Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470

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Decision Support Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/dss

The impact of electronic word-of-mouth communication: A literature analysis and

integrative model
Christy M.K. Cheung a,⁎, Dimple R. Thadani b
a
Department of Finance and Decision Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China
b
Department of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The notion of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication has received considerable attention in
Received 4 September 2011 both business and academic communities. Numerous studies have been conducted to examine the effective-
Received in revised form 2 May 2012 ness of eWOM communication. The scope of published studies on the impact of eWOM communication is
Accepted 23 June 2012
large and fragmented and little effort has been made to integrate the findings of prior studies and evaluate the
Available online 10 July 2012
status of the research in this area. In this study, we conducted a systematic review of eWOM research. Building
Keywords:
upon our literature analysis, we used the social communication framework to summarize and classify
Electronic word‐of‐mouth prior eWOM studies. We further identified key factors related to the major elements of the social com-
eWOM munication literature and built an integrative framework explaining the impact of eWOM communica-
Consumer purchase decision tion on consumer behavior. We believe that the framework will provide an important foundation for
Social communication future eWOM research work.
Literature analysis © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Dual-process theory
Interpersonal influence

1. Introduction eWOM has undoubtedly been a powerful marketing force. In re-

The rise of new media channels during the last few years has of-
fered fertile ground for electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communi-
cation. More and more consumers use Web 2.0 tools (e.g., online
discussion forums, consumer review sites, weblogs, social network
sites, etc.) to communicate their opinions and exchange product infor-
mation [36]. This new form of word-of-mouth (WOM) communica-
tion can contain positive or negative statements made by potential,
actual, and former customers about a product or a company via the
Internet [40].
Industry research reports have shown that when making purchase
decisions, Internet users trust online reviews posted by unknown
consumers more than they trust traditional media [63]. In addition,
user-generated content in the form of online customer reviews was
found to significantly influence consumer purchasing decisions [12].
91% of respondents mentioned that they consult online reviews,
blogs, and other user-generated content before purchasing a new
product/service, 46% of which are then influenced in the way they
to purchase. Froster [33] predicted that over 50% of total retail sales
will be affected by web (e.g., online reviews) by 2014.
⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Finance and Decision Sciences, School of
Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China. Tel.:
+852 3411 2102; fax: +852 3411 5585.
E-mail addresses: ccheung@hkbu.edu.hk (C.M.K. Cheung),
dimplet@student.cityu.edu.hk (D.R. Thadani).
cent years, we witnessed an explosion of literature focusing on the
effectiveness of eWOM communication [22,29,53]. However, the
scope of published studies on the impact of eWOM communication
is large and fragmented. It is difficult to draw meaningful conclusions
from these studies. In addition, researchers have adopted various re-
search approaches for investigating the eWOM phenomenon, and
little has been done to integrate the findings of prior studies
[18,19]. According to our review of prior research work, studies on the
impact of eWOM communication can be classified into two levels:
market-level analysis and individual-level analysis [55]. At the
market-level analysis, researchers focused on market-level parameters
(e.g., product sales). This line of investigation used objective panel data
(e.g., the rate and the valence of consumer reviews) extracted from the
websites or online product review platforms to examine the impact of
eWOM messages on product sales [14,20,22,24,27,29,79]. At the
individual-level analysis, researchers postulated eWOM as a process of
personal influence, in which communications between a communicator
(sender) and a receiver can influence consumer purchase decision
[21,65,78].
In this study, we first identified individual-level eWOM studies
and summarized their corresponding theoretical foundations. We
then presented the social communication framework and classified
key factors of eWOM communication. We further proposed an inte-
grative framework of the impact of eWOM communication on online
consumer behavior, and presented propositions concerning the rela-
tionships among the key elements of social communication.

