Individual and Product-Related Antecedents of Electronic Word-of-Mouth

TL;DR

This study explores how personal traits and product factors influence the likelihood of consumers engaging in positive or negative electronic word-of-mouth and how this affects their repurchase intentions, based on survey data and structural modeling.

Contribution

It identifies key personal and product-related antecedents of eWOM propensity and links eWOM intentions to repurchase behavior, using empirical data from Romanian consumers.

Findings

Social media usage, marketing mavenism, and need to evaluate drive eWOM intentions.

Brand trust influences eWOM propensity.

Both positive and negative eWOM intentions increase repurchase likelihood.

Abstract

This research investigates the antecedents of positive and negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) propensity, as well as the impact of eWOM propensity on the intention to repurchase the product. Two types of eWOM predictors were considered: product related variables and personal factors. The data were collected through an online survey conducted on a sample of 335 Romanian subjects, and the analysis method was Structural Equation Modeling. Our findings show that personal factors - social media usage behavior, marketing mavenism and need to evaluate - are the most important antecedents of the intention to write product reviews and comments online, either positive or negative. From the product related factors, only brand trust influences the propensity to provide eWOM. Furthermore, both positive and negative eWOM intentions are associated with the repurchase intention.