| Internet not only changes people's lifestyle, but also creates new business mode and economic form. On the one hand, more and more consumers come into contact with internet and air their opinion, share information or get resource through this way. It's becoming more and more common for consumers to utilize electric medium to contact with each other. On the other hand, companies in every industry all wake up to the all-around challenge with the development of Internet technology and try to find their way out from strategy, marketing, technology and other aspects.With the development of internet technology and virtual community, there's a mass of information to be diffuse every day in network environment. Although it's identified by both academia and practice that, compared to other information source such as advertisement, consumers may consider Peer Recommendations to be more credible and useful, the flow of product-related communication from consumer to consumer (C2C) remains a much less researched aspect of e-commerce (Smith, Menon & Sivakumar, 2005).Previous research in the field of virtual community shows that there are few empirical studies on intercommunion, organization, participation and knowledge sharing in virtual community. Also, previous research in the field of marketing engineering shows that there are few empirical studies on the process of word-of-mouth (WOM) and the motivating factors of sources of WOM.Based on the review of relevant theories and literature, with the background of flourish of internet and e-commerce in China, this paper emphasize on the motivation of source of WOM as members of virtual communities and the impact of this new-style information on consumers' purchase decision. The research purpose is to put forward online WOM theory based on network and trust through study on behavior rule of participators of virtual channels and provide advice of internet and e-commerce practice.This paper put forward two conceptive models, they are model of motivating factors of consumers' online WOM deliver behavior and model of impact of online WOM on consumers' purchase decision. The research comprises of five problems from two aspects. They are motivating factors of online WOM and virtual social capital from aspect of sender and factors of online WOM impact, the process of impact of online WOM on consumers' purchase decision and moderating effect of product category from aspect of receiver.The paper adopt both normative research and empirical research, and both quantitative research such as literature reading, depth interview, grounded theory and qualitative research such as questionnaire and data processing software (SPSS 15.0 & AMOS5.0). Through the survey, the research collected 632 valid samples from 51 virtual communities and product review sites of 12 categories. The conclusions are summed up as follow:1. According to traditional motivating theory and virtual community theory in marketing, we combine Social Exchange Theory(Blau,1964) and Social Cognitive Theory(Bandura,1989), analyze the motivating factors of consumers' WOM diffuse behavior from personal-related outcome expectations, community-related outcome expectations, product-related outcome expectations and knowledge self-efficacy.The empirical study shows that the "quantity" and "quality" of WOM information sharing behavior have different factors. Personal-related outcome expectations play an important role in terms of both quantity and quality while product-related outcome expectations and knowledge self-efficacy have a positive effect on quantity and community-related outcome expectations have a positive effect on quality. These conclusions partly prove current research conclusions on knowledge sharing in professional and interest virtual communities (Ridings & Gefen, 2004; Wang& Fesenmaier, 2004;Wasko & Faraj, 2005; Chiu, Hsu & Wang, 2006) and extend the conclusion on consumer-opinion platforms by Hennig-Thurau et al.(2004).This research extend classical theory from professional and interest virtual communities to consumer virtual platforms.2. This research uses "virtual social capital theory" (Mathwick&Klebba, 2002) for reference,based on the theoretical model proposed by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998),we develop a conceptual model to examine how interpersonal network and three forms of social capital (cognitive, structural, and relational)relate to WOM information sharing behavior, improving on the research actuality which mostly from scattered and simplex point of view in this field.The empirical study shows that norm of reciprocity and commitment have a significant and positive effect on quantity and quality of WOM behavior, while online social interaction ties and membership increase quantity but not quality, trust and emotional connection increase quality but not quantity. This research exploits a new way on consumer virtual community.3. Based on previous research on WOM in marketing, this paper use two widely applied models on WOM proposed by Gilly et al.(1998) and Bansal & Voyer (2002) for reference and modify it in virtual environment. We apply Grounded Theory to be an accessorial qualitative method during model construction because of the inadequacy of research outcome in online social network and eWOM. The research analyzes factors of online WOM impact from three points of view of relation,individual and site with three aspects of tie strength,source credibility and homophily. The empirical study shows that all independent variables except online tie strength have significant and positive effect on online WOM impact. The conclusion not only proves the applicability of the modified model in online environment, but also enriches the previous conclusion in this field by Smith (2002),Komiak (2003) and Wang (2004).4. Based on the conclusion above, the research carries further to impact mechanism process of online WOM on purchase decision with classical trust theory in e-commerce & internet marketing field (Koufaris & Hampton-Sosa, 2004;Gefen & Straub,2003;Gefen et al.,2003).The empirical study shows that there are two main factors affect online WOM impact in mechanism process. Firstly, consumers' WOM actively sought. As members of virtual communities, consumers' interpersonal tie strength, expertise of source and the atmosphere and characteristic of sites play an important role underlying consumers' WOM actively sought which then has significant and positive effect on online WOM impact. Secondly, trust. Consumers' disposition to trust, relationship between an individual and a site and site trustworthiness play an important role underlying trust which then has significant and positive effect on online WOM impact. The empirical conclusion not only validates the theoretical model proposed by Brown, Broderick & Lee(2007) and the conclusions proposed by Smith(2002) and Komiak(2003) , but also validates the important role of trust in mechanism impact process of WOM in Chinese background.5. This paper also discuss the moderate effect of product category. The conclusion not only validates the conclusions proposed by Wang(2004) and Smith(2002), but also extend these previous research on research content and metrical dimension.The conclusions of this research not only have significant theoretical contribution in the field of e-commerce and word-of-mouth marketing, but also reveal crucial practical meanings for companies and virtual network operators with background of Chinese Characteristics. |
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