Social influence model and electronic word of mouth

Abstract

Compared with laptop or desktop computers, mobile devices offer greater flexibility in time and space, thus enabling consumers to be connected online more continually. In addition, their small size, portability and ease of use with location-based capabilities facilitate sending and receiving timely information in the right place. Drawing upon a social influence model proposed by Dholakia et al. (2004), this paper proposes a causal model for consumer participation in electronic word of mouth (eWOM), and compares the effects of PC-based and mobile-based eWOM (hereafter pcWOM and mWOM, respectively). The paper posits social identity, motivations (purposive value, social enhancement and intrinsic enjoyment), inherent novelty seeking and opinion leadership as antecedents affecting desire (individual-level driver) and social intention (group-level driver) to engage in eWOM. A total of 271 survey responses were collected from consumers in Japan. The proposed model fits the data reasonably well; all hypotheses are supported. The results reveal that desire only partially mediates the effects on social intention of social identity. Compared with pcWOM participants, mWOM participants exhibit significantly higher perceptions on social intention, intrinsic enjoyment and cog-nitive social identity. After recognising important limitations, theoretical implications are discussed and future research directions suggested.