Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Decision Support Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/dss

The impact of electronic word-of-mouth communication: A literature analysis and

integrative model
Christy M.K. Cheung a,, Dimple R. Thadani b
a
b

Department of Finance and Decision Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China
Department of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 4 September 2011
Received in revised form 2 May 2012
Accepted 23 June 2012
Available online 10 July 2012
Keywords:
Electronic wordofmouth
eWOM
Consumer purchase decision
Social communication
Literature analysis
Dual-process theory
Interpersonal inuence

a b s t r a c t
The notion of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication has received considerable attention in
both business and academic communities. Numerous studies have been conducted to examine the effectiveness of eWOM communication. The scope of published studies on the impact of eWOM communication is
large and fragmented and little effort has been made to integrate the ndings of prior studies and evaluate the
status of the research in this area. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of eWOM research. Building
upon our literature analysis, we used the social communication framework to summarize and classify
prior eWOM studies. We further identied key factors related to the major elements of the social communication literature and built an integrative framework explaining the impact of eWOM communication on consumer behavior. We believe that the framework will provide an important foundation for
future eWOM research work.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The rise of new media channels during the last few years has offered fertile ground for electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication. More and more consumers use Web 2.0 tools (e.g., online
discussion forums, consumer review sites, weblogs, social network
sites, etc.) to communicate their opinions and exchange product information [36]. This new form of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication can contain positive or negative statements made by potential,
actual, and former customers about a product or a company via the
Internet [40].
Industry research reports have shown that when making purchase
decisions, Internet users trust online reviews posted by unknown
consumers more than they trust traditional media [63]. In addition,
user-generated content in the form of online customer reviews was
found to signicantly inuence consumer purchasing decisions [12].
91% of respondents mentioned that they consult online reviews,
blogs, and other user-generated content before purchasing a new
product/service, 46% of which are then inuenced in the way they
to purchase. Froster [33] predicted that over 50% of total retail sales
will be affected by web (e.g., online reviews) by 2014.

Corresponding author at: Department of Finance and Decision Sciences, School of

Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China. Tel.:
+852 3411 2102; fax: +852 3411 5585.
E-mail addresses: ccheung@hkbu.edu.hk (C.M.K. Cheung),
dimplet@student.cityu.edu.hk (D.R. Thadani).
0167-9236/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.dss.2012.06.008

eWOM has undoubtedly been a powerful marketing force. In recent years, we witnessed an explosion of literature focusing on the
effectiveness of eWOM communication [22,29,53]. However, the
scope of published studies on the impact of eWOM communication
is large and fragmented. It is difcult to draw meaningful conclusions
from these studies. In addition, researchers have adopted various research approaches for investigating the eWOM phenomenon, and
little has been done to integrate the ndings of prior studies
[18,19]. According to our review of prior research work, studies on the
impact of eWOM communication can be classied into two levels:
market-level analysis and individual-level analysis [55]. At the
market-level analysis, researchers focused on market-level parameters
(e.g., product sales). This line of investigation used objective panel data
(e.g., the rate and the valence of consumer reviews) extracted from the
websites or online product review platforms to examine the impact of
eWOM messages on product sales [14,20,22,24,27,29,79]. At the
individual-level analysis, researchers postulated eWOM as a process of
personal inuence, in which communications between a communicator
(sender) and a receiver can inuence consumer purchase decision
[21,65,78].
In this study, we rst identied individual-level eWOM studies
and summarized their corresponding theoretical foundations. We
then presented the social communication framework and classied
key factors of eWOM communication. We further proposed an integrative framework of the impact of eWOM communication on online
consumer behavior, and presented propositions concerning the relationships among the key elements of social communication.

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C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

