Feeling warm or skeptical? An investigation into the effects of incentivized eWOM programs on customers’ eWOM sharing intentions

Ruolan Chen, Ruizhi Yuan, Bo Huang and Martin J. Liu

Journal of Business Research, 2023, vol. 167, issue C

Abstract: Marketing managers frequently provide incentives to customers to encourage electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) sharing. Yet, the literature remains unclear as to which forms of incentives are more effective than others. We conduct three experimental studies to investigate the effect of incentive type (economic vs. altruistic) on customers’ eWOM sharing intentions. Drawing on social judgment theory and attribution theory, in Study 1, we show that altruistic incentives generate higher eWOM sharing intention than economic incentives. We also reveal the mediating roles of customers’ perceptions of warmth and skepticism toward the company in the incentive type–eWOM sharing intention relationship. Studies 2 and 3 aim to identify the target customers of incentivized eWOM programs. In Study 2, we find that altruistic incentives are better provided to customers who are alone, as opposed to those with fellow customers. In Study 3, we find an interesting reverse effect of incentive type: altruistic incentives are less effective than economic incentives in producing eWOM sharing intention if customers have a weak tie with the company.

Keywords: eWOM sharing intention; Incentivized eWOM; Warmth perception; Skepticism; Presence of fellow customers; Tie strength (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296323005374
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:167:y:2023:i:c:s0148296323005374

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114178

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().