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The purpose of this study is to investigate motives for engaging in electronic word of mouth (eWOM) about organizations on social media sites. This study explores motives for posting positive eWOM and motives for posting negative eWOM. It also investigates whether existing WOM frameworks adequately capture consumers’ motives for spreading eWOM within the context of social media. This study seeks to confirm established motives in literature while also identifying new motives specific to social media.

A qualitative study was conducted using the critical incident technique. In all, 64 positive incidents and 60 negative incidents were analyzed.

This study provides a typology for understanding consumers’ motivations for engaging in positive and negative WOM within the context of social media. Four new motives for sharing eWOM are identified; eight established WOM motives are re-confirmed; and new subcategories for eWOM motives are proposed. The study also finds that further refinement of WOM motives and scales within a social media context is needed.

An integrated conceptual framework of both positive and negative motives is developed to illustrate a more comprehensive model of motives of eWOM within social media. Managerial implications for managing negative eWOM and amplifying positive eWOM are discussed. A limitation is that the study is exploratory in nature.

This study identifies new motives for sharing eWOM, re-labels existing WOM and eWOM motives with more descriptive and comprehensive titles and confirms established WOM and eWOM motives within the context of social media. This study is conducted across multiple firms and industries, leading to more generalizable results.

There is research evidence that suggests that perceptions of price unfairness give rise to consumer resistance to prices and result in decreased profit to the firm. However, it is as yet unclear what factors influence perceptions of unfairness. Answers the question, “What is fair?” by proposing that consumers sometimes infer a firm’s motive for a price and that the inferred motive influences perceived price fairness. A study provides evidence that consumers use contextual information to infer a firm’s motive. When consumers infer a negative motive, the price is perceived to be unfair and when consumers do not infer a negative motive, the same price is perceived to be fair. Suggests that marketers should: provide reasons for prices; consider consumers’ likely inferences of motive and either avoid taking actions that are likely to give rise to inferences of negative motive or manage the motive inferred; and consider the inferences that consumers may make for other marketing actions in addition to price.

Previous research have shown that individuals with high trait impulsivity are at high risk of engaging in problem alcohol use and that drinking motives differentially predicted alcohol use and problems. This study aimed to investigate whether these previously shown associations still existed during the global outbreak of the pandemic, COVID-19, which resulted in a long period of lockdown and raised concerns about the effects of alcohol.

The data was collected from 185 adults between ages of 18 and 35 during the lockdown period (November 20–May 21) through an online survey. Participants completed an impulsivity questionnaire, drinking motives and alcohol use measures.

The results revealed that enhancement and coping motives mediated the effects of positive and negative urgency, respectively, and lack of premeditation facet of impulsivity was directly linked to alcohol use. These findings are partially in line with the previous studies before the lockdown.

Overall, individuals with particularly high urgency and premeditation maybe at high risk for problem alcohol use and may require tailored support for regulating emotions, particularly during stressful life events such as a global pandemic.

Findings may inform prevention and intervention strategies. Individuals with high trait urgency may benefit from more adaptive coping strategies such as learning specific emotion regulation strategies to minimise engaging in risk behaviours in stressful situations.

Findings suggest that traits positive and negative urgency are risk factors for alcohol use through enhancement and coping motives respectively, and these associations are particularly strong during stressful life events.

This paper aims to examine the effect of social cynicism on consumer cynicism. The negative inferred motive is tested as a mediator between social cynicism and consumer cynicism; whereas, negative affectivity is tested as a moderator between social cynicism and negative inferred motive.

The study was carried out in India using a mixed-method approach. In the first stage, a survey was conducted to test the moderated mediation model, followed by in-depth interviews in the second stage. The survey was analysed using structural equation modelling, while themes were generated from the data collected through interviews.

The study established the effect of social cynicism on consumer cynicism. Negative inferred motive mediated the relationship between social cynicism and consumer cynicism. Negative affectivity moderated the influence of social cynicism on negative inferred motive.

With rising anti-consumption behaviours, it is imperative to understand why consumers turn cynical towards marketers. The study indicates that consumer cynicism is influenced by previous experiences of the consumer with the society and is not merely a reaction to arm-twisting by firms. As social cynicism cannot be changed drastically, understanding how it impacts consumer cynicism would help a firm handle its marketing efforts better.

The study empirically validates the relationship between social cynicism and consumer cynicism. The mediating effect of negative inferred motive on consumer cynicism was also validated. The study is also the first to point out the moderating role of negative affectivity on the relationship between social cynicism and negative inferred motive.

This study aims to explore and empirically examine an integrative model of the customer revenge process by linking two well-established theories of self-determination theory (SDT) and appraisal theory.

A survey of 901 respondents, followed by a post-hoc survey of 712 individuals, was conducted to examine the autonomous versus controlled orientations for revenge motivation.

The results show that customers’ orientation of motivation (OM) can regulate their revenge behavior (direct versus indirect) in case of service failures. Specifically, the interaction of OM components (i.e. autonomy, relatedness and competence) can play a significant role in the relationship between revenge predictors and revenge behavior. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

This paper offers a novel conceptual framework to explain the moderating effects of OM on the relationship between revenge predictors and revenge behavior. This study extends the application of SDT to the context of customer anger and revenge.