The paper is structured as follows. First, we dene eWOM communication and compare the concept with traditional WOM communication. Second, we describe the research procedures and present a
quantitative summary of prior eWOM communication research.
Third, we present the results of paper classication based on the social communication literature. Finally, we propose an integrative
framework of the impact of eWOM communication and present a
set of propositions. We then conclude the paper by discussing the
implications of the research framework for further theoretical and
empirical investigations.
2. Electronic word-of-mouth communication
The power of interpersonal inuence through word-of-mouth
communication has been well recognized in the consumer literature
[2,41,52]. Prior studies have found that consumers perceive WOM as
more trustworthy and persuasive than traditional media, such as
print ads, personal selling, and radio and TV advertising. The inuence on purchase decision through WOM communication was further
extended with the advent of the Internet, which extended eWOM
communication to various additional virtual settings. On the internet,
consumers can post their opinions, comments and reviews of products
on weblogs (e.g. xanga.com), discussion forums (e.g. zapak.com), review websites (e.g. Epinions.com), e-bulletin board systems, newsgroups, and social networking sites (e.g. facebook.com) [17].
While eWOM communication has some characteristics in common with traditional WOM communication, it is different from traditional WOM in several dimensions. These dimensions all contribute
to the uniqueness of eWOM communication. First, unlike traditional
WOM, eWOM communications possess unprecedented scalability
and speed of diffusion. As with traditional WOM, sharing of information is between small groups of individuals in synchronous mode
[3,26,58,74]. Information in traditional WOM is usually exchanged
in private conversations or dialogs. It is therefore rather difcult to
pass along the information to any individual who is not present
when and where the information is exchanged. In contrast, eWOM
communications involve multi-way exchanges of information in
asynchronous mode [47]. Information in the form of eWOM does
not need to be exchanged at the same time when all communicators
are present [35,50]. For instance, users of forums are able to read and
post comments after the threads are created, not necessary at the
time when the threads are being created. Second, unlike traditional
WOM, eWOM communications are more persistent and accessible.
Most of the text-based information presented on the Internet is archived and thus would be made available for an indenite period of
time [40,47,56,64,67,70]. Third, eWOM communications are more
measurable than traditional WOM [56,65]. The presentation format,
quantity, and persistence of eWOM communications have made
them more observable. Word-of-mouth information available online
is far more voluminous in quantity compared to information
obtained from traditional contacts in the ofine world [13]. In
other words, researchers can easily retrieve a large number of
eWOM messages online and analyze their characteristics such as
the number of sentimental words used, position of the messages,
style of messages, and the like. A nal key difference is that traditional WOM emanates from a sender who is known to the receiver of the
information, thereby the credibility of the communicator and the
message is known to the receiver.

electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). We used two methods to identify relevant papers. First, we conducted a systematic electronic search
using a number of index databases, which were: Academic Search Premier (EBSCO), ABI/INFORM Global (ProQuest), Social Science Citation
Index (SSCI), Science Citation Index (SCI), PsycINFO, CSA Illumina, Education Resources Center, and Emerald. The research team did the search
based on keywords including electronic word-of-mouth, ewom,
online reviews, online recommendations, marketing buzz, and
online consumer reviews. Second, we reviewed four MIS journals
(Decision Support Systems, Information Systems Research, Journal of
Management Information Systems, and Management Information
Systems Quarterly) and three Marketing journals (Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Research) manually to ensure that no major eWOM articles were
ignored.
Following the guidelines of the conventional systematic review
methodology [75], inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to the
initial set of articles. These were done to ensure that the sample of articles used for analysis was appropriate for the current research. The inclusion criteria was the following: (1) publication was academic and
peer reviewed in nature; (2) eWOM was the main focus of investigation
in the paper; (3) researchers had a dened sample; (4) publication that
addressed impacts of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM); and (5) publication dealt with investigation of eWOM in business-to-consumer settings. The exclusion criteria were applied to: (1) papers with an entirely
conceptual or theoretical background and no research design; and (2)
publications that dealt with the investigation of eWOM in the form of
a recommendation agent (system agent). At the article analysis stage,
two authors independently reviewed and eliminated articles that
were not pertinent to the current focus.
A total of 47 eWOM communication articles published between
2000 and 2010 were identied. Research on the impact of eWOM
communication can be classied into market-level analysis and
individual-level analysis [55]. In this review, 47% (22 out of 47 articles) of the articles adopted the market-level approach, while 53%
(25 out of 47 articles) focused on the individual-level analysis (see
Fig. 1). As a number of researchers have already conducted a review
on prior studies of market-level eWOM communication [25,44,79],
we only focused on individual-level eWOM studies in the current
analysis.
4. Review of study ndings
4.1. Types of eWOM
The popularity of Web 2.0 has empowered consumers to inuence others through a variety of platforms to post user-generated
content (UGC) tools (e.g., blogs, microblogs, forums, chat rooms,
and social networking sites). Our literature review showed that a
majority of eWOM studies focused on online consumer reviews
made on e-commerce websites, discussion forums or rating sites
(see Table 1). Other forms of eWOM have received far less attention
12
10

10

7
6

3. Literature identication and analysis

A two-stage process was used in searching the available articles
article identication and article analysis. Before the synthesis of
ndings in various studies could be done, relevant studies rst needed to be identied. This research study involved collecting academic
and peer reviewed journal articles that addressed impacts of

Market (22)

4
2
0

Individual (25)

3
2
1

3
2

1
0

2001

1
0

2004

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Fig. 1. Timeline of eWOM publication: market vs. individual.

C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

Table 1
Different types of eWOM.
Types of eWOM Examples
Online
discussion
forums
Online
consumer
review sites
Blogs
Social
networking
sites
Online brand/
shopping
sites

Studies

zapak.com

[8,46,78]

Epinions.com,
shopping.com

[4,15,21,28,34,36,55,57,59,6466,71,74,77]

Xanga.com,
blogger.com
facebook.com,
MySpace.com

[23,57,69]

Amazon.com

[36,46,56,57,67,7173]

[69]

in academic research. Lee and Youn's [57] study was one of the few
research papers that focused on the effects of eWOM in the form of
a personal blog.

