Words matter : the impact of word-of-mouth communication

• Main Author: Lim, Boon Chong
• Other Authors: Chung Mann Yien Cindy
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Marketing::Consumer behavior
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/42431
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This dissertation presents three papers in the study of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication. WOM is an informal mode of communication between consumers concerning the evaluation of products and services. Specifically, each of the three papers examines the impact of WOM on consumers from various perspectives. Paper 1 builds on the media congruence hypothesis proposed by Wright and lynch (1995). The media congruence hypothesis states that the medium that best communicates the type of attributes is the one most congruent with that type of information. Specifically, Paper 1 examines the impact of positive and negative WOM on the WOM recipient's ratings of search and credence attributes in two different service contexts. Results from two experiments suggest that negative WOM (but not positive WOM) is more effective in changing the evaluation of credence attributes than that of search attributes.This finding implies that marketers need to have different approaches to deal with the impact of negative WOM on different attribute types.