Measuring Electronic Word-of-Mouth Effectiveness: Developing and Applying the eWOM Trust Scale

385 Pages·2017·3.168 MB·English

by  Wolfgang Weitzl (auth.)

Wolfgang Weitzl
Measuring Electronic
Word-of-Mouth
Effectiveness
Developing and Applying
the eWOM Trust Scale
Measuring Electronic Word-of-Mouth
Effectiveness
Wolfgang Weitzl
Measuring Electronic
Word-of-Mouth
Effectiveness
Developing and Applying
the eWOM Trust Scale
Wolfgang Weitzl
Vienna, Austria
Dissertation University of Vienna, 2014
OnlinePlus material to this book can be available on
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ISBN 978-3-658-15888-0 ISBN 978-3-658-15889-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-15889-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953682
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Acknowledgements

I wish to express sincere appreciation to some people for their indefatigable support. Without
their understanding and encouragement, as well as generosity, this doctoral thesis would not
have been possible. First, I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Wolfgang Fritz for his trust
in the topic and his kind willingness to profoundly guide me through the research process. I
also want to thank Prof. Udo Wagner, head of the Marketing Department at the University of
Vienna, who always encouraged me to aspire to high academic standards, work independently
and do my own academic research. Both have challenged, encouraged, and motivated me to
excel in scientific study. I was really blessed to benefit from their patronage and wisdom. In
addition, special thanks to Prof. Adamantios Diamantopoulos, head of the International
Marketing Department at the University of Vienna and Joseph A. Schumpeter research fellow
at Harvard University, whose doctoral courses on structural equations modelling and
measurement theory mostly inspired my research. He and Dr. Petra Riefler provided
inestimable assistance in the preparation of this dissertation. My gratitude also belongs to my
colleagues and friends – most notably Robert Zniva, who always gave me valuable feedback,
making me a better writer, researcher, and person. Similarly, it belongs to the various scale
translators and study contributors for their generous assistance. Also to my parents and my
grandmother, who were supportive and encouraging throughout the writing process. I owe my
thankfulness to many, but to none more than Eva. Without her loving support I would not have
completed this work.

Wolfgang Weitzl

V
Abstract

Companies have learned that consumers not only collect purchase-critical insights from online
advertising, but are also increasingly turning to social media and particularly to consumer
reviews and recommendations (eWOM). However, this loss of control and “share of voice”
potentially directs consumers towards unintended business outcomes, as well as diminishing
return on marketing expenditures. Literature suggests that segmenting the communication
audience can be helpful to companies in identifying and targeting the consumer groupings most
likely to respond to their own marketing efforts and anticipating the impact of other forms of
market communication across different kinds of consumers. As trust has been found to affect
human thoughts, feelings and behaviours in various conditions, consumer trust in
eWOM/Online ads is suggested here as a valuable basis for segmentation. While valid, reliable
instruments are already available to measure generalised trust in online advertising, the same is
not true for eWOM trust.
To advance a novel segmentation approach in the era of online social shopping, this thesis (i)
clarifies the conceptual domain of eWOM trust by investigating the construct’s meaning, scope
and boundaries; (ii) identifies its key components – specifically, eWOM integrity/honesty,
ability, benevolence, and consumers’ willingness to rely and take risks; (iii) proposes a new
multi-item quantitative scale; and (iv) advances an online trust/shopping framework that relates
the construct to its causes, correlates and consequences. The conceptualisation derived from
interdisciplinary literature was the genesis of a multi-stage research process which targeted the
development of a context-specific measurement instrument – the eWOM-TRUST scale (eWT-
S) – that complies with psychometrical standards of social science. This process included a
series of complementary studies with multiple samples from various countries.
Finally, empirically based insights into the characteristics of the online communication
audience are provided by (a) describing eWOM trusters in terms of consumption-relevant
characteristics; (b) exploring the impact of eWOM trust on consumers’ usage of reviewers’
opinions; and (c) providing a new typology of eWOM/Ad trusters by means of cluster analysis.
Results show that online consumers are best segmented into four discrete clusters: (i) pure
review trusters (19%), (ii) non-trusters (10%), (iii) moderately trusting consumers (41%), and
(iv) high eWOM/Ad trusters (30%). From the managerial perspective, this thesis provides
insights into the opportunities and perils of targeting consumers with online advertising. Most
importantly, however, it enables marketers to anticipate consumers’ reliance on, as well as the
impact of, positive (negative) C2C communication across consumer groupings.