463

The communicator (source) refers to the person who transmits the

communication.
The stimulus (content) refers to the message transmitted by the
communicator.
The receiver (audience) is the individual who responds to the
communication.
The response (main effect) is made to the communicator by the
receiver.
In this literature analysis, we reviewed prior individual-level
based eWOM papers on the impact (responses) of electronic
word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication. eWOM represents a
new form of social communication content (stimuli) involving
both information-seeking customers (receivers) and information
sharing customers (communicators). In this section, we review
the 25 individual-level eWOM studies and identify variables related to the four key elements (responses, stimuli, receivers, and
communicators) of social communication. We further build an integrative model and discuss the interrelationships among the key
elements. Fig. 2 depicts our integrative framework.
5.1. Responses

4.2. Theoretical foundation

Table 2 summarizes the theories adopted in prior eWOM communication studies. Among the 25 identied eWOM papers, a dual-process
theory of human information processing such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) [68] and the HeuristicSystematic Model (HSM) [9]
was the most commonly used theoretical foundation in the study of
the impact of eWOM communication. In addition, a signicant number
of studies adopted the source credibility literature to explain the characteristics of this new form of word-of-mouth communication. Researchers also explained the impact of eWOM on consumer purchase
decision using the perspective of interpersonal inuence.

5. An integrative framework of the impact of eWOM communication

Hovland [42], one of the founding fathers of social communication
research, dened social communication as the process by which an
individual (the communicator) transmits stimuli (usually verbal symbols) to modify the behavior of other individuals (communicatees)
(p. 317). Working within a framework of who says what to whom
and with what effect, social communication includes four major
elements:

Table 2
Theoretical foundations of prior eWOM studies.
Theory

Studies

Dual-process theory
- Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
- HeuristicSystematic Model (HSM)
Interpersonal theory
- Persuasive
- Conformity
- Informational cascade
Attribution theory
Cognitive t theory
Impression formation literature
Negativity bias
Social presence theory
Social ties
Sociolinguistic theory
Source credibility literature
Trust literature

[21]
[15,23,36,56,64,65,67,73]
[36,78]
[21,46,64,66,77]
[66,67]
[45]
[57,71]
[65]
[46]
[21,57,64,71]
[54]
[74]
[4]
[8,21,23,46,57,67,71,72]
[4,59]

The response is made to the communication by the receiver. As

shown in Table 3, attitude, purchase intention, and purchase are the
most commonly investigated outcomes (responses) of eWOM communication. The relationships between attitude, purchase intention,
and purchase have been well-established and validated in online consumer behavior research. For example, Chang et al. [11] found that attitude consistently exhibits signicant impact on online purchase
intention in prior online shopping literature, while online purchase
intention has a positive impact on online purchase. These relationships
are basically supported by theory of reasoned action [31] and theory of
planned behavior [1]. Therefore, we have the following propositions:
P1. Purchase intention is positively associated with purchase.
P2. Attitude is positively associated with purchase intention.
eWOM adoption, which may be considered as the adoption and use
of eWOM communication for making a purchase decision [21], was also
frequently examined in the 25 existing eWOM communication papers.
Among existing eWOM studies, Cheung et al. [16] and Liu and Zhang
[59] found that information usefulness has a direct positive impact on
eWOM adoption, while Cheung et al. [21] showed that eWOM credibility has a positive effect on eWOM adoption. Information usefulness,
eWOM credibility, and eWOM adoption are theoretically related and
explained by the information adoption model [75]. The information
adoption model is widely used to explain how people are inuenced
to adopt the information posted in computer-mediated communication
(CMC) contexts. This model was adapted from the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) [68]; the impacts of information quality and source
credibility on eWOM adoption are mediated by information usefulness.
Building on the information adoption model, we believe that both information usefulness and eWOM credibility have positive relationships
with eWOM adoption.
P3. Information usefulness is positively associated with eWOM adoption.
P4. eWOM credibility is positively associated with eWOM adoption.
Similar to traditional WOM studies, eWOM communication is usually considered as a type of social inuence that affects consumer purchase decision. That is, information from external sources can
enhance consumer purchase decision, similar to the role of social inuence in theory of reasoned action. Therefore, we expect that
eWOM adoption will have a direct effect on purchase intention.

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C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

Fig. 2. An integrative framework of the impact of eWOM communication.

