An Integrated Research Framework for Effect of EWOM

Abstract

With the development of the electronic commerce, the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has become important reference information for consumer shopping. EWOM has attracted considerable interest from researchers in the past decade. In this paper, a research review is conducted and an integrated framework is proposed on the effect of eWOM. The effect of eWOM are influenced by its characteristics, communicators, and other factors. The characteristics of eWOM include the source, the volume and the valence. The communicators of eWOM refer to the sender, the receiver and the relationship between them. In addition, dispersion and consistency, persistence and observability, anonymity and deception, and community engagement are related factors for the effect of eWOM.