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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.

Word‐of‐mouth is a powerful communication tool which is often beyond the control of the marketer. This study used a 3 x 2 x 2 factorial experiment in a laboratory simulation to examine the main and interaction effects of three independent variables — message, source and user‐type — on credibility and behavior intention. The experiment involved 1,440 respondents from two different demographic sample groupings — secondary school students and undergraduates. ANOVA results for the experiments showed that, generally, source and user‐type were found to be significant factors affecting the credibility of word‐of‐mouth. In terms of source, father was perceived to be more credible than close friend as a word‐of‐mouth source. Likewise, past users were found to be more credible than non‐past users. Message was, however, found to affect significantly the behavioral intention variable. Negative message was found to generate the strongest negative behavioral intention than positive message and two‐sided messages. Two‐sided message was also found to have a stronger effect than positive message in behavioral intention. In addition, t‐tests results also revealed significant differences in perceptions between the two samples.

Examines the importance of the verbal exchange of positive and negative information about a firm′s products and services. Presents suggestions for learning what is being said and how to gain systematic control over the word of mouth process. Suggests a model of this process, including interpersonal communications among a variety of stakeholder groups. Highlights the case of the hospitality industry, but makes suggestions of use to all service businesses.

The purpose of this research is to present a study designed to test if anger is a mediator in the relationship between crisis responsibility and negative word‐of‐mouth and crisis responsibility and purchase intention. Emphasizes the relationship between anger, crisis responsibility, and intended negative word‐of‐mouth, what we call the negative communication dynamic. Researchers have just begun to explore the role of affect in crisis communication by linking it to behavioral intentions and proving that crisis affect is largely a function of crisis responsibility (perceived organizational responsibility for the crisis).

An experimental design is used to test for the mediator relationship. The design reflects the study's theoretical link to Attribution Theory.

The results support that anger is a moderator in the relationship between crisis responsibility and intended negative word‐of‐mouth and between crisis responsibility and purchase intention.

Future research should examine how crisis response strategies can be used to lessen anger and to reduce the likelihood of the negative communication dynamic.

Crisis managers can use the cues for estimating crisis responsibility to determine anger because of the strong correlation between the two variables. Crisis managers should engage in words and actions designed to reduce the anger and reduce the likelihood of the negative communication dynamic.

This paper provides novel insight into the role and value of anger in crisis communication.

While the links between customer word-of-mouth and desirable organizational outcomes have been widely studied, the possibility that customers might routinely exaggerate their consumption experience stories has been neglected. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The first exploratory study examined exaggerated and unexaggerated word-of-mouth and the targets of such activities. The second exploratory study focussed on customer-exaggerated negative word-of-mouth and its drivers. The two experimental studies generated deeper insights into attributions of service failure and exaggerated negative word-of-mouth.

This research explicitly addresses customer exaggeration regarding service consumption and the reasons customers engaged in such behaviors. Study 1 focussed on the scope and targets of exaggerated word-of-mouth, and Study 2 concentrated on identifying the drivers of exaggerated negative word-of-mouth. Studies 3 and 4 experimentally elucidated the cognitive mechanisms leading to exaggeration.

Contributions include deeper understanding of the phenomenon of exaggerated negative word-of-mouth and developing and testing a model of the factors associated with consumers’ exaggerated negative word-of-mouth.

Implications include possible organizational and public policy actions to prevent Pinocchio customers from exaggerated negative word-of-mouth.

This paper explores the nature and scope of exaggerated customer word-of-mouth and contributes insights in four ways. First, this research explores the scope of consumer exaggeration during word-of-mouth storytelling and the intended targets of such communications. Second, this research focusses on exaggerated negative word-of-mouth and develops a conceptual model of the drivers of such activity. Third, the theory is tested and contributes empirical insights into exaggerated negative word-of-mouth. Fourth, through experiments, insights are gained into the cognitive mechanisms leading to exaggeration and the effects of attribution differences in personal vs service provider blame.

Owner‐managers of small businesses invariably cite word of mouth recommendations as the principal way in which they attract new customers. Marketing theory is under‐developed in this field with little empirical evidence about the recommending behaviour of small business customers and referral groups. The case study of an independent health club reported here illustrates how these processes can be researched and the results used to influence word of mouth recommendations. The owner‐manager of the club carried out some basic research on his customer base in order to identify the types of members who were most active in recommending the club, and the stimuli that led to recommendations being made. A key finding was that newer members were more likely to recommend than those who had been members for some time, contradicting the implications of relationship marketing theories that long standing customers generate most recommendations. Membership more than doubled following a number of activities designed to increase recommending behaviour. The most important stimuli to recommendations were believed to be involvement with the club, incentives and experiential factors. The case study indicates that word of mouth strategies benefit from research to find out which customers are recommending the business, what they are recommending about the business and what prompts them to do so.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how information and communication technology (ICT) adoption in hotels contributes to satisfaction and loyalty from the consumer perspective, considering the online dimension of recommendations.