P5. eWOM adoption is positively associated with purchase intention

5.2. Stimuli
The stimulus refers to the message transmitted by the communicator. In the traditional word-of-mouth marketing literature, the valence
(positive, negative, or neutral) and the volume (the quantity of the information) have received a lot of attention. Particularly, researchers focused on the impact of extremely positive and extremely negative
WOM [3739]. Because of the nature of traditional WOM communication, most of these studies examined the impact of WOM messages by
manipulating WOM messages in an experimental setting. Some recent
eWOM studies also adopted this approach in examining the impact of
eWOM on consumers' purchasing intention [56,57,64,67]. Table 4 summarizes the factors related to the stimulus.
In eWOM communication studies, researchers considered valences
(e.g., positively framed eWOM vs. negatively framed eWOM) to be persuasive effects. Positively framed eWOM highlights the strengths of a
product/service and encourages people to adopt a product/service,
while negatively framed eWOM emphasizes the weaknesses/problems
of a product/service and thus discourages people to adopt them [27,29].
Past research in the area of consumer behavior has shown that consumers pay more attention to negative information than positive information. They also tend to weigh negative information more than
positive information during evaluation and decision making [41]. Similarly, Park and Lee [64] showed that negative eWOM has a stronger inuence on eWOM effect than positive eWOM. Researchers referred to

the differing effect of negatively and positively valenced events as negativity bias or negativity effect. Baumeister et al. [5] found that the principle of bad is stronger than good is consistent across a broad range of
phenomena, and suggested that people tend to react more strongly to
bad things as the adaptive response to their physical and social environment. Building on this line of literature, we believe that eWOM valence has a positive relationship with eWOM credibility [21].
P6. eWOM valence is positively associated with eWOM credibility.
In this review, we also notice that recommendation sidedness and
number of recommendations (volume) were the two most studied
stimulus cues in eWOM communication. A one-sided message presents either positive or negative valenced information. A two-sided
message includes both positively and negatively valenced information. Prior marketing literature [49] suggested that two-sided information enhances the completeness of information, and thus is
perceived to be more credible. Existing eWOM studies have also examined the relationship between sidedness of eWOM and eWOM
credibility [21,28]. Therefore, we believe that eWOM sidedness
has a positive inuence on eWOM credibility.
P7. eWOM sidedness is positively associated with eWOM credibility.
A considerable number of market-level studies have found that
the volume of reviews is signicantly associated with product sales
[25,29,60]. Most of these studies even showed that review ratings
are not associated with product sales, but that the number of reviews

C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

Table 3
Factors associated with the response.
Constructs
Attitude

Denitions

Reviewer's overall evaluation

of a person, objects (e.g.
brand/products/websites)
and issues
Information
A process in which people
adoption
purposefully engage in using
information
Information
The perception of an eWOM
usefulness
message being useful
Trust
General belief of the
truthfulness of the message
Purchase
The willingness to purchase a
intention
product in the future
Products that a consumer
Product choice/
chooses to purchase at
purchase
e-commerce websites
decision
Repurchase
The willingness to purchase a
intention
product again in the future
Switching
Switching to other products/
brands
Expected
The expected amount of
spending
money that will be spent to
purchase a product in the
next 12 months
Knowledge about Knowledge about the product
product
category
The extent to which
Thought about
consumers have thought
product
about the product category
Interest in
The extent to which
product
consumers are interested in
learning more about the
product category
Time spent
The amount of time spent on
searching and considering
product choice
Social presence
The extent to which a
psychological connection is
formed between a website
and its visitors
Perceived
The extent to which an
usefulness
individual perceives a website
to be useful in performing
shopping tasks
eWOM review
The perceived degree to
credibility
which an eWOM review
provides accurate and truthful
information.
Perceived level of popularity
Perceived
of a certain product
popularity of
product
The extent to which an
Perceived
informativeness eWOM message is able to
offer necessary information
of message
which helps readers
understand the product
Perceived product Perceived level of product
quality
quality
Willingness to
Willingness to recommend
recommend
products in the future
Helpfulness
Perception of the helpfulness
of reviews

465

Table 4
Factors associated with the stimulus.
Studies

Constructs

Denitions

Studies

[23,28,56,57,71]

Argument quality
Relevance
Timeliness
Accuracy

Comprehensiveness

Argument quality refers to the

persuasive strength of
arguments embedded in an
informational message [7]
Relevance refers to the extent to
which the messages are
applicable and useful for
decision making
Timeliness concerns whether the
messages are current, timely,
and up-to-date
Accuracy concerns reliability of
the messages/arguments. It also
represents a user's perception
that the information is correct
[76]
Comprehensiveness of messages
refers to their completeness
The valence of an eWOM
message and whether it is
positive or negative [60]
A one-sided message presents
either the positive or negative
elements, but not both
A two-sided message includes
both positive and negative
elements
Total number of posted reviews

[4,15,21,23,56,67,73,78]

Orientation of a review (e.g.

experimental vs factual)
The overall rating given by other
readers on an eWOM
recommendation
Whether the current eWOM
recommendation is consistent
with other contributors'
experiences concerning the
same product/service
evaluation
The rating given by
communicators on a product
The number of products sold

[65,66,72,77]

[15,21,60,64,74,78]

[15]
[4,60]
[8,28,46,54,57,64,65,67,73,77]
[36,46,69,72,74]

[34]
[36]

Recommendation
framing (valence)

[8]

[8]

Recommendation
sidedness (ratio of
positive message:
negative message)

[8]
Number of reviews
(volume)
Review type
Recommendation
rating
[36]
Recommendation
consistency
[54]

[54,59,77]

Review rate
Sales volume

[34,55,57,64,71,77]

[21,28,34,46,56]

[34,36,56,64,65,67,73]

[21]

[21]

[55]
[45]

[21,28,64]

P8. eWOM volume is positively associated with purchase intention.