0167-9236/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.dss.2012.06.008
462 C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470
The paper is structured as follows. First, we define eWOM commu-
nication and compare the concept with traditional WOM communica-
tion. Second, we describe the research procedures and present a
quantitative summary of prior eWOM communication research.
Third, we present the results of paper classification based on the so-
cial communication literature. Finally, we propose an integrative
framework of the impact of eWOM communication and present a
set of propositions. We then conclude the paper by discussing the
implications of the research framework for further theoretical and
empirical investigations.
2. Electronic word-of-mouth communication
The power of interpersonal influence through word-of-mouth
communication has been well recognized in the consumer literature
[2,41,52]. Prior studies have found that consumers perceive WOM as
more trustworthy and persuasive than traditional media, such as
print ads, personal selling, and radio and TV advertising. The influ-
ence on purchase decision through WOM communication was further
extended with the advent of the Internet, which extended eWOM
communication to various additional virtual settings. On the internet,
consumers can post their opinions, comments and reviews of products
on weblogs (e.g. xanga.com), discussion forums (e.g. zapak.com), re-
view websites (e.g. Epinions.com), e-bulletin board systems, news-
groups, and social networking sites (e.g. facebook.com) [17].
While eWOM communication has some characteristics in com-
mon with traditional WOM communication, it is different from tradi-
tional WOM in several dimensions. These dimensions all contribute
to the uniqueness of eWOM communication. First, unlike traditional
WOM, eWOM communications possess unprecedented scalability
and speed of diffusion. As with traditional WOM, sharing of informa-
tion is between small groups of individuals in synchronous mode
[3,26,58,74]. Information in traditional WOM is usually exchanged
in private conversations or dialogs. It is therefore rather difficult to
pass along the information to any individual who is not present
when and where the information is exchanged. In contrast, eWOM
communications involve multi-way exchanges of information in
asynchronous mode [47]. Information in the form of eWOM does
not need to be exchanged at the same time when all communicators
are present [35,50]. For instance, users of forums are able to read and
post comments after the “threads” are created, not necessary at the
time when the threads are being created. Second, unlike traditional
WOM, eWOM communications are more persistent and accessible.
Most of the text-based information presented on the Internet is ar-
chived and thus would be made available for an indefinite period of
time [40,47,56,64,67,70]. Third, eWOM communications are more
measurable than traditional WOM [56,65]. The presentation format,
quantity, and persistence of eWOM communications have made
them more observable. Word-of-mouth information available online
is far more voluminous in quantity compared to information
obtained from traditional contacts in the offline world [13]. In
other words, researchers can easily retrieve a large number of
eWOM messages online and analyze their characteristics such as
the number of sentimental words used, position of the messages,
style of messages, and the like. A final key difference is that tradition-
al WOM emanates from a sender who is known to the receiver of the
information, thereby the credibility of the communicator and the
message is known to the receiver.
3. Literature identification and analysis
A two-stage process was used in searching the available articles
— article identification and article analysis. Before the synthesis of
findings in various studies could be done, relevant studies first need-
ed to be identified. This research study involved collecting academic
and peer reviewed journal articles that addressed impacts of
electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). We used two methods to iden-
tify relevant papers. First, we conducted a systematic electronic search
using a number of index databases, which were: Academic Search Pre-
mier (EBSCO), ABI/INFORM Global (ProQuest), Social Science Citation
Index (SSCI), Science Citation Index (SCI), PsycINFO, CSA Illumina, Edu-
cation Resources Center, and Emerald. The research team did the search
based on keywords including “electronic word-of-mouth”, “ewom”,
“online reviews”, “online recommendations”, “marketing buzz”, and
“online consumer reviews”. Second, we reviewed four MIS journals
(Decision Support Systems, Information Systems Research, Journal of
Management Information Systems, and Management Information
Systems Quarterly) and three Marketing journals (Journal of Con-
sumer Research, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Marketing Re-
search) manually to ensure that no major eWOM articles were
ignored.
Following the guidelines of the conventional systematic review
methodology [75], inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to the
initial set of articles. These were done to ensure that the sample of arti-
cles used for analysis was appropriate for the current research. The in-
clusion criteria was the following: (1) publication was academic and
peer reviewed in nature; (2) eWOM was the main focus of investigation
in the paper; (3) researchers had a defined sample; (4) publication that
addressed impacts of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM); and (5) pub-
lication dealt with investigation of eWOM in business-to-consumer set-
tings. The exclusion criteria were applied to: (1) papers with an entirely
conceptual or theoretical background and no research design; and (2)
publications that dealt with the investigation of eWOM in the form of
a recommendation agent (system agent). At the article analysis stage,
two authors independently reviewed and eliminated articles that
were not pertinent to the current focus.
A total of 47 eWOM communication articles published between
2000 and 2010 were identified. Research on the impact of eWOM
communication can be classified into market-level analysis and
individual-level analysis [55]. In this review, 47% (22 out of 47 arti-
cles) of the articles adopted the market-level approach, while 53%
(25 out of 47 articles) focused on the individual-level analysis (see
Fig. 1). As a number of researchers have already conducted a review
on prior studies of market-level eWOM communication [25,44,79],
we only focused on individual-level eWOM studies in the current
analysis.
4. Review of study findings
4.1. Types of eWOM
The popularity of Web 2.0 has empowered consumers to influ-
ence others through a variety of platforms to post user-generated
content (UGC) tools (e.g., blogs, microblogs, forums, chat rooms,
and social networking sites). Our literature review showed that a
majority of eWOM studies focused on online consumer reviews
made on e-commerce websites, discussion forums or rating sites
(see Table 1). Other forms of eWOM have received far less attention
12
10
10 9
8 7
6
6 Individual (25)
Market (22)
4 3 3
2 2 2
2 1 1 1
0 0
0
2001 2004 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Fig. 1. Timeline of eWOM publication: market vs. individual.
 C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470 463

