IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/infosf/v22y2020i5d10.1007_s10796-019-09924-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Electronic Word of Mouth Communications on Intention to Buy: A Meta-Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Elvira Ismagilova

    (University of Bradford)

  • Emma L. Slade

    (University of Bristol)

  • Nripendra P. Rana

    (Swansea University)

  • Yogesh K. Dwivedi

    (Swansea University)

Abstract

The aim of this research is to synthesise findings from previous studies by employing weight and meta-analysis to reconcile conflicting evidence and draw a “big picture” of eWOM factors influencing consumers’ intention to buy. By using the findings from 69 studies, this research identified best (e.g. argument quality, valence, eWOM usefulness, trust in message), promising (e.g. eWOM credibility, emotional trust, attitude towards website) and least effective (e.g. volume, existing eWOM, source credibility) predictors of intention to buy in eWOM research. Additionally, the effect size of each predictor was calculated by performing meta-analysis. For academics, understanding what influences consumers’ intention to buy will help set the agenda for future research directions; for practitioners, it will provide benefit in terms of practical guidance based on detailed analysis of specific factors influencing consumers’ intention to buy, which could enhance their marketing activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Elvira Ismagilova & Emma L. Slade & Nripendra P. Rana & Yogesh K. Dwivedi, 2020. "The Effect of Electronic Word of Mouth Communications on Intention to Buy: A Meta-Analysis," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 22(5), pages 1203-1226, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:infosf:v:22:y:2020:i:5:d:10.1007_s10796-019-09924-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10796-019-09924-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10796-019-09924-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10796-019-09924-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Plotkina, Daria & Munzel, Andreas, 2016. "Delight the experts, but never dissatisfy your customers! A multi-category study on the effects of online review source on intention to buy a new product," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-11.
    2. Ruiz-Mafe, Carla & Chatzipanagiotou, Kalliopi & Curras-Perez, Rafael, 2018. "The role of emotions and conflicting online reviews on consumers' purchase intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 336-344.
    3. Nelson Siqueira Rangel Netto & Teresa Cristina Janes Carneiro & Marcos Paulo Valadares de Oliveira & Rogério Antônio Monteiro, 2016. "What Must be Considered when to Perform Consumption Analytics with Facebook Posts?," Brazilian Business Review, Fucape Business School, vol. 13(4), pages 1-23, July.
    4. Akhter, Syed H., 2003. "Digital divide and purchase intention: Why demographic psychology matters," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 321-327, June.
    5. Stephanie Watts Sussman & Wendy Schneier Siegal, 2003. "Informational Influence in Organizations: An Integrated Approach to Knowledge Adoption," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 47-65, March.
    6. Nripendra P. Rana & Yogesh K. Dwivedi & Banita Lal & Michael D. Williams & Marc Clement, 2017. "Citizens’ adoption of an electronic government system: towards a unified view," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 549-568, June.
    7. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    8. Chen, Jie & Teng, Lefa & Yu, Ying & Yu, Xueer, 2016. "The effect of online information sources on purchase intentions between consumers with high and low susceptibility to informational influence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 467-475.
    9. Park, Cheol & Lee, Thae Min, 2009. "Antecedents of Online Reviews' Usage and Purchase Influence: An Empirical Comparison of U.S. and Korean Consumers," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 332-340.
    10. Nripendra P. Rana & Yogesh K. Dwivedi & Michael D. Williams, 2015. "A meta-analysis of existing research on citizen adoption of e-government," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 547-563, June.
    11. Herr, Paul M & Kardes, Frank R & Kim, John, 1991. "Effects of Word-of-Mouth and Product-Attribute Information on Persuasion: An Accessibility-Diagnosticity Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(4), pages 454-462, March.
    12. Floyd, Kristopher & Freling, Ryan & Alhoqail, Saad & Cho, Hyun Young & Freling, Traci, 2014. "How Online Product Reviews Affect Retail Sales: A Meta-analysis," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 217-232.
    13. Gunawan, Dedy Darsono & Huarng, Kun-Huang, 2015. "Viral effects of social network and media on consumers’ purchase intention," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(11), pages 2237-2241.