[66]

[66]

[55]
[57]
[71]

is signicantly associated with product sales. Berger et al. [6] have

empirically illustrated that any publicity is good publicity. They
found that even negative publicity (e.g., negative eWOM) can increase purchase likelihood. Duan et al. [29] argued that online consumer reviews convey the existence of the product and thus create
an awareness effect. Therefore, eWOM volume exhibits a positive relationship with purchase intention.

When applying the dual-process theory of human information

processing, including the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) [68]
and HeuristicSystematic Model (HSM) [9] in the eWOM context, researchers tended to consider quality of reviews (argument quality)
as the central route, while source credibility and quantity of reviews
were considered as the peripheral cues (see Table 7). The central/
systematic route involves careful examination of the messages before
forming an attitude, whereas the peripheral/heuristic route relies on
environmental cues of the message to decide whether to accept the
message or not. In this integrative framework, argument quality refers
to the strength or plausibility of persuasive argumentation [30]. The
quality of argument (information) is basically evaluated in terms of
the information content, accuracy, format, and timeliness [61]. The information adoption model explains the relationship between argument
quality and information usefulness [15,21,78].
P9. eWOM quality is positively associated with information usefulness.
5.3. Communicators
The communicator refers to the person who transmits the communication. Traditional WOM primarily emanates from a sender
(source) who is known to the receiver of the information, thereby

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C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

ensuring that the credibility of the communicator and the message is

known to the receiver. In the traditional WOM literature, marketing
scholars have demonstrated that a personal source of information
has a strong impact on consumer preferences and choices [2,41]. In
the ofine world, people judge communicators based on a number
of attributes, including credibility, attractiveness, physical appearance, familiarity, and power.
In the context of eWOM communication, consumers exchange
opinions and experiences outside their personal social network.
They usually share and exchange product/brand information with a
vast and geographically dispersed group of strangers through blogs,
online consumer review platforms, shopping bot sites, social networking sites, and the like [25,64]. This has the potential to raise receivers' concern about the credibility of this form of reviews [32]. It
was also reected in our literature analysis that source credibility is
the most frequently investigated factor associated with the communicator. Source credibility refers to a message receiver's perception of
the credibility of a message source, reecting nothing about the message itself [9]. It is dened as the extent to which an information
source is perceived to be believable, competent, and trustworthy by
information receivers [68]. Source credibility includes two major dimensions: expertise and trustworthiness [44,75]. Table 5 summarizes
the key factors associated with the communicator in the literature of
eWOM communication.
In the context of eWOM communication, online reviews are usually shared by unknown individuals. Park et al. [67] argued that online
reviews may have less credibility than traditional WOM messages.
Park and Lee [64] also suggested that receivers may have difculty
in determining the source credibility of eWOM messages. Though
some studies have doubted the role of source credibility in the context
of eWOM communication [16], we noticed that most studies found
that source credibility has a signicant direct inuence on eWOM effects (see Table 7). The results are consistent with the traditional source
credibility literature and thus, we postulate that source credibility has a
positive relationship with eWOM credibility.
P10. Source credibility is positively associated with eWOM credibility.
Attribution theory explains how people make causal inferences
regarding why a communicator advocates and behaves in a certain
way [62]. When receivers attribute the communicator's review to
product reasons (stimulus), they will perceive the review to be credible, and will consider it useful. On the other hand, when receivers attribute the review to reviewer reasons (non-stimulus), they suspect
his/her underlying motives of writing such a review, and are less likely to be persuaded by that review [57,71]. In other words, how receivers attribute the communicator's message has an effect on the
persuasiveness of the message.

Table 5
Factors associated with the communicator.
Denitions

Studies

Source credibility
Expertise

Message source's perceived ability (expertise) or

motivation to provide accurate and truthful
information (trustworthiness)
Expertise can be viewed as the perceived level of
authoritativeness, competence and
expertness
Information source of recommendation (e.g.
consumer reports, friends, salesmen, etc.)
Attribution to the reviewer's motive in posting
the review
The level of intensity of a social relationship
between two individuals
The degree to which pairs of individuals are
similar in age, gender, education, and social status

[15,21,78]
[15,72]
[15,23,72]

