ENHANCING ENTERPRISE COMPETITIVENESS AND SUSTAINABILITY USING EWOM: THE CASE OF EGYPT

Abstract

The digital marketing transformation of the Internet has significantly experienced a paradigm shift, i.e., a transformation from a passive source of information to an interactive and engaging participatory web. This study demonstrates the ability of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) as a participatory web tool that enables enterprises to achieve profitable growth, resilience, business sustainability, and competitiveness, through developing operational strategy. This study adopts a conclusive descriptive cross-sectional survey research design, which allows the collection of quantitative data through structured questionnaires. The data were obtained from Egyptian social media users through a convenience sampling method. To test the hypotheses regression analysis was conducted. Results indicate that eWOM positively influences the brand image and purchase intention, which consequently enables the enterprises to achieve business sustainability. Accordingly, enterprises wanting to achieve strategic competitiveness must integrate social media into their marketing mix which would generate positive eWOM. Using convenience sampling might result in the inability to generalize the findings. This study is designed to study the effect of eWOM using social media platforms in general, however, future studies should replicate this study to specified types of different social media platforms, to identify which platform generates the highest impact. The proposed conceptual model tests a relationship that connects eWOM dimensions, namely, credibility, quality, and quantity, to purchase intention and brand image. There is lack of research in the Egyptian context on the implications of eWOM on enterprise competitiveness and sustainability.