Forces affecting perception of product comments on social‐WOM: An interactive, relational communication perspective

Abstract

An attempt is made to explore the predicting factors of the perception of product comments on word‐of‐mouth through social media (social‐WOM). The concept of the Social Information Processing theory is borrowed to develop a 4‐stage framework in which 4 determinants drive the 2 perceptions of sWOM product comments through 2 sequential intervening mediators. The field study is conducted in Taiwan. Survey data are collected from a sample of 408 participants. The findings show that, in a social media community, intimacy, dominance, and informality alleviate the perception of environmental uncertainty, which in turn stimulates the involvement of sWOM product comments; eventually, both the outcome variables of trustability and quality of these comments arise. Additionally, task orientation and intimacy and dominance are able to drive community members to perceive the 2 outcome perceptions through the direct pathway of involvement. Furthermore, environmental uncertainty is capable of straightforwardly evoking the quality of comments.