Source type
Attribution
Social tie
Homophily

5.4. Receivers
The receiver is the individual who responds to the communication.
The actual impact of the information received may vary from person
to person. The same content can engender very different responses in
different recipients [9], depending on the recipients' perceptions, experience, and sources. This has led researchers to gain interest in the information adoption process to understand the extent of informational
inuence on people's minds. In the information adoption literature,
Sussman and Siegal [75] found that the receivers' experience and
knowledge moderates both the central inuences (the nature of arguments in the message) and peripheral inuences (the subject matter
of the message) on information adoption in computer-mediated communication contexts. In the eWOM literature, consumers' characteristics, such as consumer expertise and involvement, also play an
important moderating role in determining the impact of eWOM
content (e.g., type and number of online consumer reviews) on purchase intention [28,65]. Researchers further investigated other factors
related to personal characteristics, such as gender, consumer skepticism, and cognitive personalization. Table 6 provides a summary of factors associated with the receiver.
Dual-process theory suggests that people who have the motivation
and ability are more likely to process information via the central route
[9,10,30]. In this literature analysis, we observed that researchers examined how receivers' characteristics affected the likelihood of elaboration and moderated the impact of eWOM messages on consumer
purchase decision. Among the 25 individual-level eWOM studies, involvement (motivation) and prior knowledge (expertise) are the two
most widely studied characteristics of the receivers [21,28,36,56,65,66].
As shown in Table 7, the receivers' characteristics are usually postulated
as moderators affecting both central and peripheral routes on consumer
purchase decisions.
Involvement refers to personal relevance or importance of a
product/service. A meta-analysis found that involvement is associated

Table 6
Factors associated with the receiver.
Constructs

Denitions

Prior knowledge
(of review
topic/
platform)
Conrmation
of prior
belief

Prior knowledge of the review topic and the [20,65]

platform (e.g. discussion forum)

Involvement

Constructs

Trustworthiness

P11. Attribution (non-stimulus related) is negatively associated with

eWOM credibility.

Motivation
to process
information
Focused search

[45,54]
[57,71]
[74]
[74]

The level of conrmation/disconrmation

between the received information and their
prior beliefs relating to the reviewed
product/service
The degree of psychological identication
and affective, emotional ties the consumer
has with a stimulus or stimuli
Motivations possess by the consumers
(readers of the eWOM message) to process
information; in other words, it is a person's
innate desire to think about information
The extent to which members have specic
information needs in mind during their
active search for on-topic information
Gender of the reviewers (male/female)
Subjective evaluation of products (e.g., color,
style, and shape)
The tendency toward disbelief

Gender
Product
preference
Consumer
skepticism
Cognitive
How people interpret events in a
personalization self-referential manner

Studies

[21]

[21,28,56,66,67]

[36]

[78]

[4]
[55]
[57,73]
[77]

C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

with information processing [48]. Our review found that prior studies
have already empirically shown how involvement moderates the
eWOM effect in consumer decision process. For example, Lee et al.
[56] demonstrated that as involvement increases, the effect of negative eWOM is greater for high-quality eWOM than for low-quality
eWOM. Park and Lee [66] also found that for high involvement receivers, the perceived informativeness of an eWOM message has a
higher effect on purchasing intention than the perceived product
popularity. When individuals have higher involvement, they have
greater motivation to engage in effortful cognitive activity through
the central route. When individuals have lower involvement, they

467

tend to rely on peripheral cues during information processing. Therefore, in our integrative framework, consumer involvement exhibits a
moderating effect upon the relationship between eWOM quality and
information usefulness, as well as upon the relationship between
eWOM quality and purchase intention.
P12. Consumer involvement moderates the relationship between eWOM
quality and information usefulness.
P13. Consumer involvement moderates the relationship between eWOM
quality and purchase intention.

Table 7
Central vs. peripheral routes.
Authors (year)

Central/systematic
route

Peripheral/heuristic
route

Moderators

Relationships

Cheung et al. [15]

Argument quality

Source credibility

NIL

Cheung et al. [21]

Informational inuence Normative inuence

Argument quality (relevancea, timelinessb, accuracyb,

comprehensivenessa) information usefulness
Source credibility (expertiseb, trustworthinessb) information
usefulness
Informational inuence (argument strengtha,
recommendation framingb, recommendation sidednessb,
source credibilitya, conrmation with prior beliefa) eWOM credibility
Normative inuence (recommendation consistencya,
recommendation ratinga) eWOM credibility

Chu and Kamal

[23]

Argument quality

Perceived blogger
trustworthiness

Gupta and Harris

[36]

NIL

Amount of messages

Lee et al. [56]

Quality of negative
messages

Amount of negative
messages

Park and Kim [65]

Type of reviews
(attribute-centric
vs. benet-centric)

Number of reviews

Receiver characteristics
(expertise)

Park and Lee [66]

Perceived
informativeness
of reviews

Perceived product
popularity

Receiver characteristics
(involvement)

Park et al. [67]

Quality

Quantity

Receiver characteristics
(involvement)

Sher and Lee [73]

Quality

Quantity

Zhang and Watts

[78] Study 1

Argument quality

Source credibility

Receiver characteristics
(skepticism)
Receiver characteristics
(disconrming
information,
focused search)

Zhang and Watts Argument quality

[78] Study 2

Source credibility

a
b

Signicant effect.
Insignicant effect.