Table 1 ▪ The communicator (source) refers to the person who transmits the
Different types of eWOM. communication.
Types of eWOM Examples Studies ▪ The stimulus (content) refers to the message transmitted by the
communicator.
Online zapak.com [8,46,78]
discussion ▪ The receiver (audience) is the individual who responds to the
forums communication.
Online Epinions.com, [4,15,21,28,34,36,55,57,59,64–66,71,74,77] ▪ The response (main effect) is made to the communicator by the
consumer shopping.com
receiver.
review sites
Blogs Xanga.com, [23,57,69]
blogger.com In this literature analysis, we reviewed prior individual-level
Social facebook.com, [69] based eWOM papers on the impact (responses) of electronic
networking MySpace.com word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication. eWOM represents a
sites new form of social communication content (stimuli) involving
Online brand/ Amazon.com [36,46,56,57,67,71–73]
shopping
both information-seeking customers (receivers) and information
sites sharing customers (communicators). In this section, we review
the 25 individual-level eWOM studies and identify variables relat-
ed to the four key elements (responses, stimuli, receivers, and
communicators) of social communication. We further build an in-
in academic research. Lee and Youn's [57] study was one of the few tegrative model and discuss the interrelationships among the key
research papers that focused on the effects of eWOM in the form of elements. Fig. 2 depicts our integrative framework.
a personal blog.
5.1. Responses

4.2. Theoretical foundation
Table 2 summarizes the theories adopted in prior eWOM communi-
cation studies. Among the 25 identified eWOM papers, a dual-process
theory of human information processing such as the Elaboration Likeli-
hood Model (ELM) [68] and the Heuristic–Systematic Model (HSM) [9]
was the most commonly used theoretical foundation in the study of
the impact of eWOM communication. In addition, a significant number
of studies adopted the source credibility literature to explain the charac-
teristics of this new form of word-of-mouth communication. Re-
searchers also explained the impact of eWOM on consumer purchase
decision using the perspective of interpersonal influence.
The response is made to the communication by the receiver. As
shown in Table 3, attitude, purchase intention, and purchase are the
most commonly investigated outcomes (responses) of eWOM com-
munication. The relationships between attitude, purchase intention,
and purchase have been well-established and validated in online con-
sumer behavior research. For example, Chang et al. [11] found that at-
titude consistently exhibits significant impact on online purchase
intention in prior online shopping literature, while online purchase
intention has a positive impact on online purchase. These relationships
are basically supported by theory of reasoned action [31] and theory of
planned behavior [1]. Therefore, we have the following propositions:
P1. Purchase intention is positively associated with purchase.

P2. Attitude is positively associated with purchase intention.

5. An integrative framework of the impact of eWOM communication

eWOM adoption, which may be considered as the adoption and use

Hovland [42], one of the founding fathers of social communication
of eWOM communication for making a purchase decision [21], was also
research, defined social communication as “the process by which an
frequently examined in the 25 existing eWOM communication papers.
individual (the communicator) transmits stimuli (usually verbal sym-
Among existing eWOM studies, Cheung et al. [16] and Liu and Zhang
bols) to modify the behavior of other individuals (communicatees)”
[59] found that information usefulness has a direct positive impact on
(p. 317). Working within a framework of “who says what to whom
eWOM adoption, while Cheung et al. [21] showed that eWOM credibil-
and with what effect”, social communication includes four major
ity has a positive effect on eWOM adoption. Information usefulness,
elements:
eWOM credibility, and eWOM adoption are theoretically related and
explained by the information adoption model [75]. The information
adoption model is widely used to explain how people are influenced
to adopt the information posted in computer-mediated communication
Table 2
Theoretical foundations of prior eWOM studies. (CMC) contexts. This model was adapted from the Elaboration Likeli-
hood Model (ELM) [68]; the impacts of information quality and source
Theory Studies
credibility on eWOM adoption are mediated by information usefulness.
