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This study aims to investigate the influence of online opinion leadership and opinion seeking the intention to purchase and purchase behaviour of organic food in Saudi Arabia.

This study used an online questionnaire as a method to collect data from Instagram users in Saudi Arabia. Statistical analysis was performed using the SmartPLS to test the research model.

The study demonstrates the links between the perceived benevolence of the opinion leadership through Instagram and purchase behaviour of organic food and between opinion seeking and intention to purchase.

This study provides insights into the favourable impact of opinion leadership and opinion seeking on consumers’ intention to purchase and purchase behaviour for marketers, especially in the organic food sector of a Middle Eastern context.

Prior studies have investigated the impact of opinion leadership and opinion seeking on purchase behaviour, but not within the organic food sector. This study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by providing useful insights to enhance the understanding of the influence of online opinion leadership on purchase behaviour of organic food. This study also makes a valuable contribution to organic food research in Middle East countries, where there is a lack of research on organic food purchase behaviour.

To model the relationships between consumer need for uniqueness and attention to social comparison information with fashion opinion leadership and fashion opinion seeking.

A total of 201 US undergraduate students were surveyed and standard scales were used to measure consumer need for uniqueness, attention to social comparison information, fashion opinion leadership, and fashion opinion seeking.

Both consumer need for uniqueness and attention to social comparison information were positively related to fashion opinion leadership. Attention to social comparison information was also positively related to fashion opinion seeking, but consumer need for uniqueness was negatively related to fashion opinion seeking.

The findings are limited to US consumers and the convenience sample. Other limitations include the specific measures used, and the cross‐sectional survey method prevents one from making causal statements. The effects of other, unmeasured variables could not be assessed.

Apparel marketers seeking to encourage opinion leaders to promote their lines of new clothing might devise appeals emphasizing the social significance of the new products and how they bestow uniqueness on their owners. Such appeals might be more effective than those not stressing these psychological motivations. Appeals to consumers more likely to seek than to give opinions might also stress the social significance of the clothing, but appeals to uniqueness might not be effective with these consumers. Perhaps a belongingness appeal would be more effective.

These psychological concepts have not been studied very much in the clothing/fashion product domain. They give new insights into the psychology of clothing opinion leaders and opinion seekers.

The purpose of this paper are to examine: first, whether the consumer style inventory (CSI) consumer decision-making styles were related to opinion seeking using electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites (SNSs) and attitudes toward online social shopping using SNSs; and second, whether opinion seeking in SNSs and attitudes mediated the links between decision-making styles and intent to social shop online for apparel using SNSs.

The conceptual foundation was based on Engel, Kollat, and Blackwell's model. In total, 304 college students who are SNS users provided usable responses. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed model and research hypotheses.

Among the CSI consumer decision-making styles, novelty/fashion consciousness decision-making style was the most important antecedent of opinion seeking using eWOM. The brand consciousness decision-making style was the most important antecedent of favorable attitudes. Novelty/fashion consciousness, brand consciousness, and price consciousness decision-making styles had indirect effects on intent to social shop online for apparel using SNS, mediated by both opinion seeking and favorable attitudes.

This study contributes to further theoretical understanding of the types of consumers that are drawn to eWOM and their online social shopping behaviors for apparel using SNSs. By identifying individual consumer characteristics, this study can provide retailers with an initial profile of consumers who shop apparel using SNSs. Retailers can use this information to further develop the design of their social shopping sites using SNSs to meet the needs of their customers.

This study's aim was to investigate the stimulators of fashion e-consumers within e-commerce environments. The study proposed a framework utilizing stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) theory to suggest that fashion involvement and opinion-seeking would act as sociopsychological stimuli, while product variety as an objective stimulus. Perceived quality is proposed as an organism, moderated by perceived price. Consumer buying behavior within e-commerce environments presents the framework's response. The study looked at variables with deeper insights into Malaysian fashion consumers.

A quantitative method was used to assess the significance of relationships within the proposed model. Partial least squares structural equation modeling technique was implemented to assess the framework's relationships with a sample size of 374.

Results indicate that fashion involvement is significantly associated as a sociopsychological stimulus, with product variety being an objective stimulus for Malaysian fashion e-consumers. Perceived quality is significantly represented as an organism through the framework, and buying behavior is the latent response. Price would significantly moderate the relationship between fashion involvement and quality. Opinion-seeking was found not to be a significant stimulus for Malaysian e-consumers.

Contribution of this study goes to the existing literature by providing a deeper understanding of Malaysian e-consumer behavior by applying S-O-R theory. Malaysian fashion e-consumerism was suggested to be influenced by product involvement, quality, price, opinion-seeking and product range offered; therefore, a proposed framework was demonstrated and tested.

This paper aims to test hypothesized relationships of consumer need for uniqueness, attention to social comparison information, status consumption, and role‐relaxed consumption with opinion leadership and opinion seeking for new fashionable clothing.

The authors surveyed 598 consumers between the ages of 18 and 83 years using a self‐administered questionnaire. Correlation and linear regression analyses showed that all four independent variables were related to both dependent variables.

Consumer need for uniqueness was related positively to opinion leadership, but negatively with opinion seeking for younger consumers. Attention to social comparison information was positively related more highly to opinion seeking than to opinion leadership. Status consumption had the largest overall positive association, followed by role‐relaxed consumption, which was negatively related.