A quantitative research based on a structured questionnaire and using a personal survey method was developed. Surveys were conducted on 386 guests from Spanish hotels. Causal methodology by testing structural equation model was applied.

Significant relationships are obtained in the sequence “ICT use perception – satisfaction with ICT – overall satisfaction with the hotel – dimensions of loyalty” and the mediating effect of positive electronic word-of-mouth intention between ICT satisfaction and general intention to recommend the hotel is confirmed.

Future research can replicate these relationships in other tourist services and employ multidimensional scales to measure word-of-mouth behaviour.

The novelty of this work is that it studies the relationships between ICT, satisfaction and loyalty in hotel services, paying particular attention to positive word-of-mouth behaviour, both conventional and online.

El propósito de este trabajo es investigar la contribución que tiene la adopción de las TIC en los hoteles en la satisfacción y la lealtad, desde la perspectiva del consumidor y considerando la dimensión online de las recomendaciones.

Se desarrolló una investigación cuantitativa basada en un cuestionario estructurado y empleando el método de la encuesta personal. Se realizaron 386 encuestas a huéspedes de hoteles españoles. Se aplicó la metodología causal testando un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales.

Se obtienen relaciones significativas en la secuencia “percepción de los clientes del uso de las TIC – nivel de satisfacción con las TIC – nivel de satisfacción general con el hotel – dimensiones de la lealtad” y se confirma el efecto mediador que tiene la intención del boca-oreja online entre la satisfacción con las TIC y la intención general de recomendar el hotel.

En futuras investigaciones se pueden replicar estas relaciones en otros servicios turísticos y emplear escalas multidimensionales para medir la conducta de boca-oreja.

La novedad de este trabajo radica en el estudio de las relaciones entre las TIC, satisfacción y lealtad en los servicios hoteleros poniendo especial atención en la conducta de boca-oreja positivo, tanto convencional como online.

Few studies have explored the direct influence of social networking websites (SNWs), and to the best of our knowledge, none have examined the indirect influence of SNWs on users and how that indirect influence leads to word‐of‐mouth related behaviors in SNWs. This study employs the theoretical framework of the third‐person effect theory, which is grounded in psychology, to examine the indirect influence of SNWs and how that indirect influence may potentially contribute to marketing research and practice. Davison’s (1983) third‐person effect (TPE) theory proposes that individuals tend to expect mass media to have a greater effect on others than on themselves. After the analysis of survey data, the current research first explores whether a third‐person effect exists in the SNW context and if it does, how it differs from that in traditional media context. Based on theory and numerous empirical findings, the current research also investigates how the thirdperson effect varies with different referent “others”. Finally, based on the theoretical propositions of previous studies, this study links third‐person effect to behavioral consequences related to word‐of‐mouth communication via SNWs. The results support all hypotheses. This work contributes to consumer psychology and word‐of‐mouth communication research, and generates implications for marketers targeting young consumers and/or those interested in stimulating word‐of‐mouth communication in the SNW context. Limitations are also addressed.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence mechanism of the word-of-mouth reputation of influencers.

This study explored word-of-mouth reputation from four characteristics of information source of influencers: credibility, professionalism, interactivity and attractiveness. The grounded theory was used to extract the characteristic indicators of influencers and used questionnaire surveys to obtain 218 valid samples. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used for the configuration analysis.

The results revealed the following: (1) a causal asymmetric correlation exists between the driving mechanism of high word-of-mouth reputation and non-high word-of-mouth reputation; (2) influencers matching high word-of-mouth reputation comprises potential, developmental and almighty types, whereas live streaming influencer matching non-high word-of-mouth reputation comprises elementary and groping types; and (3) all factors must be combined to play a role, and neutral permutations of two solutions were found among the three overall solutions to attain high word-of-mouth reputation; (4) the combination of high user activity and high exposure is the core configuration that results in high word-of-mouth reputation.

This study provides recommendation for consumers, live streamers, brand and e-commerce platform on how to promote the sustainable and healthy development of influencer marketing.

This study focused on elucidating how the characteristics of information source affect the word-of-mouth reputation of influencers and have a reference value for the research on word-of-mouth reputation in the context of live commerce.