An empirical analysis of the relationship between the internet users' eWOM behavior and their characteristics/motivation in Japan
2019 Volume 37 Issue 1 Pages 37-46
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2019 Volume 37 Issue 1 Pages 37-46
In this paper, we study the posting behavior with regard to eWOM (electronic word of mouth). The results showed that the only about 32% of the Internet users had posted eWOM. In addition, the results of our analysis showed that the age had a significant negative effect, educational attainment level, newspaper subscription, and internet use time had a significant positive effect on the probability of posting eWOM. Interestingly, there were many altruistic motives for posting.
Furthermore, a more detailed analysis about fake eWOM postings revealed that about 5.7% of Internet users who have posted eWOM had posted a lie at least once. In addition, age had a significant negative effect, and marital status and gender had a significant positive effect on probability of fake eWOM posting. Furthermore, people with selfish motives tended to post fake eWOM.