VII
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ V
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ VII
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................. IX
List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... XIII
List of Figures ...................................................................................................................................... XV
Acronyms and Abbreviations ............................................................................................................ XVII
Chapter 1 – Introduction to the Research ................................................................................................ 1
General Introduction............................................................................................................................ 1
Objectives of the Research ................................................................................................................ 11
Theoretical Importance...................................................................................................................... 12
Practical Importance .......................................................................................................................... 14
Organization of the Thesis ................................................................................................................ 16
Chapter 2 – Review of Literature and Theoretical Background ............................................................ 19
The Role of Trust .............................................................................................................................. 19
The Concept of Trust ......................................................................................................................... 23
Overview ....................................................................................................................................... 23
The Disciplines’ Conceptualizations and Measurement of Trust .................................................. 32
The Philosophers’ Perspective .................................................................................................. 32
The Personality Psychologists’ Perspective .............................................................................. 33
The Sociologists’ Perspective ................................................................................................... 40
The Social Psychologists’ and Organizational Researchers’ Perspective ................................. 48
Economic, Business and Marketing Perspectives ..................................................................... 56
Towards an Integrated View of Trust Components....................................................................... 68
Components of Trust ................................................................................................................. 68
Trusting Beliefs ......................................................................................................................... 77
Trusting Attitudes ...................................................................................................................... 86
Trusting Intentions .................................................................................................................... 87
Risk-taking Behaviour ............................................................................................................... 89
Conditions of Trust ........................................................................................................................ 90
Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 92
Chapter 3 – Conceptualization of the Construct, Research Questions and Hypotheses ........................ 95
Evidence for Generalized eWOM Trust ............................................................................................ 95
Conceptualizing Trust in eWOM ...................................................................................................... 99
Construct Definition and Domain ................................................................................................. 99
Construct Composition ................................................................................................................ 103
Types of eWOM Trust ............................................................................................................ 104
Dimensions of eWOM Trust ................................................................................................... 107
IX
Elements of eWOM Trust ....................................................................................................... 111
eWOM Trust and Similar Concepts ............................................................................................ 112
eWOM Distrust ....................................................................................................................... 112
eWOM Scepticism .................................................................................................................. 114
Credibility ................................................................................................................................ 115
Attitude towards Reviews in General ...................................................................................... 121
Other Constructs ...................................................................................................................... 122
Definition summarized ................................................................................................................ 123
Research Questions and Hypotheses ............................................................................................... 124
Construct Identification and Dimensionality ............................................................................... 125
Validity ........................................................................................................................................ 125
Criterion-Related Validity ....................................................................................................... 126
Nomological Validity: A Social Shopping – Trust Framework .............................................. 129
eWOM Trust Antecedents ....................................................................................................... 134
eWOM Trust Correlates .......................................................................................................... 151
eWOM Trust Consequences .................................................................................................... 152
Reliability and Generalizability ................................................................................................... 153
Measure Application ................................................................................................................... 160
Chapter 4 – Research Methods ............................................................................................................ 163
Identification Stage.......................................................................................................................... 165
Specification of Content Domain, Construct Definition and Dimensionality ............................. 165
Generating and Judging Items ..................................................................................................... 175
Expert Interviews (Study 1) .................................................................................................... 177
Consumer Interviews (Study 2) ............................................................................................... 178
Reliability Stage .............................................................................................................................. 181
Research Instrument .................................................................................................................... 183
Sample Description and Data Collection Procedure ................................................................... 184
Validity Stage .................................................................................................................................. 186
Main Validation Study (Study 4) ................................................................................................ 187
Research Instrument ................................................................................................................ 187
Questionnaire Pretest ............................................................................................................... 201
Sampling Frame and Data Collection...................................................................................... 201
Return Rate .............................................................................................................................. 202
Sample Description ................................................................................................................. 202
Supplemental Reliability, Validity and Generalizability Studies (Study 5) ................................ 205
Application Stage ............................................................................................................................ 205
Chapter 5 – Research Results .............................................................................................................. 209
Assessment of Construct Dimensionality and Consistency ............................................................ 209
Results Reliability Stage ............................................................................................................. 210
Exploratory Factor Analysis .................................................................................................... 211
X
Confirmatory Factor Analysis ................................................................................................. 218
Results Validity Stage ................................................................................................................. 234
Exploratory Factor Analysis .................................................................................................... 234
Confirmatory Factor Analysis ................................................................................................. 236
Results Validity Stage (Modified Model) ................................................................................... 245
Model Goodness-of-fit ............................................................................................................ 245
Reliability ................................................................................................................................ 246
Convergent Validity ................................................................................................................ 247
Discriminant Validity .............................................................................................................. 249
Implications for Construct’s Structure and Content .................................................................... 251
Supplemental Validity Assessments ............................................................................................... 256
Concurrent Validity ..................................................................................................................... 256
Convergent Validity and Discriminant Validity .......................................................................... 256
Known-group Validity ................................................................................................................ 266
Predictive and Postdictive Validity ............................................................................................. 267
Nomological Validity .................................................................................................................. 270
Social Desirability Bias ............................................................................................................... 273
Supplemental Reliability and Generalizability Assessments .......................................................... 274
Test-Retest Reliability ................................................................................................................. 274
Generalizability to different Online Sources ............................................................................... 274
Generalizability to individual Customer Reviews ....................................................................... 279
Generalizability to different Languages and Cultures ................................................................. 281
Scale Finalization and Development of Norms ............................................................................... 287
Scale Application: Segmenting Online Consumers ........................................................................ 289
Segmenting Consumers on eWOM/Online Ad Trust .................................................................. 289
Profiling the Segments ................................................................................................................ 290
Chapter 6 – Discussion, Implications and Future Research ................................................................ 299
Summary of Research ..................................................................................................................... 299
Conclusions and Discussion of Major Findings .............................................................................. 307
The Five Sub-Dimensions of eWOM Trust ................................................................................ 308
The Three Elements of eWOM Trust .......................................................................................... 310
The Characteristics of eWOM Trusters ....................................................................................... 312
Profiling Recipients of Online Market Communications ............................................................ 313
Contribution and Implications ......................................................................................................... 316
Limitations and Directions of Future Research ............................................................................... 320
References ........................................................................................................................................... 325
Appendices .......................................................................................................................................... 375