Receiver characteristics
(involvement, prior
knowledge of
review topic, prior
knowledge
of platform)
Sender characteristics
(trustworthiness)
Receiver characteristics
(motivation to process
information)
Receiver characteristics
(involvement)

Receiver characteristics
(disconrming
information,
focused search)

Perceived blogger trustworthiness elaborationa

Perceived blogger trustworthiness moderates the impact
of argument quality on brand attitudea
Motivation to process information moderates the impact of
the amount of messages on time on considering the products and
product acceptancea
Quality product attitudea
Amount product attitudea
Involvement moderates the impact of the quality on product attitudea
Involvement moderates the impact of the amount on product attitudea
Expertise moderates the impact of the type of review on purchase
intentiona
Expertise moderates the impact of the number of review on purchase
intentiona
Perceived informativeness purchase intentiona
Perceived product popularity purchase intentiona
Involvement moderates the impact of the perceived informativeness of
reviews on purchase intentiona
Involvement moderates the impact of the perceived product popularity
on purchase intentiona
Quality purchase intentiona
Quantity purchase intentiona
Involvement moderates the impact of the quality on purchase intentiona
Involvement moderates the impact of the quantity on purchase
intentiona
Skepticism moderates the impact of the quality on purchase intentiona
Skepticism moderates the impact of the quantity on purchase intentiona
Argument quality information adoptiona
Source credibility information adoptiona
Disconrming information moderates the impact of argument quality
on information adoptiona
Disconrming information moderates the impact of source credibility
on information adoptiona
Focused search moderates the impact of argument quality on
information adoptionb
Focused search moderates the impact of source credibility on
information adoptiona
Argument quality information adoptiona
Source credibility information adoptiona
Disconrming information moderates the impact of argument quality
on information adoptionb
Disconrming information moderates the impact of source credibility
on information adoptiona
Focused search moderates the impact of argument quality on
information adoptionb
Focused search moderates the impact of source credibility on
information adoptionb

468

C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

Receivers' ability (prior knowledge/consumer expertise) determines the

degree of effortful information processing. The relationship between consumer expertise and traditional WOM is under-researched and existing
studies tend to generate inconsistent results. Park and Kim [65] argued
that the inconsistency may be related to the type of WOM message.
They built on cognitive t theory and argued that the efciency of information processing depends on whether receivers are able to use appropriate cognitive processes from given information. Building on the
dual-process theory, we believe that consumer prior knowledge has a
moderating impact on the relationship between eWOM quality and information usefulness.
P14. Consumer prior knowledge moderates the relationship between
eWOM quality and information usefulness
Source credibility is also dened as a peripheral cue in consumer
information processing. Peripheral cues are variables that allow an individual to arrive at a judgment of an argument without processing
the message arguments themselves [68]. In other words, a peripheral
cue is an element in a message that is not directly related to the merit
of the product and typically required less effort to process [51]. Thus,
we expect both consumer involvement and consumer prior knowledge will moderate the impact of source credibility on eWOM credibility in the current study.
P15. Consumer involvement moderates the relationship between source
credibility and eWOM credibility.
P16. Consumer prior knowledge moderates the relationship between
source credibility and eWOM credibility.
5.5. Contextual factors
Since receivers are mostly unfamiliar with the credentials of communicators in the context of eWOM communication, they tend to
look for a variety of cues that are present within the review (e.g.,
characteristics of a stimuli) and associated with its environment
(e.g., credibility of websites/platform) when determining the quality
of eWOM messages [13]. Hovland and Weiss [43] suggested that information from a source that is perceived to be more trustworthy
can lead to increased persuasiveness of that information. In recent
years, researchers attempted to compare the trustworthiness of information on different platforms. Bickart and Schindler [8] found that
consumer reviews are more inuential than marketer-generated information on corporate websites. They suggested that consumer reviews usually have greater credibility, greater relevance, and greater
ability to evoke empathy. Park and Lee [64] also found that the effect
of product reviews on established websites is greater than their effect
on under-established websites. Based on prior studies, we believe
that the nature of review platform relates to eWOM adoption.
P17. Type of review platform is positively associated with eWOM adoption.
6. Discussion and future research directions
The main objective of the present study is to provide a systematic
review of the existing literature on eWOM communication. Research
on eWOM communication is large and fragmented. There are two
main levels of analysis: market-level analysis and individual-level
analysis. In this study, we focused on the individual-level analysis
and summarized prior studies based on the social communication literature. Through a rigorous search of several mainstream MIS and
marketing journals, as well as key electronic databases, we identied
25 papers using the individual-level analysis in the investigation of
the impact of eWOM communication on online consumer behavior.
Based on the social communication literature, we identied and summarized factors related to the key elements of eWOM communication,

