Negative Online Word-of-Mouth and Consumers’ Product Attitudes: a Nonlinear Relationship

Gao, Fei; Qi, Wen’e; Cui, Ziyun

doi:10.7819/rbgn.v26i01.4249

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Article • Rev. Bras. Gest. Neg. 26 (1) • 2024 • https://doi.org/10.7819/rbgn.v26i01.4249 copy

Negative Online Word-of-Mouth and Consumers’ Product Attitudes: a Nonlinear Relationship

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

Purpose

Word-of-mouth (WOM) valence refers to the favorable impact of positive WOM on marketing outcomes. However, studies have shown that negative WOM can have a greater influence. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of negative online WOM (OWOM) on marketing.

Theoretical framework

Drawing from the perspectives of psychology and communication, and using the sender-message-channel-receiver (SMCR) communication process theory, we construct a moderated mediation model to explore the mechanism and threshold of WOM recipients’ product involvement in reversing the impact of WOM valence on product attitude.

Design/methodology/approach

SPSS 22.0 and SmartPLS 3.0 were used to empirically analyze the survey data from a sample of 1,107 consumers.

Findings

Our study reveals a nonlinear relationship between negative OWOM recipients’ product involvement and consumer product attitude, mediated by risk perception and moderated by sender characteristics and WOM characteristics. The relationship shows a U-shaped curve between product involvement and product attitude, and an inverted U-shaped curve between product involvement and risk perception. Risk perception mediates the relationship between product involvement and product attitude, which varies with the strength of the sender-recipient relationship and the amount of negative WOM. Sender professionalism moderates both the U-shaped and the inverted U-shaped curves.

Practical & social implications of research

From a practical standpoint, our findings have implications for the management of OWOM marketing for fresh agricultural products.

Originality/value

Our study provides a more nuanced understanding of the impact of negative WOM on consumer attitudes, challenging the one-sided focus on strengthening positive WOM valence in the context of the Internet.

Keywords:
Negative online word-of-mouth; recipient characteristics; fresh agricultural products; product attitude; product involvement

Variable	Statements
Recipient characteristics Product involvement	Lychee is a fruit I often pay attention to.
	Lychee makes my life more flavorful.
	My family and I always taste some lychees when they are in season.
	I always see lychees being sold in the shopping places I frequently visit during the lychee season.
	My relatives and friends all buy and taste some lychees when they are in season.
	I have devoted some effort to researching lychees.
Recipient characteristics Trust propensity	I tend to trust others unless there is a reason that I cannot trust them.
	I usually place trust in people or things, even if I know little about them.
	I believe that human nature is generally good and trustworthy.
	I believe that people are generally reliable.
	I am usually willing to trust product information provided by others.
	I am usually willing to judge a product based on information provided by other consumers.
Risk perception	Eating lychee will harm my health.
	Buying lychee is a waste of money.
	My family and friends disapprove of my buying lychee.
	Buying lychee makes me anxious, as I am concerned about the potential health risks associated with consuming it.
Product attitude A Product attitude B	I (still) believe that lychee is a safe fruit.
	I (still) find lychee to be a delicious fruit.
	I (still) feel something is missing if I do not eat lychee during the summer.
	I (still) like lychee very much.
	I (still) trust the quality of lychee.
	I (still) want to buy lychee.
	I am (still) willing to recommend buying lychee to others.

Variables	Percentage (%)	Variables	Percentage (%)
Gender		Occupation
Male	49.9	Business	36.9
Female	50.1	Student	26.6
Age (years)		Public servant	13.6
Under 25	46.3	Self-employed	11.6
26-35	26.9	Other	11.3
36-45	13.9	Education
46 and over	12.9	Non-degree holder	35.8
Daily online time (hours)		Bachelor’s degree	44.6
Fewer than 2	16.4	Postgraduate degree	19.6
2 to 4	35.0	Monthly income (RMB)
4 to 6	23.1	3,000 or less	37.7
6 to 8	12.2	3,001 to 5,000	30.4
8 to 10	7.0	5,001 to 7,000	14.3
More than 10	6.3	More than 7,000	17.6

	Mean	SD	Cronbach's α	CR	AVE	1	2	3	4
1. Product attitude	3.38	0.80	0.880	0.907	0.624	0.787
2. Product involvement	3.34	0.89	0.828	0.877	0.589	0.545	0.768
3. Trust propensity	3.34	0.88	0.702	0.783	0.558	0.158	0.208	0.747
4. Risk perception	2.25	0.90	0.834	0.889	0.668	-0.232	-0.167	-0.066	0.817