Some findings confirm earlier studies and some break new ground. The findings are limited to US consumers and the convenience sample. Other limitations include the specific measures used and the cross‐section survey method precludes making causal statements. The effects of other, unmeasured variables could be assessed.

Apparel marketers seeking to encourage opinion leaders to promote their lines of new clothing might devise appeals emphasizing the social significance and status of the new fashions and how they bestow uniqueness on their wearers.

The study not only confirms previous findings regarding consumer need for uniqueness and attention to social comparison information, but expands the description of motivating factors with status and role‐relaxed consumption.

Three theoretical constructs that appear in many models of consumer behaviour and are of central importance to fashion marketing and management are enduring product involvement, opinion seeking and subjective product knowledge. Both basic and applied market research, however, have lacked valid, reliable and standardised measures of these variables. Recent published studies have presented multi‐item scales that fill this gap in fashion research methodology. All three scales, however, were developed using US data, chiefly students. This paper presents the results of three surveys of Korean adult (n = 479) and student (n = 387) consumers as well as US adult consumers (n = 318) that support the reliability and validity of all three scales and show their applicability for cross‐cultural fashion research.

This study attempts to investigate how electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM), consisting of (1) opinion seeking, (2) opinion giving, and (3) opinion passing, influences consumers’ purchasing intentions for tourism services on Social Networking Sites (SNSs). Two hundred and seventy three American college students participate in a self-administered survey concerning their use of SNSs and ways of making online recommendations. Based on four hierarchical regression analyses, this study finds that both opinion seeking and opinion passing significantly influence respondents’ purchasing intentions. Additionally, time spent on SNS use reveals a positive relationship with opinion seeking and opinion passing. The conclusion of the present study highlights the eWOM as a cost-effective communication tool for tourism marketing and renders practical and theoretical implications along with suggestions for future research.

This study investigates personality facets and demographics as predictors of the following fashion adoption categories: fashion innovation, fashion opinion leadership, and fashion opinion seeking. Everett Rogers’ ideal types and the Five Factor Model are the theoretical frameworks applied in the study. Data are collected via a mailed questionnaire returned by 285 participants in the United States. Regression results demonstrated that income is a significant positive predictor for fashion innovativeness.

Additional findings showed that gender as well as the personality facets of actions and achievement striving are significant predictors for fashion opinion leading. Age, gender, education, and the personality facet of deliberation are significant predictors for fashion opinion seeking. In the present study, there is no overlap among the variables found to be significant predictors of fashion innovation, fashion opinion leading, and fashion opinion seeking. The results imply that neither personality nor demographics are the common characteristics between any two of the three adoption categories. Implications for future research on fashion adoption categories are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors influencing online word-of-mouth communication engagement behavior of college students on social networks such as Facebook.

A survey instrument designed to measure the constructs assumed to have an influence on word-of-mouth communication on social networks was administered to college students who are actively using Facebook. Structural equation model was used to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results of the study show that social capital and trust were two important factors that positively influenced opinion-giving and opinion-seeking behaviors, which, in turn, influenced the word-of-mouth behavior on Facebook. Although these results were not significantly different from the findings reported in the literature, the results emphasize that the impact of social capital and trust on word of mouth increased through the opinion-seeking/giving path.

Although the college students are ideal users for Facebook, the use of college students could limit the generalizability of the results to other populations. Furthermore, the authors have only investigated a few constructs that are assumed to contribute to the online word-of-mouth communication behavior. Other studies should include a more comprehensive list of construct and test their impact.

The study contributes to the literature on word-of-mouth communication in online social networking sites. Organizations could benefit from this knowledge by understanding that social networking sites should be considered as a key component of the integrated marketing communication strategy, and specific targeting efforts could be directed for those users with high levels of opinion-seeking/giving.

Although online social networking has been popular, not many empirical studies have been conducted on consumers’ engagement in the word-of-mouth communication in social networking sites, such as Facebook. This study attempts to fulfill the gap.

Social media developments in the last decade have led to the emergence of a new form of word of mouth (WOM) in the digital environment. Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is considered by many scholars and practitioners to be the most influential informal communication mechanism between businesses and potential and actual consumers. The purpose of this paper is to extend knowledge about WOM in this new context by proposing a conceptual framework that enables a better understanding of how trust and reciprocity influence eWOM participation in ORCs.

This study applies non-probability convenience sampling technique to conduct a quantitative study of data from an online survey of 189 members of ORCs. Partial least squares (PLS) is used to analyse the correlations between individuals’ intention to seek opinion, to give their own opinion and to pass on the opinion of another within ORCs.

The data analysis reveals that opinion seeking within ORCs had a direct effect on opinion giving and opinion passing. Ability trust and integrity trust had a positive effect on opinion seeking, while benevolence trust had a direct positive effect on opinion passing. Reciprocity had a direct impact on opinion passing. While reciprocity did not affect opinion giving, the relationship between these two concepts was mediated by integrity trust.

By studying the complexities that characterise the relationships between reciprocity, trust and eWOM, the study extends understanding of eWOM in ORCs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of only a few papers that have examined the complex interrelationships between reciprocity, trust and eWOM in the context of ORCs.