Antecedents and consequences of word of mouth

People often share word of mouth (WOM) with their friends, family, and colleagues, and they increasingly also share WOM with strangers through various Internet channels. Since WOM has been found to have an important impact on consumer behavior, businesses worldwide are eager to understand the intricacies of the phenomenon. In particular, businesses are interested in understanding how positive WOM can be stimulated and how negative WOM can be stopped. This dissertation presents four papers that extend the current knowledge on these two issues. The first paper aims to enhance the understanding of the relationship between consumer evaluations and WOM, while papers 2 and 3 are related to the issue of how individual difference factors affect WOM transmission. The fourth paper examines how some consumers defend companies or brands from negative WOM. Several different methods were used to accomplish the aims of this dissertation. Papers 1 and 3 employed surveys, whereas paper 2 used an experimental method. Paper 4 employed the qualitative method netnography. The first paper tests the effects of perceived quality and satisfaction on positive WOM intentions in both transaction-specific and cumulative evaluative contexts. Results reveal that different factors drive positive WOM intentions, depending on the context of the study. When consumers’ evaluations are related to a specific transaction, perceived quality is the dominating predictor of positive WOM intentions. When the evaluations are cumulative, satisfaction is the dominating predictor of positive WOM intentions. The second paper examines the relationship between individualism and WOM and factors moderating this relationship. The results reveal that high-individualism consumers are more willing than low-individualism consumers to transmit WOM in relation to satisfactory (versus unsatisfactory) consumption experiences, when WOM is unsolicited (versus solicited) and when the context involves high perceived social risk (versus low perceived social risk). These moderating effects may indicate that self-enhancement is the underlying motive in the relationship between individualism and WOM. The third paper tests a model of personality trait predictors of WOM tendency. The model includes two situational personality traits: social and personal consumer confidence, and two fundamental personality traits: extraversion and neuroticism. The results show that higher levels of extraversion result in greater social consumer confidence, which again has a positive effect on WOM tendency. Moreover, higher levels of neuroticism result in lower personal consumer confidence, which again has a negative effect on the tendency to engage in WOM. The results also show that social consumer confidence partially mediates the relationship between extraversion and WOM, whereas personal consumer confidence fully mediates the relationship between neuroticism and WOM. The fourth paper explores consumer responses to negative WOM on the Internet. The objective was to test an a priori belief that many consumers defend companies in response to an initial negative WOM utterance. Results of a netnographic study confirm that the online defense phenomenon does exist. A typology of six defensive styles (advocating, justifying, vouching, stalling, trivializing, and doubting) was developed and the characteristics of each defense described. Furthermore, factors influencing consumers’ choices of defense styles were identified. The study also highlights the different outcomes of the various defense styles and illustrates that this consumer phenomenon can be effective in preventing the spread of negative WOM or in mitigating its impact. This dissertation provides valuable insights for marketing practitioners. First, companies that want to stimulate positive WOM should strive for positive evaluations of perceived quality and satisfaction. However, these two WOM indicators vary in their predictive strength depending on the context, so marketers should be cautious when collecting consumer feedback intended to predict the occurrence of positive WOM. Second, this dissertation provides knowledge of self-enhancement as a central WOM motive that could help companies in their efforts to stimulate WOM. This motive is especially prominent among individualistic consumers. Thus, by appealing to these consumers’ need for self-enhancement, the chances of WOM occurring subsequently are likely going to increase. For instance, marketers could use advertising messages that appeal to the self-concept of the receiver such as, “This brand makes you stand out from the crowd” or “This product shows that you are a connoisseur. ” Third, this dissertation provides companies with useful insights regarding the targeting of consumers for their WOM campaigns. It has been shown that certain personality traits can play an important role in the production of WOM, which provides a richer picture of potential target groups for WOM campaigns than previous research suggests. For instance, by identifying consumers who are extraverts or possess social consumer confidence traits (for example, through brief online questionnaires), companies may be able to establish contact with attractive “seeds” for use in their WOM campaigns. Fourth, this dissertation shows that consumers often defend companies and brands against negative WOM in online channels. While many companies are concerned about how to handle negative WOM online, this dissertation suggests that companies should remain calm when negative WOM discussions arise and restrain themselves from entering into these discussions too quickly. Consumers often defend them anyway. Future research should further explore the mechanisms underlying WOM communication. This could involve examining other moderators that could provide additional explanations for the effects seen in this dissertation. Future research should also investigate the issues studied in this dissertation in relation to other aspects of the WOM phenomenon, such as the valence of WOM. Finally, as more WOM today occurs on the Internet, future research should examine some of the issues addressed in this dissertation in relation to the electronic forms of WOM.