	Risk perception			Product attitude
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7	Model 8	Model 9
Gender	0.013	0.003	0.010	-0.048	-0.030	-0.051	-0.030	-0.027	-0.037
Age	0.019	0.049	0.037	-0.002	-0.107	-0.045	-0.107	-0.076	-0.054
Education	-0.107	-0.079	-0.074	0.07	0.074	0.067	0.074	0.054	0.046
Occupation	0.153	0.171*	0.164*	0.026	-0.034	0.041	-0.034	-0.03	-0.02
Monthly salary	0.008	0.002	0.006	-0.006	-0.031	-0.005	-0.031	0.002	-0.001
Daily online time	0.086	0.078	0.083	0.103	0.106	0.088	0.106	0.074	0.057
Time spent browsing Moments	0.02	0.041	0.036	-0.113	-0.072	-0.064	-0.072	-0.074	-0.068
Lychee-planting area	0.096	-0.001	0.004	-0.135	-0.028	-0.125	-0.028	-0.001	-0.006
Product involvement		0.05	-0.054		-0.163		-0.163	-0.162	0.06
Product involvement²		-0.274^***	-0.062		0.417***		0.417***	0.417***	0.079
Trust propensity		0.041	0.03		0.024		0.024	0.036	0.052
Trust propensity²		0.047	0.033		0.007		0.007	0.02	0.039
Risk perception						-0.185**	-0.081		-0.036
professionalism		-0.155^*	0.029					0.215***	-0.069
Product involvement × professionalism			0.098						-0.211
professionalism² × professionalism			-0.325^**						0.486***
Trust propensity × professionalism			0.058						-0.004
Trust propensity2 × professionalism			0.071						0.018
R²	0.047	0.123	0.125	0.044	0.174	0.034	0.174	0.221	0.236
F	1.26	9.799	14.996	1.187	44.536	7.485	44.536	29.714	65.104
△R²	0.047	0.024	0.027	0.044	0.174	0.034	0.174	0.046	0.236

	Risk perception			Product attitude
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7	Model 8
Gender	0.012	0.018	0.023	0.01	-0.036	0.006	-0.037	-0.034
Age	-0.063	-0.051	-0.062	0.102	0.034	0.118^*	0.022	0.01
Education	0.068	0.077	0.09	-0.172	-0.103*	-0.16**	-0.089*	-0.100*
Occupation	-0.175	-0.189^**	-0.164**	0.059	0.036	0.040	0.011	0.013
Monthly salary	0.016	0.007	-0.008	0.032	0.061	0.032	0.006	-0.098*
Daily online time	-0.065	-0.043	-0.032	-0.083	-0.044	-0.099	-0.05	-0.034
Time spent browsing Moments	0.068	0.061	0.077	0.114	0.092*	0.109*	0.098*	0.075
Lychee-planting area	0.083	0.077	0.082	-0.144	-0.062	-0.127*	-0.053	-0.078
Product involvement		0.54	0.027		-0.824^***		-0.743**	-0.300
Product involvement²		-0.112*	-0.005		1.411***		1.312***	0.989***
Trust propensity		0.031	0.044		-0.045		-0.041	-0.031
Trust propensity²		0.022	0.035		-0.033		-0.029	-0.014
Risk perception						-0.215***	-0.156***	-0.120**
Relationship strength			-0.100					0.630***
Product involvement × Relationship strength			-0.183**					-0.641***
professionalism2 × Relationship strength			0.017					0.439
Trust propensity × Relationship strength			-0.033					-0.014
Trust propensity² × Relationship strength			-0.005					-0.068
R²	0.06	0.048	0.069	0.111	0.427	0.144	0.451	0.475
F	2.553	8.287	12.079	5.003	60.76	10.921	53.299	48.832
△R²	0.06	0.012	0.026	0.111	0.008	0.012	0.007	0.009

	Effect	SE	CI	Relative effect
Total effect	0.0986^***	0.0042	[ 0.0904,0.1068 ]
Direct effect	0.0951***	0.0042	[ 0.0869,0.1033 ]	96.45%
Indirect effect	0.0035***	0.0011	[ 0.0017,0.0058 ]	3.55%

	Risk perception			Product attitude
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6	Model 7	Model 8
Gender	0.000	-0.013	-0.034	0.010	0.039	0.009	0.034	0.034
Age	0.104	0.134^*	0.106	0.076	-0.030	0.026	0.005	0.005
Education	-0.183**	-0.136*	-0.167**	0.189	0.061	0.079	0.021	0.021
Occupation	-0.005	-0.006	0.028	0.014**	-0.007	0.012	0.006	0.006
Monthly salary	-0.158^**	0.023**	-0.123*	-0.035	-0.012	-0.077	-0.038	-0.038
Daily online time	-0.015	-0.011	-0.032	0.030	0.074	0.027	0.061	0.061
Time spent browsing Moments	0.084	0.084	0.088	-0.028	-0.034	0.002	-0.024	-0.024
Lychee-planting area	-0.027	-0.063	-0.069	-0.143**	-0.022	-0.153**	-0.036	-0.036
Product involvement		0.563	0.498		-0.109		0.045	0.045
Product involvement2		-0.202^***	-0.181**		0.668***		0.626***	0.626***
Trust propensity		-0.033	-0.053		0.020		0.005	0.005
Trust propensity²		-0.046	-0.064		0.022		0.003	0.003
Risk perception						-0.337***	-0.198***	-0.198***
The amount of WOM			0.150**					-0.033
Product involvement × The amount of WOM			0.088					-0.040
professionalism² × The amount of WOM			-0.115					-0.056
Trust propensity × The amount of WOM			-0.175					-0.016
Trust propensity² × The amount of WOM			-0.135					-0.005
R²	0.085	0.117	0.125	0.030	0.447	0.134	0.484	0.484
F	3.582	10.394	11.242	1.374	255.961	24.485	148.216	148.216
△R²	0.085	0.013	0.015	0.030	0.447	0.023	0.037	0.037

	Effect	SE	CI	Relative effect
Total effect	0.0958^***	0.0057	[ 0.0846,0.1070 ]
Direct effect	0.0898***	0.0058	[ 0.0784,0.1013 ]	93.74%
Indirect effect	0.0060***	0.0024	[ 0.0019,0.0111 ]	6.26%

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