6.5 Other variables

6.5.1 Controversality

• Increase sharing (H. S. Kim 2015)
• The presence of dissonance initiates interaction (Gunawardena, Lowe, and Anderson 1997) and people are motivated to reduce this dissonance (Festinger 1957)

6.5.2 Popularity

• Difference between views (popularity) and shares (virality)

  • Popularity usually contaminated by promotion (advertising)

6.5.3 Contractuality

(Lisjak, Bonezzi, and Rucker 2021) defined contractuality as ” the extend to which a perk is perceived to be conditional on specific behaviors and contingencies dictated by a company.”

• Consumers like to have perks with less salient contractuality.
• The existing relationship with the company (e.g., dislike, distrusted) may giving consumers the wrong intention, or let them interpret the park as a manipulative act with ulterior motives.
• Low contractuality perks can foster “real” authentic WOM, but you have to trade off with effectiveness and efficiency (e.g., as in the case of filling out satisfaction survey).

6.5.4 Locus of Control

(Lam and Mizerski 2005)

• An individual personality construct is locus of control

• Locus of control is defined as “individuals’ general and daily expectancies about the causes of their reward and punishment (Lam and Mizerski 2005, 216), consisting of internal (i.e., one can control his or her lives) and external (i.e., external factors can control their lives such as luck, or fate).

  • Internals tended to be more educated (Lachman and Leff 1989), higher household incomes (Hoffman, Novak, and Schlosser 2003), men and those in senior positions (P. B. Smith, Dugan, and Trompenaars 1997). Internals are more action-oriented, risk-taking.

  • Externals perform avoidance behavior, greater needs for affiliation

• Individuals with high internal locus of control are more likely to engage in WOM communication with their out-groups.

• Individuals with high external locus of control are more likely to engage in WOM with their in-group.

6.5.5 Horizontal/Vertical Individualism

(Choi and Kim 2019)

• Antecedents of WOM: homophily, tie strength, trust.

• Culture affects individuals’ communication attitudes and styles.

• Vertical (i.e., emphasizing hierarchy) and horizontal (i.e., emphasizing equality) dimensions of individualism and collectivism (HVIC) (Singelis et al. 1995)

  • opinion leadership: “the tendency that an individual attempts to influence the decisions of others by giving his or her opinion about products, services, or firms” (Choi and Kim 2019, 294)

    • socially appropriate (horizontal orientation)

    • show off knowledge (vertical orientation)

  • opinion seeking “the tendency that an individual seeks information or opinions from more knowledgeable others to find out about and/or evaluate products or services” (Choi and Kim 2019, 294)

    • well-informed decisions (individualism)

    • find values and beliefs of the reference group (collectivism)

  • Horizontal individualism is “a cultural pattern where an autonomous self is postulated but the individual is more or less equal in status with others” (Singelis et al. 1995, 245)

  • Vertical individualism is “a cultural pattern in which an autonomous self is postulated, but individuals see each other as different, and inequality is expected” (Singelis et al. 1995, 245).

  • Horizontal collectivism is “a cultural pattern in which the individual sees the self as an aspect of an in-group” (Singelis et al. 1995, 244).

  • Vertical collectivism is “a cultural pattern in which the individual sees the self as an aspect of an in-group, but the members of the in-group are different from each other, some having more status than others” (Singelis et al. 1995, 244).

• Collectivist culture will have greater levels of opinion seeking, whereas individualist culture has greater information-giving.(J. Fong and Burton 2008)

• Results:

  • “horizontal individualism to opinion leadership, vertical individualism to opinion leadership and opinion seeking”

  • “horizontal collectivism to opinion leadership, and vertical collectivism to opinion leadership and opinion seeking”

6.5.6 Linguistic style

• Moore (2012) found how different explaining language can influence the storytellers. Linguistic content in nontraditional WOM (e.g., online reviews, or other online channels) can influence the storyteller.
• language abstraction (Schellekens, Verlegh, and Smidts 2010)
• explaining language (Moore 2012)
• figurative language (Kronrod and Danziger 2010)
• markers of modesty or boastful (Packard, Gershoff, and Wooten 2016)
• dispreferred markers (R. Hamilton, Vohs, and McGill 2014)
• personal pronouns (Packard and Wooten 2013)
• linguistic mimicry (Moore and McFerran 2017)

References

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