Research on the effects of feedback frequency has reported mixed findings. To tackle this problem, the current study focuses on specific feedback signs (i.e. negative feedback). By integrating the face management theory and attribution theory, this study examined the mediating effect of trust in supervisors and the moderating effect of employee-attributed performance promotion motives for negative feedback.

A field study with 176 participants and two supplemental experiments with 143 and 100 participants, respectively, were conducted to test the theoretical model.

Results revealed that the frequency of supervisory negative feedback negatively influenced employees’ trust in supervisors, which in turn influenced employees’ perceptions of feedback utility and learning performance. These indirect effects can be alleviated when employees have high degrees of performance promotion attribution for supervisor motives.

This research extends feedback research by integrating feedback frequency with a specific sign of feedback and revealing a moderated mediation effect of the negative feedback frequency.

Given that an increasing number of social media platforms allow employees to share company-related information, the present study seeks to understand their complicated motivations for social media behaviors. Specifically, this study explores the antecedents of employees' positive and negative company-related information-sharing intentions on two distinctive social media platforms, personal (e.g. Facebook) and anonymous social networking sites (e.g. Glassdoor).

An online survey was conducted with 419 full-time employees in the United States from various industry sectors.

Individual (enjoyment, venting negative feelings, and self-enhancement), interpersonal (bonding and bridging ties), and organizational (organization–employee relationship and perceived external prestige) factors are considerably and distinctly associated with employees' behavioral intentions on different social media platforms.

This study is among the first to understand employees' communicative behaviors on social media (sECB) by linking diverse levels of motivational factors: individual, interpersonal, and organizational using a theoretical framework of socioecological model (SEM). This study also provides significant practical guidelines for organizational leaders and platform operators by explicating the dynamics of employee motives in engaging in a variety of social media platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether four motives – conformity, enhancement, social and coping – mediate relationships between four personality types – agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness to experience – and social networking site (SNS) addiction. Impulse control is included as a moderator.

The paper uses a survey to collect data at two points in time from 304 SNS users. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

Empirical results show that conformity, enhancement and coping motives act as mediators between various personality types and SNS addiction. Furthermore, impulse control weakens the effects of two motives – enhancement and social – on SNS addiction.

The research model included only four motives. Future research could investigate other motivational mechanisms and moderators. The research method surveyed university students in the USA; thus, results may not generalize to a different user population. The method also included only one SNS, Facebook.

The paper contributes to the literature by showing that motives of SNS use connect personality to SNS addiction. This study also shows that self-reflective factors like impulse control can reduce the positive effects of motives on SNS addiction.

When a service fails, the guarantee policy of the firm can be employed as a recovery strategy. The terms of the guarantee determine the amount of payout and the ease of invoking the policy. The guarantee terms can, therefore, influence customer perceptions of recovery fairness and inferences about the firm’s intentions to provide fair recovery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of guarantee terms on customer perceptions of justice, motive inferences, and repatronage intentions.

A between-subjects experiment was conducted in parcel delivery services.

Customer perceptions of justice vary across guarantee payout levels. Payout in the form of a discount does not restore justice perceptions, and leads to inferences that the firm offered the guarantee to maximize its profits. Conversely, full refund restores justice. Full refund plus discount is perceived as undeserved, and does not enhance justice perceptions. A moderately easy-to-invoke guarantee is perceived as fair, when it includes full refund. Inferences of negative firm’s motives, however, diminish perceived fairness of easy-to-invoke guarantees.

Future research could examine the interaction of guarantee scope with payout and ease of invocation, and how types of motives differentially impact justice perceptions.

Full refund can enhance justice perceptions, whereas discount is perceived as unfair. Firms should offer full refund as guarantee payout, but refrain from offering a discount. Flexibility should be embedded in guarantee invocation procedures.

This study demonstrates that service guarantees employed as recovery strategies signal justice and the firm’s motives.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the motives of consumers in the dissemination of book reviews on the internet. It aims to present an exploratory investigation followed by an empirical study that seeks to analyze the effects of such motives on the communication behavior of consumers.

A study was conducted of both traditional and online focus groups to investigate from a broad perspective why consumers disseminate internet book reviews. A survey was also carried out of the disseminators of internet book reviews which aimed to assess the influence and importance of the motives on dissemination behavior.

The pluralistic approach to research methods adopted in this study reveals that a desire for sharing, venting negative feelings, and social interaction, as well as product involvement are the main motives why consumers disseminate internet book reviews. At the same time, except for venting negative feelings, all the motives generate positive influences on dissemination behaviors.

The findings can serve as a reference in the management and marketing strategies of book reviews for internet platform owners (e.g. internet bookstores or other shops) that provide book reviews. It is also envisioned that internet book reviews can recommend good books or promote the borrowing of books from libraries, and it is hoped that this study will serve as a reference for such promotion.

The broad applications of electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM) and their relevant benefits have been generally recognized by individuals and companies. This paper explores the motives and effects of word‐of‐mouth associated with book reviews online and makes relevant recommendations for management.