Dual-process theory [21] Building on the information adoption model, we believe that both infor-
- Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) [15,23,36,56,64,65,67,73]
mation usefulness and eWOM credibility have positive relationships
- Heuristic–Systematic Model (HSM) [36,78]
Interpersonal theory
with eWOM adoption.
- Persuasive [21,46,64,66,77]
- Conformity [66,67] P3. Information usefulness is positively associated with eWOM adoption.
- Informational cascade [45]
Attribution theory [57,71] P4. eWOM credibility is positively associated with eWOM adoption.
Cognitive fit theory [65]
Impression formation literature [46]
Similar to traditional WOM studies, eWOM communication is usu-
Negativity bias [21,57,64,71]
Social presence theory [54] ally considered as a type of social influence that affects consumer pur-
Social ties [74] chase decision. That is, information from external sources can
Sociolinguistic theory [4] enhance consumer purchase decision, similar to the role of social in-
Source credibility literature [8,21,23,46,57,67,71,72] fluence in theory of reasoned action. Therefore, we expect that
Trust literature [4,59]
eWOM adoption will have a direct effect on purchase intention.
464 C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470
Fig. 2. An integrative framework of the impact of eWOM communication.
P5. eWOM adoption is positively associated with purchase intention
5.2. Stimuli
The stimulus refers to the message transmitted by the communica-
tor. In the traditional word-of-mouth marketing literature, the valence
(positive, negative, or neutral) and the volume (the quantity of the in-
formation) have received a lot of attention. Particularly, researchers fo-
cused on the impact of extremely positive and extremely negative
WOM [37–39]. Because of the nature of traditional WOM communica-
tion, most of these studies examined the impact of WOM messages by
manipulating WOM messages in an experimental setting. Some recent
eWOM studies also adopted this approach in examining the impact of
eWOM on consumers' purchasing intention [56,57,64,67]. Table 4 sum-
marizes the factors related to the stimulus.
In eWOM communication studies, researchers considered valences
(e.g., positively framed eWOM vs. negatively framed eWOM) to be per-
suasive effects. Positively framed eWOM highlights the strengths of a
product/service and encourages people to adopt a product/service,
while negatively framed eWOM emphasizes the weaknesses/problems
of a product/service and thus discourages people to adopt them [27,29].
Past research in the area of consumer behavior has shown that con-
sumers pay more attention to negative information than positive infor-
mation. They also tend to weigh negative information more than
positive information during evaluation and decision making [41]. Simi-
larly, Park and Lee [64] showed that negative eWOM has a stronger in-
fluence on eWOM effect than positive eWOM. Researchers referred to
the differing effect of negatively and positively valenced events as neg-
ativity bias or negativity effect. Baumeister et al. [5] found that the prin-
ciple of “bad is stronger than good” is consistent across a broad range of
phenomena, and suggested that people tend to react more strongly to
bad things as the adaptive response to their physical and social environ-
ment. Building on this line of literature, we believe that eWOM va-
lence has a positive relationship with eWOM credibility [21].
P6. eWOM valence is positively associated with eWOM credibility.
In this review, we also notice that recommendation sidedness and
number of recommendations (volume) were the two most studied
stimulus cues in eWOM communication. A one-sided message pre-
sents either positive or negative valenced information. A two-sided
message includes both positively and negatively valenced informa-
tion. Prior marketing literature [49] suggested that two-sided infor-
mation enhances the completeness of information, and thus is
perceived to be more credible. Existing eWOM studies have also ex-
amined the relationship between sidedness of eWOM and eWOM
credibility [21,28]. Therefore, we believe that eWOM sidedness
has a positive influence on eWOM credibility.
P7. eWOM sidedness is positively associated with eWOM credibility.
A considerable number of market-level studies have found that
the volume of reviews is significantly associated with product sales
[25,29,60]. Most of these studies even showed that review ratings
are not associated with product sales, but that the number of reviews

