A Dual-Process Model to Assess User Attitudes and the Likelihood of Electronic Word-Of-Mouth Adoption

The likelihood of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) adoption is useful for academics and practitioners to understand the persuasion. To address this issue, the attitude-intention link was often assumed in information systems (IS) literature without further examinations in the persuasion contexts. This study develops a theoretical model, grounded in the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), to assess how recipients use central and peripheral routes to elaborate e-WOM. This study tests the theoretical model by surveying 395 users with viewing or posting experience in an online discussion forum. The empirical results of this study verify that the central variable (argument quality) directly and indirectly drives the likelihood of e-WOM adoption via cognitive and affective attitudes, whereas the peripheral cue (source credibility) directly and indirectly drives the likelihood of e-WOM adoption via cognitive attitudes only. However, affective attitudes rather than cognitive attitudes significantly determine the likelihood of e-WOM adoption, implying the attitude-intention link is valid in the central route to persuasion. Additionally, the use of central and peripheral routes to form attitudes is influenced by perceived control in online searching. This study also contributes to verify that argument quality acts as the diagnostic input, whereas source credibility acts as the accessible input in the elaboration of e-WOM

An Empirical Examination of the Influence of Information and Source Characteristics on Consumers’ Adoption of Online Reviews

The growth of online commerce has given consumers a number of convenient options to shop from. This has led to the proliferation of e-commerce players that offer variety of products and services with customer-centric terms and conditions. However, absence of avenues to test the product(s) before buying, shoppers perceive inherent risk associated with online buying, especially related to products’ quality and features, terms and conditions of sales, etc. To overcome this pre-purchase dissonance and compensate for the lack of previous experience, they look for reliable information and guidance. Hence, to make decisions, e-buyers rely on the reviews provided by other shoppers. Therefore, it becomes imperative for e-retailers to determine antecedent factors that influence the adoption of online reviews. Using heuristic-systematic model, this study has identified the relative significance of information credibility, argument quality, quantity sufficiency and source credibility in influencing the adoption of reviews available online. It was observed that the two categories of influencers impact the reviews’ adoption albeit through the two mediators - perceived usefulness and perceived value of reviews. Theoretical and practical implications have also been highlighted. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol9/iss1/5

The application of social media for marketing strategies in pharma healthcare

Digital is transforming the way the world does business, and healthcare is no exception. The COVID-19 outbreak has had a significant impact on internet use and accelerated the digital transition worldwide as well as in Portugal. Social media is the fastest communication network among worldwide people. During the outbreak, the usage of social media platforms increased two times more compared with normal days. With increasing health literacy and access to technology, consumers are becoming more informed and proactive towards health issues and selfmedication, 67% of them are researching health problems and symptoms tracking and 81% conduct online research before making a purchase. This change has expanded communication from offline to the internet. Electronic word-of-mouth communication (eWOM), based on social media, brought more variables to marketing communication and became an interesting field for research considering its communication potential. Indeed, several studies have shown the ability to influence interpersonal communications on products or services in the purchase intention of consumers. As so, in recent years, some authors discussed the impact of eWOM on consumer online purchasing decisions; however, the literature is still relatively nascent regarding the Pharmaceutical Industry and the self-medication segment market of Over-the-Counter medicines (OTC). Pharmaceutical companies must be aware of this paradigm change: the patient is an indispensable and active stakeholder in the present and future of healthcare, besides the physician and the payer. Pharma marketing may be moving into a more digitalized space, but there is still room for improvement, especially when it comes to social media there is an unexploited territory for pharma marketers as most pharmaceutical companies are not yet to answer these consumers habits with an effective digital presence. The current research aims to study the application of Social Media platforms for marketing or communication purposes in pharma healthcare in Portugal.digital está a transformar a forma como os negócios se fazem no mundo, e a saúde não é exceção. A pandemia de COVID-19 teve um impacto significativo na utilização da Internet e acelerou a transição digital a nível mundial, incluindo Portugal. Com o aumento da literacia em saúde e o acesso à tecnologia, os consumidores estão a tornar-se mais informados e proativos em relação aos seus cuidados com a saúde e à automedicação, 67% destes pesquisam problemas de saúde e sintomas e 81% realizam pesquisas online antes de fazer uma compra. Esta mudança de comportamento expandiu a comunicação do offline para a Internet. A comunicação electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), baseada nos media sociais, envolve mais variáveis para a comunicação de marketing; nos últimos anos, alguns autores discutiram o impacto do eWOM nas decisões de compra do consumidor online; entretanto, a literatura ainda é relativamente incipiente no que diz respeito à Indústria Farmacêutica e ao segmento de automedicação do mercado de medicamentos de venda livre (OTC). As empresas farmacêuticas devem estar atentas a esta mudança de paradigma: o paciente é uma parte indispensável e ativa no presente e no futuro da área da saúde, além do médico e do pagador. O marketing farmacêutico está a evoluir para a digitalização, mas ainda há espaço para melhorias, especialmente no âmbito das redes sociais que ainda são um território pouco explorado pelos profissionais de marketing farmacêutico. A maioria das empresas farmacêuticas ainda não se adaptou a estes hábitos de consumo com uma presença digital eficaz. A presente investigação pretende identificar a aplicação de plataformas de redes sociais para efeitos de marketing ou comunicação na área da indústria farmacêutica em Portugal

