Social Word-of-mouth Posting:A Social Exchange Theory Perspective

It is a new phenomenon for consumers to post word of mouth on social media.There is a lack of clear definition and study for this kind of behavior.Based on the social exchange theory,this study which focused on social factors explored the factors from social benefits and social costs which would make positive or negative effect on social word of mouth(s-WOM).Combined with function of word of mouth and use and uses and gratifications framework,we put forward the function of s-WOM and proposed the social benefits: self-presentation,maintain interpersonal connectivity and enjoyment of helping others.Based on the research of self-disclosure and information sharing,we proposed social costs: privacy concern and perceived responsibility.And we also explored the moderating effect of emotional valence.Based on the above,the structural equation model was built.We designed a scenario-based questionnaire which described the situation of positive and negative consumption experiences.We also contextualized all the items.After questionnaire was developed,we collected 292 valid questionnaires in friends circle with snowball sampling method.All respondents were randomly assigned to the situations.The findings provided support for most of our hypotheses.But the negative impact of perceived responsibility on social word-of-mouth was not significant.In addition,the data indicated that the effect of enjoyment of helping others on intention was enhanced by positive emotion,which was different from previous studies.This study makes important contributions to research.First,this study extended the applicability of social exchange theory as a framework to social word-of-mouth intention.And the results provided references for future research on the generation and dissemination of business information in the social media.The finding also suggested the moderating effect of emotion valence.The research results would provide practical guidance for marketers about how to encourage consumers to post positive word-of-mouth through social media.In addition,we have an alternative model in the process.With the framework of social exchange theory,more factors were studied to explain the positive and negative word-of-mouth post intention respectively.The results showed that the significant factors are not exactly the same.And the framework had stronger explanatory power for positive word-of-mouth.This Research model could be further discussed in the future research.