Table 3
Factors associated with the response.
Constructs Definitions
Attitude Reviewer's overall evaluation
of a person, objects (e.g.
brand/products/websites)
and issues
Information A process in which people
adoption purposefully engage in using
information
Information The perception of an eWOM
usefulness message being useful
Trust General belief of the
truthfulness of the message
Purchase The willingness to purchase a
intention product in the future
Product choice/ Products that a consumer
purchase chooses to purchase at
decision e-commerce websites
Repurchase The willingness to purchase a
intention product again in the future
Switching Switching to other products/
brands
Expected The expected amount of
spending money that will be spent to
purchase a product in the
next 12 months
Knowledge about Knowledge about the product
product category
Thought about The extent to which
product consumers have thought
Interest in about the product category
product The extent to which
consumers are interested in
learning more about the
product category
Time spent The amount of time spent on
searching and considering
product choice
Social presence The extent to which a
psychological connection is
formed between a website
and its visitors
Perceived The extent to which an
usefulness individual perceives a website
to be useful in performing
shopping tasks
eWOM review The perceived degree to
credibility which an eWOM review
provides accurate and truthful
information.
Perceived Perceived level of popularity
popularity of of a certain product
product
Perceived The extent to which an
informativeness eWOM message is able to
of message offer necessary information
which helps readers
understand the product
Perceived product Perceived level of product
quality quality
Willingness to Willingness to recommend
recommend products in the future
Helpfulness Perception of the helpfulness
of reviews
is significantly associated with product sales. Berger et al. [6] have
empirically illustrated that “any publicity is good publicity”. They
found that even negative publicity (e.g., negative eWOM) can in-
crease purchase likelihood. Duan et al. [29] argued that online con-
sumer reviews convey the existence of the product and thus create
an awareness effect. Therefore, eWOM volume exhibits a positive re-
lationship with purchase intention.
C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470 465
Table 4
Factors associated with the stimulus.
Studies Constructs Definitions Studies
[23,28,56,57,71] Argument quality Argument quality refers to the [4,15,21,23,56,67,73,78]
—Relevance persuasive strength of
—Timeliness arguments embedded in an
—Accuracy informational message [7]
[15,21,60,64,74,78] — Relevance refers to the extent to
Comprehensiveness which the messages are
applicable and useful for
[15] decision making
Timeliness concerns whether the
[4,60] messages are current, timely,
and up-to-date
[8,28,46,54,57,64,65,67,73,77] Accuracy concerns reliability of
the messages/arguments. It also
[36,46,69,72,74] represents a user's perception
that the information is correct
[76]
[34] Comprehensiveness of messages
refers to their completeness
[36] Recommendation The valence of an eWOM [34,55,57,64,71,77]
framing (valence) message and whether it is
[8] positive or negative [60]
Recommendation A one-sided message presents [21,28,34,46,56]
sidedness (ratio of either the positive or negative
positive message: elements, but not both
[8] negative message) A two-sided message includes
both positive and negative
[8] elements
Number of reviews Total number of posted reviews [34,36,56,64,65,67,73]
(volume)
Review type Orientation of a review (e.g. [65,66,72,77]
experimental vs factual)
Recommendation The overall rating given by other [21]
rating readers on an eWOM
[36] recommendation
Recommendation Whether the current eWOM [21]
consistency recommendation is consistent
[54] with other contributors'
experiences concerning the
same product/service
evaluation
[54,59,77] Review rate The rating given by [55]
communicators on a product
Sales volume The number of products sold [45]
[21,28,64]
P8. eWOM volume is positively associated with purchase intention.
[66] When applying the dual-process theory of human information
processing, including the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) [68]
and Heuristic–Systematic Model (HSM) [9] in the eWOM context, re-
[66]
searchers tended to consider quality of reviews (argument quality)
as the central route, while source credibility and quantity of reviews
were considered as the peripheral cues (see Table 7). The central/
systematic route involves careful examination of the messages before
[55]
forming an attitude, whereas the peripheral/heuristic route relies on
[57] environmental cues of the message to decide whether to accept the
message or not. In this integrative framework, argument quality refers
[71] to “the strength or plausibility of persuasive argumentation” [30]. The
quality of argument (information) is basically evaluated in terms of
the information content, accuracy, format, and timeliness [61]. The in-
formation adoption model explains the relationship between argument
quality and information usefulness [15,21,78].
P9. eWOM quality is positively associated with information usefulness.
5.3. Communicators
The communicator refers to the person who transmits the commu-
nication. Traditional WOM primarily emanates from a sender
(source) who is known to the receiver of the information, thereby
466 C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470

