Research On The Mechanism Of Brand-switching Intention In The Context Of Social Commerce

The development of social commerce creates opportunities for the enterprises and brand operators.Rapid and convenient word of mouth is an important characteristic of social commerce.Combining commerce and socializing,social commerce provides a platform for social interactions,information sharing and communicating.However,the increase of brand alternatives and the increasingly pervasive of brand-switching phenomenon bring threats for the brand,influencing the continuous and stable development of the enterprises.Investigating from the current researches,it was found that they mainly focus on the mechanism of brand-switching intention from the perspective of internal word of mouth.However,standing on the context of social commerce,researches combining both inside and outside perspectives,besides taking the roles of negative brand recognition and website anxiety into consideration are relatively rare.Therefore,in the context of social commerce,research about the developing mechanism of brand-switching intention is of vital importance for the enterprise continuous development.Based on the above discussion,this study prepares to answer the following two questions: Firstly,how do the negative word of mouth and alternative attractiveness influence the brand-switching intention in the context of social commerce.In addition,the internal mechanism between them.Secondly,whether there exists the mediating role of negative brand recognition and moderating role of website anxiety play on the brandswitching intention and how do they make effects on the brand-switching intention.Based on this,the article stands on the social cognition theory and the S-O-R theory,and studies from both perspectives of the brand and its alternatives to investigative the effects of negative word of mouth and alternative attractiveness on brand-switching intention,taking the mediating role of negative brand recognition and the moderating role of website anxiety into consideration in order to help analyze the mechanism of brand-switching intention.Using empirical study,the study collects data of social commerce users and analyzes the data by Smart PLS 2.0.There are three aspects of the result.First,in the context of social commerce,negative word of mouth belief and rediffusion intention could influence the brand-switching intention significantly.Second,negative brand image recognition and negative value recognition could mediate the relationship between negative word of mouth belief and brand-switching intention as well as the relationship between negative word of mouth rediffusion intention and brand-switching intention.Third,website anxiety could moderate the relationship between negative brand image recognition and brand-switching intention as well as the relationship between negative brand value recognition and brand-switching intention negatively.The study deepens the understanding of social cognition theory and S-O-R theory,expanding the researches about brand-switching intention in the context of social commerce,helping the enterprise to know the brand problem better and manage the word of mouth efficiently.Through the analysis of alternative attractiveness to insight the brand position in the market,the enterprises could adjust their marketing strategy in time.In practical,the study could help enterprises to manage efficiently and enhance the brand competition advantage,which could further provide the enterprises with suggestions to enhance brand loyalty,decrease brand-switching intention and increase the brand profit.