XI
List of Tables

Table 1: Dictionary Definitions of Trust .................................................................................. 29
Table 2: Matrix of Trust Dimensions ....................................................................................... 77
Table 3: Classification of Trusting Beliefs .............................................................................. 79
Table 4: Theorized Key Components of eWOM Trust .......................................................... 104
Table 5: Initial Set of eWOM Trust Items ............................................................................. 182
Table 6: Measures of Generalized eWOM Trust ................................................................... 189
Table 7: Measures of Attitude towards Reviews in General .................................................. 190
Table 8: Measures of Review Credibility .............................................................................. 192
Table 9: Measures of Reviewer Credibility ........................................................................... 194
Table 10: Measures of Distrust in Online Reviewers‘ Motives ............................................. 195
Table 11: Measures of Online Review Usage ........................................................................ 196
Table 12: Measures of Online Review Avoidance ................................................................. 197
Table 13: Measures of Review Involvement .......................................................................... 198
Table 14: Measures of Disposition to Trust ........................................................................... 199
Table 15: Measures of Review Experience ............................................................................ 200
Table 16: Measures of Internet Experience ............................................................................ 200
Table 17: Sample Composition of Study 4 ............................................................................ 203
Table 18: Respondent Characteristics of Study 4 .................................................................. 203
Table 19: Results of the Initial EFA (Sample 3a and 3b) ...................................................... 214
Table 20: Reliability and Item-based Statistics ...................................................................... 216
Table 21: Psychometric Properties of the eWOM Trust Scale (Samples 3a and 3b) ............. 222
Table 22: Correlations among the Sub-dimensions (Samples 3a and 3b) .............................. 225
Table 23: Competing Models (Sample 3a) ............................................................................ 227
Table 24: Competing Models (Sample 3b) ............................................................................ 228
Table 25: Pairings of Sub-dimensions (Sample 3a) ............................................................... 230
Table 26: Pairings of Sub-dimensions (Sample 3b) ............................................................... 232
Table 27: Results of the EFA (Sample 4) .............................................................................. 235
Table 28: Psychometric Properties of the eWOM Trust Scale (Sample 4) ............................ 238
Table 29: Correlations among the Sub-dimensions (Sample 4) ............................................. 239
Table 30: Competing Models (Sample 4) .............................................................................. 241
Table 31: Pairings of Sub-dimensions (Sample 4) ................................................................. 243
Table 32: Psychometric Properties of the eWT-S (Modified Scale, Samples 4 and 5) ......... 248
Table 33: Correlations among the Sub-dimensions (Modified Scale, Sample 4) .................. 249
Table 34: Competing Models (Modified Scale, Sample 4) .................................................... 252
XIII