ensuring that the credibility of the communicator and the message is P11. Attribution (non-stimulus related) is negatively associated with
known to the receiver. In the traditional WOM literature, marketing eWOM credibility.
scholars have demonstrated that a personal source of information
has a strong impact on consumer preferences and choices [2,41]. In
the offline world, people judge communicators based on a number 5.4. Receivers
of attributes, including credibility, attractiveness, physical appear-
ance, familiarity, and power. The receiver is the individual who responds to the communication.
In the context of eWOM communication, consumers exchange The actual impact of the information received may vary from person
opinions and experiences outside their personal social network. to person. The same content can engender very different responses in
They usually share and exchange product/brand information with a different recipients [9], depending on the recipients' perceptions, expe-
vast and geographically dispersed group of strangers through blogs, rience, and sources. This has led researchers to gain interest in the infor-
online consumer review platforms, shopping bot sites, social net- mation adoption process to understand the extent of informational
working sites, and the like [25,64]. This has the potential to raise re- influence on people's minds. In the information adoption literature,
ceivers' concern about the credibility of this form of reviews [32]. It Sussman and Siegal [75] found that the receivers' experience and
was also reflected in our literature analysis that source credibility is knowledge moderates both the central influences (the nature of argu-
the most frequently investigated factor associated with the communi- ments in the message) and peripheral influences (the subject matter
cator. Source credibility refers to a message receiver's perception of of the message) on information adoption in computer-mediated com-
the credibility of a message source, reflecting nothing about the mes- munication contexts. In the eWOM literature, consumers' character-
sage itself [9]. It is defined as the extent to which an information istics, such as consumer expertise and involvement, also play an
source is perceived to be believable, competent, and trustworthy by important moderating role in determining the impact of eWOM
information receivers [68]. Source credibility includes two major di- content (e.g., type and number of online consumer reviews) on pur-
mensions: expertise and trustworthiness [44,75]. Table 5 summarizes chase intention [28,65]. Researchers further investigated other factors
the key factors associated with the communicator in the literature of related to personal characteristics, such as gender, consumer skepti-
eWOM communication. cism, and cognitive personalization. Table 6 provides a summary of fac-
In the context of eWOM communication, online reviews are usual- tors associated with the receiver.
ly shared by unknown individuals. Park et al. [67] argued that online Dual-process theory suggests that people who have the motivation
reviews may have less credibility than traditional WOM messages. and ability are more likely to process information via the central route
Park and Lee [64] also suggested that receivers may have difficulty [9,10,30]. In this literature analysis, we observed that researchers ex-
in determining the source credibility of eWOM messages. Though amined how receivers' characteristics affected the likelihood of elabo-
some studies have doubted the role of source credibility in the context ration and moderated the impact of eWOM messages on consumer
of eWOM communication [16], we noticed that most studies found purchase decision. Among the 25 individual-level eWOM studies, in-
that source credibility has a significant direct influence on eWOM ef- volvement (motivation) and prior knowledge (expertise) are the two
fects (see Table 7). The results are consistent with the traditional source most widely studied characteristics of the receivers [21,28,36,56,65,66].
credibility literature and thus, we postulate that source credibility has a As shown in Table 7, the receivers' characteristics are usually postulated
positive relationship with eWOM credibility. as moderators affecting both central and peripheral routes on consumer
purchase decisions.
P10. Source credibility is positively associated with eWOM credibility. Involvement refers to personal relevance or importance of a
product/service. A meta-analysis found that involvement is associated
Attribution theory explains how people make causal inferences
regarding why a communicator advocates and behaves in a certain
way [62]. When receivers attribute the communicator's review to
product reasons (stimulus), they will perceive the review to be cred-
Table 6
ible, and will consider it useful. On the other hand, when receivers at-
Factors associated with the receiver.
tribute the review to reviewer reasons (non-stimulus), they suspect
his/her underlying motives of writing such a review, and are less like- Constructs Definitions Studies
ly to be persuaded by that review [57,71]. In other words, how re- Prior knowledge Prior knowledge of the review topic and the [20,65]
ceivers attribute the communicator's message has an effect on the (of review platform (e.g. discussion forum)
persuasiveness of the message. topic/
platform)
Confirmation The level of confirmation/disconfirmation [21]
of prior between the received information and their
belief prior beliefs relating to the reviewed
Table 5 product/service
Factors associated with the communicator. Involvement The degree of psychological identification [21,28,56,66,67]
and affective, emotional ties the consumer
Constructs Definitions Studies
has with a stimulus or stimuli
Source credibility Message source's perceived ability (expertise) or [15,21,78] Motivation Motivations possess by the consumers [36]
—Expertise motivation to provide accurate and truthful [15,72] to process (readers of the eWOM message) to process
information (trustworthiness) [15,23,72] information information; in other words, it is a person's
—Trustworthiness Expertise can be viewed as the perceived level of innate desire to think about information
“authoritativeness”, “competence” and Focused search The extent to which members have specific [78]
“expertness” information needs in mind during their
Source type Information source of recommendation (e.g. [45,54] active search for on-topic information
consumer reports, friends, salesmen, etc.) Gender Gender of the reviewers (male/female) [4]
Attribution Attribution to the reviewer's motive in posting [57,71] Product Subjective evaluation of products (e.g., color, [55]
the review preference style, and shape)
Social tie The level of intensity of a social relationship [74] Consumer The tendency toward disbelief [57,73]
between two individuals skepticism
Homophily The degree to which pairs of individuals are [74] Cognitive How people interpret events in a [77]
similar in age, gender, education, and social status personalization self-referential manner
 C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470 467

