruism has a negative impact on emotional negative electronic word-of-mouth while emotion release has a significant positive effect on emotional negative electronic word-of-mouth.Besides,the post hoc analysis also validated the full mediating effect of emotion release on the relationships between denial of victims/appeals to higher loyalties and emotional negative electronic word-of-mouth.Some theoretical and practical implications for research on negative electronic word-of-mouth and online short-term rental are also discussed.