    14. Pan, Yue & Sheng, Simon & Xie, Frank T., 2012. "Antecedents of customer loyalty: An empirical synthesis and reexamination," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 150-158.
    15. Daria Plotkina & Andreas Munzel, 2016. "Delight the experts, but never dissatisfy your customers! A multi-category study on the effects of online review source on intention to buy a new product," Post-Print halshs-01522518, HAL.
    16. Yap, Kenneth B. & Soetarto, Budi & Sweeney, Jillian C., 2013. "The relationship between electronic word-of-mouth motivations and message characteristics: The sender’s perspective," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 66-74.
    17. Hamby, Anne & Daniloski, Kim & Brinberg, David, 2015. "How consumer reviews persuade through narratives," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1242-1250.
    18. Raffaele Filieri & Elisabetta Raguseo & Claudio Vitari, 2018. "When are extreme ratings more helpful? Empirical evidence on the moderating effects of review characteristics and product type," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) halshs-01923243, HAL.
    19. Sparkman, Richard M, Jr & Locander, William B, 1980. "Attribution Theory and Advertising Effectiveness," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 7(3), pages 219-224, December.
    20. Mafael, Alexander & Gottschalk, Sabrina A. & Kreis, Henning, 2016. "Examining Biased Assimilation of Brand-related Online Reviews," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 91-106.
    21. Purnawirawan, Nathalia & Eisend, Martin & De Pelsmacker, Patrick & Dens, Nathalie, 2015. "A Meta-analytic Investigation of the Role of Valence in Online Reviews," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 17-27.
    22. Hatice Kizgin & Ahmad Jamal & Bidit Lal Dey & Nripendra P. Rana, 2018. "The Impact of Social Media on Consumers’ Acculturation and Purchase Intentions," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 503-514, June.
    23. Xiangbin Yan & Jing Wang & Michael Chau, 2015. "Customer revisit intention to restaurants: Evidence from online reviews," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 645-657, June.
    24. Ronnie Cheung, 2014. "The Influence of Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Information Adoption in Online Customer Communities," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 42-57, March.
    25. Uribe, Rodrigo & Buzeta, Cristian & Velásquez, Milenka, 2016. "Sidedness, commercial intent and expertise in blog advertising," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4403-4410.
    26. Andreas Munzel & Werner H. Kunz, 2014. "Creators, multipliers, and lurkers: who contributes and who benefits at online review sites," Post-Print hal-02423582, HAL.
    27. Stephen X. He & Samuel D. Bond, 2015. "Why Is the Crowd Divided? Attribution for Dispersion in Online Word of Mouth," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 41(6), pages 1509-1527.
    28. Bettina Lis, 2013. "In eWOM We Trust," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 5(3), pages 129-140, June.
    29. Filieri, Raffaele, 2015. "What makes online reviews helpful? A diagnosticity-adoption framework to explain informational and normative influences in e-WOM," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1261-1270.
    30. Raffaele Filieri & Elisabetta Raguseo & Claudio Vitari, 2018. "When are extreme ratings more helpful? Empirical evidence on the moderating effects of review characteristics and product type," Post-Print hal-03511272, HAL.
    31. Nripendra P. Rana & Yogesh K. Dwivedi & Michael D. Williams, 2014. "A review and weight analysis of the predictors and linkages in electronic government adoption research," International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(2), pages 139-158.
    32. Reimer, Thomas & Benkenstein, Martin, 2016. "When good WOM hurts and bad WOM gains: The effect of untrustworthy online reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(12), pages 5993-6001.
    33. Daria Plotkina & Andreas Munzel, 2016. "Delight the experts, but never dissatisfy your customers! A multi-category study on the effects of online review source on intention to buy a new product," Post-Print hal-02423571, HAL.
    34. Beatty, Sharon E & Smith, Scott M, 1987. "External Search Effort: An Investigation across Several Product Categories," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(1), pages 83-95, June.
    35. Sparks, Beverley A. & Browning, Victoria, 2011. "The impact of online reviews on hotel booking intentions and perception of trust," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1310-1323.
    36. Dina Mayzlin, 2006. "Promotional Chat on the Internet," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(2), pages 155-163, 03-04.
    37. Raffaele Filieri & Elisabetta Raguseo & Claudio Vitari, 2018. "When are extreme ratings more helpful? Empirical evidence on the moderating effects of review characteristics and product type," Post-Print halshs-01923243, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elvira Ismagilova & Emma L. Slade & Nripendra P. Rana & Yogesh K. Dwivedi, 0. "The Effect of Electronic Word of Mouth Communications on Intention to Buy: A Meta-Analysis," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-24.