with information processing [48]. Our review found that prior studies
have already empirically shown how involvement moderates the
eWOM effect in consumer decision process. For example, Lee et al.
[56] demonstrated that as involvement increases, the effect of nega-
tive eWOM is greater for high-quality eWOM than for low-quality
eWOM. Park and Lee [66] also found that for high involvement re-
ceivers, the perceived informativeness of an eWOM message has a
higher effect on purchasing intention than the perceived product
popularity. When individuals have higher involvement, they have
greater motivation to engage in effortful cognitive activity through
the central route. When individuals have lower involvement, they
tend to rely on peripheral cues during information processing. There-
fore, in our integrative framework, consumer involvement exhibits a
moderating effect upon the relationship between eWOM quality and
information usefulness, as well as upon the relationship between
eWOM quality and purchase intention.
P12. Consumer involvement moderates the relationship between eWOM
quality and information usefulness.
P13. Consumer involvement moderates the relationship between eWOM
quality and purchase intention.

Table 7
Central vs. peripheral routes.

Authors (year) Central/systematic Peripheral/heuristic Moderators Relationships

route route

Cheung et al. [15] Argument quality Source credibility NIL Argument quality (relevancea, timelinessb, accuracyb,
comprehensivenessa) → information usefulness
Source credibility (expertiseb, trustworthinessb) → information
usefulness
Cheung et al. [21] Informational influence Normative influence Receiver characteristics Informational influence (argument strengtha,
(involvement, prior recommendation framingb, recommendation sidednessb,
knowledge of source credibilitya, confirmation with prior beliefa) → eWOM credibility
review topic, prior Normative influence (recommendation consistencya,
knowledge recommendation ratinga) → eWOM credibility
of platform)
Chu and Kamal Argument quality Perceived blogger Sender characteristics Perceived blogger trustworthiness → elaborationa
[23] trustworthiness (trustworthiness) Perceived blogger trustworthiness moderates the impact
of argument quality on brand attitudea
Gupta and Harris NIL Amount of messages Receiver characteristics Motivation to process information moderates the impact of
[36] (motivation to process the amount of messages on time on considering the products and
information) product acceptancea
Lee et al. [56] Quality of negative Amount of negative Receiver characteristics Quality → product attitudea
messages messages (involvement) Amount → product attitudea
Involvement moderates the impact of the quality on product attitudea
Involvement moderates the impact of the amount on product attitudea
Park and Kim [65] Type of reviews Number of reviews Receiver characteristics Expertise moderates the impact of the type of review on purchase
(attribute-centric (expertise) intentiona
vs. benefit-centric) Expertise moderates the impact of the number of review on purchase
intentiona
Park and Lee [66] Perceived Perceived product Receiver characteristics Perceived informativeness → purchase intentiona
informativeness popularity (involvement) Perceived product popularity → purchase intentiona
of reviews Involvement moderates the impact of the perceived informativeness of
reviews on purchase intentiona
Involvement moderates the impact of the perceived product popularity
on purchase intentiona
Park et al. [67] Quality Quantity Receiver characteristics Quality → purchase intentiona
(involvement) Quantity → purchase intentiona
Involvement moderates the impact of the quality on purchase intentiona
Involvement moderates the impact of the quantity on purchase
intentiona
Sher and Lee [73] Quality Quantity Receiver characteristics Skepticism moderates the impact of the quality on purchase intentiona
(skepticism) Skepticism moderates the impact of the quantity on purchase intentiona
Zhang and Watts Argument quality Source credibility Receiver characteristics Argument quality → information adoptiona
[78] Study 1 (disconfirming Source credibility → information adoptiona
information, Disconfirming information moderates the impact of argument quality
focused search) on information adoptiona
Disconfirming information moderates the impact of source credibility
on information adoptiona
Focused search moderates the impact of argument quality on
information adoptionb
Focused search moderates the impact of source credibility on
information adoptiona
Zhang and Watts Argument quality Source credibility Receiver characteristics Argument quality → information adoptiona
[78] Study 2 (disconfirming Source credibility → information adoptiona
information, Disconfirming information moderates the impact of argument quality
focused search) on information adoptionb
Disconfirming information moderates the impact of source credibility
on information adoptiona
Focused search moderates the impact of argument quality on
information adoptionb
Focused search moderates the impact of source credibility on
information adoptionb
a
Significant effect.
b
Insignificant effect.
468 C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470
Receivers' ability (prior knowledge/consumer expertise) determines the
degree of effortful information processing. The relationship between con-
sumer expertise and traditional WOM is under-researched and existing
studies tend to generate inconsistent results. Park and Kim [65] argued
that the inconsistency may be related to the type of WOM message.
They built on cognitive fit theory and argued that the efficiency of infor-
mation processing depends on whether receivers are able to use appro-
priate cognitive processes from given information. Building on the
dual-process theory, we believe that consumer prior knowledge has a
moderating impact on the relationship between eWOM quality and infor-
mation usefulness.
P14. Consumer prior knowledge moderates the relationship between
eWOM quality and information usefulness
Source credibility is also defined as a peripheral cue in consumer
information processing. Peripheral cues are variables that allow an in-
dividual to arrive at a judgment of an argument without processing
the message arguments themselves [68]. In other words, a peripheral
cue is an element in a message that is not directly related to the merit
of the product and typically required less effort to process [51]. Thus,
we expect both consumer involvement and consumer prior knowl-
edge will moderate the impact of source credibility on eWOM credi-
bility in the current study.
P15. Consumer involvement moderates the relationship between source
credibility and eWOM credibility.
P16. Consumer prior knowledge moderates the relationship between
source credibility and eWOM credibility.
5.5. Contextual factors
Since receivers are mostly unfamiliar with the credentials of com-
municators in the context of eWOM communication, they tend to
look for a variety of cues that are present within the review (e.g.,
characteristics of a stimuli) and associated with its environment
(e.g., credibility of websites/platform) when determining the quality
of eWOM messages [13]. Hovland and Weiss [43] suggested that in-
formation from a source that is perceived to be more trustworthy
can lead to increased persuasiveness of that information. In recent
years, researchers attempted to compare the trustworthiness of infor-
mation on different platforms. Bickart and Schindler [8] found that
consumer reviews are more influential than marketer-generated in-
formation on corporate websites. They suggested that consumer re-
views usually have greater credibility, greater relevance, and greater
ability to evoke empathy. Park and Lee [64] also found that the effect
of product reviews on established websites is greater than their effect