and we also proposed an integrative framework for the study of the impact of eWOM communication.
The integrative framework is composed of ve essential components communicators, stimuli, receivers, responses and contextual
factors. As mentioned earlier, unlike traditional WOM communication,
eWOM communication possesses unprecedented speed of diffusion
and enables multi-directional exchanges of information between communicators and receivers. Thus, the contextual factor, namely the platform in which people exchange information, is what distinguishes
eWOM from traditional WOM. Due to the rapidly changing nature of
the Internet, the contextual factor the platform is expected to be
one of the most crucial factors impacting the eWOM adoption process
in the future. As Web 3.0 becomes the new generation of the World
Wide Web, information and most of the behaviors of users will be captured and stored in a huge database further enhancing the visibility, accessibility, and legibility of eWOM data. We expect that the migration of
Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 could facilitate eWOM communication and play a
more important role in inuencing consumer purchase decision.

6.1. Contributions and future research directions

This study provides a comprehensive overview of the current status of knowledge within the domain of eWOM communication research. We synthesized the ndings of our literature analysis and
derived a theoretical model for the study of the impact of eWOM
communication at the individual level.
This paper advances our knowledge of eWOM communication.
First, we conducted a thorough analysis of the literature in the area
of eWOM communication. A wide range of factors related to the key
elements of social communication were identied and classied. To
our knowledge, this is the rst study that builds on the social communication framework to classify eWOM research papers and develop an
integrative model. This theoretical model provides an important
foundation for future research as it integrates key factors of the
major elements of eWOM communication.
Second, our literature analysis shows that the literature on the impact of eWOM communication is rather fragmented. Attitude, purchase intention, purchase, and eWOM adoption are the four most
investigated response variables in eWOM communication. Most
existing studies focused only on one or two of these key response variables, and the interrelationships among key variables have not been
systematically reviewed and studied. In the current study, we theoretically postulated the interrelationships among the key response
variables. We strongly believe that future research could use our
framework as a basis to explore empirically how the characteristics
of other key elements (stimuli, communicators, receivers, and contextual factors) of social communication affect the response variables.
Third, we have identied a wide range of variables related to the
key elements of social communication (see Tables 36). However,
we notice that a majority of these variables have only been studied
once. Of those which have been studied more often, their impact
has often been inconclusive. We attempted to provide an overview
of how the key elements are related to each other and derive a set
of propositions for future research work. The current framework is
built on prior studies and integrates research ndings across existing
studies. We therefore encourage researchers to explore theories from
different disciplines and to use them to study how other key elements
of social communication affect eWOM communication. For example,
researchers can further investigate how other factors related to receivers' characteristics, such as gender, consumer skepticism, and
cognitive personalization affect the eWOM adoption as well as consumer purchase decision. Finally, researchers should continue to explore the impact of contextual factors, such as how the nature of
different UGC platforms and their credibility inuence eWOM adoption and consumer purchase decision.

C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461470

6.2. Limitations
Some limitations should be noted. The results and analyses of this
study were limited to the pool of journals that satised our selection
criteria. For instance, we built our conceptual model on the social
communication literature and we did not include market-level studies. From our preliminary review of market-level studies, we noticed
that these studies adopted a very different theoretical research approach in examining the eWOM phenomenon. Future studies should
expand the literature analysis and the number of classied studies
based on different levels of analysis. Research on the impact of
eWOM communication is still emerging. Because of a limited number
of empirical studies, we were not able to perform a quantitative
meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is strongly recommended in the future, so as to improve our understanding of the relative impacts of
the three elements (communicators, receivers, and stimuli) on the responses to eWOM communication, and the moderating roles of the
contextual factors.
7. Conclusions
To conclude, this literature analysis provides an overview of the
current status of knowledge in the domain of eWOM communication
research. Furthermore, we present a conceptual framework, and
identify the key variables of each of the four elements in the social
communication. We believe that this study will stimulate future research on the impact of eWOM communication on consumer purchase decision by drawing attention to the variables and linkages
that need further investigation.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Editor of DSS and the two anonymous referees for the insightful comments. The authors also acknowledge
with gratitude the generous support of the Hong Kong Baptist University
for the projects (FRG1/09-10/054) and (FRG1/10-11/006) without which
the timely production of the current publication would not have been
feasible.
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Christy M.K. Cheung is Associate Professor at Hong Kong
Baptist University. She received her Ph.D. from City University
of Hong Kong. Her research interests include virtual community, knowledge management, social media, and IS adoption
and usage. Her research articles have been published in MIS
Quarterly, Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, Journal of the American Society for Information Science
and Technology, and Journal of Information Technology.

Dimple R. Thadani is a Phd Candidate at City University of

Hong Kong. Her research interests include social computing
technology, e-learning, and online game leadership.