A Literature Review on Persuasive Communication: Utilising Elaboration Likelihood Model to Understand Consumer Engagement on Social Media Platforms

The public’s consumption of social media has experienced a significant increase. This trend encourages marketers to use social media platforms to market their business and boost consumer engagement. Though studies have been conducted on the public’s consumption of social media and several theories anticipating consumer behaviour, motivation, and technological adoption have been developed, research into the relationship between marketing and promotional communications and consumers’ attitudes and choices has been limited. For example, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), which is a reasonable and viable model capable of explaining disposition and conduct in influential marketing communication, has remained unnoticed by researchers. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether persuasive messages used in social media marketing could effectively increase consumer engagement (CE) using ELM. This research employed the search terms ‘elaboration likelihood model, consumer engagement, and social media’ on a Scopus-indexed academic database, dated from 2018 to 2023. A total of 16 articles were selected following a screening stage. The administered systematic literature review suggests that ELM provides a hypothetical direction to arranging online entertainment content angles (i.e., focal and fringe signs) and recognising the variables that influence consumer engagement. A greater understanding of how to build consumer engagement on social media platforms through ELM can give insight into developing effective strategies for marketers. Future research can use the current study to improve research on social media and consumer engagement by using and expanding ELM

Adoption of Implicit eWOM in Facebook: An Affect-as-Information Theory Perspective

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has gained inescapable attention among both practitioners and academia. Its importance lies in its simplicity yet profound impact on customers’ attitude toward specific brands or goods, and consequently affecting customer loyalty and intention to purchase. Although Social Network Services have emerged as platforms to spread eWOM, less attention has been paid towards implicit eWOM which is displayed by liking pages of products or through check-in feature of Facebook. Using the theoretical lens of affect-as-information theory, this study shows affective attitude of users toward implicit eWOM influences acceptance of eWOM. We also study how tie strength, image building, and involvement with Facebook collectively determine affective attitude. The implications for theory and practice are discussed as well as limitations and future research directions

An Extended Model Of Review Helpfulness: Exploring The Role Of Tie Strength, Perceived Similarity, And Normative Susceptibility

Previous studies on review information evaluation focus on the important roles of two key factors namely argument strength and source credibility but pay less attention to how social influence and social relationship exert impact on this information evaluation behavior. To fill this research gap, based on the similarity – attraction theory and social capital theory, we articulate how source credibility is determined by two social relationship factors: tie strength and perceived similarity. Further, drawing upon the social influence model, we propose that the susceptibility to normative influence intensifies the impact exerted on source credibility by tie strength and perceived similarity. Also, relationships between argument strength and review helpfulness and between source credibility and review helpfulness are both moderated by normative susceptibility. A survey is conducted to test the proposed research model and the results suggest that hypotheses are supported. The results offer important and interesting insights to information systems research and practice

Antecedents and Consequents of Information Usefulness in User-generated Online Reviews: A Multi-group Moderation Analysis of Review Valence

Online reviews have become a critical component of consumers’ Web-based search queries and help them minimize uncertainty and risk associated with purchase decisions. Not only do customers perceive online reviews to be more “real”, but also online reviews enable opportunities for interactivity between consumers, which makes them a popular source of information when consumers make (online) purchase decisions. In this study, we examine the impact of online reviews on consumers’ beliefs, brand attitudes, and purchase intention by theoretically extending the information adoption model (IAM) with constructs from consumer research. To do so, we used data from a scenario- based online experiment and manipulated three review characteristics (currency, accuracy, and credibility) using carefully selected TripAdvisor reviews. Using a partial-least squares approach (PLS) to structural equation model (SEM), we found strong empirical support for our hypotheses that review quality and reviewer credibility drive information usefulness and that information usefulness, in turn, drives consumers’ attitudes toward and their intention to purchase from a brand. Using PLS multi-group analysis, we further explored the moderating role of review valence—positive versus negative—and found significant differences in the importance of the drivers of information usefulness and its consequents. We discuss our study’s implications for theory and practice

Comparing the Effects of User Generated Video Reviews and Brand Generated Advertisements on Consumer Decisions on YouTube

This empirical study examines the effects of user generated vlogs (UGV) versus brand generated ads (BGA) on consumer decisions on YouTube. UGV refers to any type of review video content about brands or products, created and published by users on YouTube. BGA refers to brand generated advertisements on YouTube. Guided by the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, this online experimental research involved a 2 (source: UGV versus BGA) X 2 (involvement: high versus low) X 2 (gender: male versus female) between-subjects research design. Results showed that UGV elicited significantly greater effects on consumer brand attitudes and purchase intentions than BGA, when involvement was high. No significant gender differences were observed. In a constantly growing YouTube influencer economy, this study offers important theoretical and managerial implications