Asia Pacific Journal of Information Systems (APJIS)

menu05_sub01_ov.gif

Share this page

Past Issue

Date	September 2013
Vol. No.	Vol. 23 No. 3
DOI	http://dx.doi.org/10.14329/apjis.2013.23.3.131
Page	131~154
Title	Investigating the Influence of Perceived Usefulness and Self-Efficacy on Online WOM Adoption Based on Cognitive Dissonance Theory:Stick to Your Own Preference VS. Follow What Others Said
Author	Jung Hyun Lee, Joo Seok Park, Hyun Mo Kim, Jae Hong Park
Keyword	Online Word-of-Mouth, e-WOM, Cognitive Dissonance theory, Self-Efficacy, Information Usefulness, Information Adoption
Abstract	New internet technologies have created a revolutionary new platform which allows consumers to make decision about product price and quality quickly and provides information about themselves through the transcript of online reviews. By expressing their feelings toward products or services on virtual opinion platforms, users extend their influence into cyberspace as electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). Existing research indicates that an impact of eWOM on the consumer decision process is influential. For both academic researchers and practitioners, investigating this phenomenon of information sharing in online website is essential given the increasing number of consumers using them as sources of purchase decisions.It is worthwhile to examine the extent to which opinion seekers are willing to accept and adopt online reviews and which factors encourage adoption. Discerning the most motivating aspects of information adoption in particular, could help electronic marketers better promote their brand and presence on the internet.The objectives of this study are to investigate how online WOM influences a persons purchase decision by discovering which factors encourage information adoption. Especially focused on the self-efficacy, this research investigates how self-efficacy affects on information usefulness and adoption of online information. Although people are exposed to same review or comment about product or service, some accept the reviews while others do not. We notice that accepting online reviews mainly depends on the persons preference or personal characteristics. This study empirically examines this issue by using cognitive dissonance theory.Specifically, in the movie industry, we address few questions - is always positive WOM generating positive effect? What if the movie isnt the persons favorite genre? What if the person who is very self-assertive so doesnt take others opinion easily? In these cases of cognitive dissonance, is always WOM generating same result? While many studies have focused on one direct of WOM which indicates positive (or negative) informative reviews or comments generate positive (or negative) results and more (or less) profits, this study investigates not only directional properties of WOM but also how people change their opinion towards product or service positive to negative, negative to positive through the online WOM.An experiment was conducted quantitatively by using a sample of 168 users who have experience within the online movie review site, Naver Movie Users were required to complete a survey regarding reviews and comments taken the real movie page. The data reflected users perceptions of online WOM information that determined users adoption level.Analysis results provide empirical support for the proposed theoretical perspective. When user cant agree with the opinion of online WOM information, in other words, when cognitive dissonance between online WOM information and users preference occurs, perceived self-efficacy significantly decreases customers perception of usefulness. And this perception of usefulness plays an important role in determining users intention to adopt online WOM information. Most of researches have been concentrated on characteristics of online WOM itself such as quality or vividness of information, credibility of source and direction of online WOM, etc. for describing effect of online WOM, but our results suggest that users personal character (e.g., self-efficacy) plays decisive role for acceptance of online WOM information. Higher self-efficacy means lower possibility to accept the information that represents counter opinion because of cognitive dissonance, whereas the people that have lower self-efficacy are willing to accept the online WOM information as true and refer to purchase decision.This study suggests a model for understanding role of direction of online WOM information. Also, our result implicates the importance of online review supervision and personalized information service by confirming switching opinion negative to positive is more difficult than positive to negative through the online WOM information. This implication would help marketers to manage online reviews of their products or services.

Home l Site Map l Abstracting/Indexing l FAQ l Publisher l Contact Us l Admin Login

© 2013 The Korean Society of Management Information Systems. All rights reserved.