    2. Zheng, Lili, 2021. "The classification of online consumer reviews: A systematic literature review and integrative framework," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 226-251.
    3. Ismagilova, Elvira & Dwivedi, Yogesh K. & Slade, Emma, 2020. "Perceived helpfulness of eWOM: Emotions, fairness and rationality," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    4. Ismagilova, Elvira & Slade, Emma & Rana, Nripendra P. & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2020. "The effect of characteristics of source credibility on consumer behaviour: A meta-analysis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    5. Agnieszka Zablocki & Bodo Schlegelmilch & Michael J. Houston, 2019. "How valence, volume and variance of online reviews influence brand attitudes," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 9(1), pages 61-77, June.
    6. Eslami, Seyed Pouyan & Ghasemaghaei, Maryam, 2018. "Effects of online review positiveness and review score inconsistency on sales: A comparison by product involvement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 74-80.
    7. Kumar, Sumit & Prakash, Gyan & Gupta, Bhumika & Cappiello, Giuseppe, 2023. "How e-WOM influences consumers' purchase intention towards private label brands on e-commerce platforms: Investigation through IAM (Information Adoption Model) and ELM (Elaboration Likelihood Model) M," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    8. Moradi, Masoud & Dass, Mayukh & Kumar, Piyush, 2023. "Differential effects of analytical versus emotional rhetorical style on review helpfulness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    9. Kim, Taeyong & Hwang, Seungsoo & Kim, Minkyung, 2022. "Text analysis of online customer reviews for products in the FCB quadrants: Procedure, outcomes, and implications," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 676-689.
    10. Filieri, Raffaele & Lin, Zhibin & Pino, Giovanni & Alguezaui, Salma & Inversini, Alessandro, 2021. "The role of visual cues in eWOM on consumers’ behavioral intention and decisions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 663-675.
    11. Yi Luo & Xiaowei Xu, 2019. "Predicting the Helpfulness of Online Restaurant Reviews Using Different Machine Learning Algorithms: A Case Study of Yelp," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-17, September.
    12. Könsgen, Raoul & Schaarschmidt, Mario & Ivens, Stefan & Munzel, Andreas, 2018. "Finding Meaning in Contradiction on Employee Review Sites — Effects of Discrepant Online Reviews on Job Application Intentions," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 165-177.
    13. Yi Feng & Yunqiang Yin & Dujuan Wang & Lalitha Dhamotharan & Joshua Ignatius & Ajay Kumar, 2023. "Diabetic patient review helpfulness: unpacking online drug treatment reviews by text analytics and design science approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 328(1), pages 387-418, September.
    14. Verma, Deepak & Prakash Dewani, Prem & Behl, Abhishek & Pereira, Vijay & Dwivedi, Yogesh & Del Giudice, Manilo, 2023. "A meta-analysis of antecedents and consequences of eWOM credibility: Investigation of moderating role of culture and platform type," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    15. Kaushik, Kapil & Mishra, Rajhans & Rana, Nripendra P. & Dwivedi, Yogesh K., 2018. "Exploring reviews and review sequences on e-commerce platform: A study of helpful reviews on Amazon.in," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 21-32.
    16. Tata, Sai Vijay & Prashar, Sanjeev & Gupta, Sumeet, 2020. "An examination of the role of review valence and review source in varying consumption contexts on purchase decision," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    17. Hernández-Ortega, Blanca, 2020. "When the performance comes into play: The influence of positive online consumer reviews on individuals' post-consumption responses," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 422-435.
    18. Petrescu, Maria & O’Leary, Kathleen & Goldring, Deborah & Ben Mrad, Selima, 2018. "Incentivized reviews: Promising the moon for a few stars," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 288-295.
    19. Colmekcioglu, Nazan & Marvi, Reza & Foroudi, Pantea & Okumus, Fevzi, 2022. "Generation, susceptibility, and response regarding negativity: An in-depth analysis on negative online reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 235-250.
    20. Wang, Fang & Karimi, Sahar, 2019. "This product works well (for me): The impact of first-person singular pronouns on online review helpfulness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 283-294.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:infosf:v:22:y:2020:i:5:d:10.1007_s10796-019-09924-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.