on under-established websites. Based on prior studies, we believe
that the nature of review platform relates to eWOM adoption.
P17. Type of review platform is positively associated with eWOM adoption.
6. Discussion and future research directions
The main objective of the present study is to provide a systematic
review of the existing literature on eWOM communication. Research
on eWOM communication is large and fragmented. There are two
main levels of analysis: market-level analysis and individual-level
analysis. In this study, we focused on the individual-level analysis
and summarized prior studies based on the social communication lit-
erature. Through a rigorous search of several mainstream MIS and
marketing journals, as well as key electronic databases, we identified
25 papers using the individual-level analysis in the investigation of
the impact of eWOM communication on online consumer behavior.
Based on the social communication literature, we identified and sum-
marized factors related to the key elements of eWOM communication,
and we also proposed an integrative framework for the study of the im-
pact of eWOM communication.
The integrative framework is composed of five essential compo-
nents — communicators, stimuli, receivers, responses and contextual
factors. As mentioned earlier, unlike traditional WOM communication,
eWOM communication possesses unprecedented speed of diffusion
and enables multi-directional exchanges of information between com-
municators and receivers. Thus, the contextual factor, namely the plat-
form in which people exchange information, is what distinguishes
eWOM from traditional WOM. Due to the rapidly changing nature of
the Internet, the contextual factor — the platform — is expected to be
one of the most crucial factors impacting the eWOM adoption process
in the future. As Web 3.0 becomes the new generation of the World
Wide Web, information and most of the behaviors of users will be cap-
tured and stored in a huge database further enhancing the visibility, ac-
cessibility, and legibility of eWOM data. We expect that the migration of
Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 could facilitate eWOM communication and play a
more important role in influencing consumer purchase decision.
6.1. Contributions and future research directions
This study provides a comprehensive overview of the current sta-
tus of knowledge within the domain of eWOM communication re-
search. We synthesized the findings of our literature analysis and
derived a theoretical model for the study of the impact of eWOM
communication at the individual level.
This paper advances our knowledge of eWOM communication.
First, we conducted a thorough analysis of the literature in the area
of eWOM communication. A wide range of factors related to the key
elements of social communication were identified and classified. To
our knowledge, this is the first study that builds on the social commu-
nication framework to classify eWOM research papers and develop an
integrative model. This theoretical model provides an important
foundation for future research as it integrates key factors of the
major elements of eWOM communication.
Second, our literature analysis shows that the literature on the im-
pact of eWOM communication is rather fragmented. Attitude, pur-
chase intention, purchase, and eWOM adoption are the four most
investigated response variables in eWOM communication. Most
existing studies focused only on one or two of these key response var-
iables, and the interrelationships among key variables have not been
systematically reviewed and studied. In the current study, we theo-
retically postulated the interrelationships among the key response
variables. We strongly believe that future research could use our
framework as a basis to explore empirically how the characteristics
of other key elements (stimuli, communicators, receivers, and con-
textual factors) of social communication affect the response variables.
Third, we have identified a wide range of variables related to the
key elements of social communication (see Tables 3–6). However,
we notice that a majority of these variables have only been studied
once. Of those which have been studied more often, their impact
has often been inconclusive. We attempted to provide an overview
of how the key elements are related to each other and derive a set
of propositions for future research work. The current framework is
built on prior studies and integrates research findings across existing
studies. We therefore encourage researchers to explore theories from
different disciplines and to use them to study how other key elements
of social communication affect eWOM communication. For example,
researchers can further investigate how other factors related to re-
ceivers' characteristics, such as gender, consumer skepticism, and
cognitive personalization affect the eWOM adoption as well as con-
sumer purchase decision. Finally, researchers should continue to ex-
plore the impact of contextual factors, such as how the nature of
different UGC platforms and their credibility influence eWOM adop-
tion and consumer purchase decision.
 C.M.K. Cheung, D.R. Thadani / Decision Support Systems 54 (2012) 461–470
6.2. Limitations
Some limitations should be noted. The results and analyses of this
study were limited to the pool of journals that satisfied our selection
criteria. For instance, we built our conceptual model on the social
communication literature and we did not include market-level stud-
ies. From our preliminary review of market-level studies, we noticed
that these studies adopted a very different theoretical research ap-
proach in examining the eWOM phenomenon. Future studies should
expand the literature analysis and the number of classified studies
based on different levels of analysis. Research on the impact of
eWOM communication is still emerging. Because of a limited number
of empirical studies, we were not able to perform a quantitative
meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is strongly recommended in the fu-
ture, so as to improve our understanding of the relative impacts of
the three elements (communicators, receivers, and stimuli) on the re-
sponses to eWOM communication, and the moderating roles of the
contextual factors.
7. Conclusions
To conclude, this literature analysis provides an overview of the
current status of knowledge in the domain of eWOM communication
research. Furthermore, we present a conceptual framework, and
identify the key variables of each of the four elements in the social
communication. We believe that this study will stimulate future re-
search on the impact of eWOM communication on consumer pur-
chase decision by drawing attention to the variables and linkages
that need further investigation.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Editor of DSS and the two anony-
mous referees for the insightful comments. The authors also acknowledge
with gratitude the generous support of the Hong Kong Baptist University
for the projects (FRG1/09-10/054) and (FRG1/10-11/006) without which
the timely production of the current publication would not have been
feasible.
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Christy M.K. Cheung is Associate Professor at Hong Kong
Baptist University. She received her Ph.D. from City University
of Hong Kong. Her research interests include virtual commu-
nity, knowledge management, social media, and IS adoption
and usage. Her research articles have been published in MIS
Quarterly, Decision Support Systems, Information & Manage-
ment, Journal of the American Society for Information Science
and Technology, and Journal of Information Technology.
Dimple R. Thadani is a Phd Candidate at City University of
Hong Kong. Her research interests include social computing
technology, e-learning, and online game leadership.