Construct The Research System Of Word Of Mouth: Research On Diffusion Will Of Word Of Mouth And Measurement Of Word Of Mouth

The phenomenon of word of mouth is universal. Diffusion is the most universal, important and complex factor in the human life. Human always diffuse information to the other people with different methods, meanwhile human are influenced by information diffused by the other people. So it is difficult for human to escape the influence of diffusion. Diffusion is related with political, economic, culture and the other social factors, which is a revolutionary finding and has a number of impacts on the world. Whether through the face to face method or telephone form, BLOG and some other communication methods, word of mouth diffusion is wide and more popular. And also, word of mouth is very important to the society and consumers. Information provided by formal diffusion channel can not always satisfy the different individuals, and informal diffusion channel has big market in China. Comparing formal diffusion channel with informal diffusion, the character of Chinese group culture is obvious and the influence of informal diffusion channel is bigger for Chinese than the Western. Chinese consumers take word of mouth as an important information source, one of which, importantly and effectively, is what recommended by relatives and friends, which is different from the western. Believing in word of mouth information is an important character of Chinese information searching behavior. And the group culture formed by traditional society also gives rise to more and more communication between Chinese. Word of Mouth is the important informal communication method between consumers. To open a market, traditional method is to use advertisement, decreasing price and promotion, still word of mouth is also an important way. Word of Mouth has advantages of low cost, high trust and in favor of corporation image, meanwhile with disadvantages of many limitations, personal bias, wrong memory and not exact explanation. Anyway, though word of mouth can not replace the mass media but has more influence and advantages. Word of mouth has huge power not only in the field of consumer behavior but in the investment field as well. In the practice field of word of mouth, there is a word of mouth marketing association in American, and there are so many corporations being the members of WOMMA including AT&T and so on. Chinese"KOUBEI"websites get the investment of venture capital about 8 million dollar. SEEISEE provides the service of monitoring the word of mouth of internet survey in Shanghai. In terms of recent research status of word of mouth, more and more scholars are interested in the field of human communication behavior. In theory field, scholars do the research of word of mouth from the perspective of communication, consumer behavior, sociology and marketing. Psychologists do the research of individual behavior, taking the diffusion as a special form of individual behavior. Sociologists pay attention to society and the process, taking diffusion as an important social factor. And recently they pay attention to the form and influence of social network and relationship from the perspective of sociology. Anthropologists do research of diffusion from the perspective of culture, including diffusion method's influence to consumer concept and attitude. And also some research is related with information asymmetry from the perspective of diffusion, consumer information search, the influence of word of mouth to consumer information evaluation, purchase process, the effect of word of mouth to corporation from the perspective of consumer behavior and marketing and the relationship between diffusion and culture from the perspective of culture. The research of word of mouth in different perspectives can help us understand the phenomenon and behavior easily and deeply.Generally speaking, although the phenomenon and behavior of word of mouth attract the attention of so many scholars and people in practice, it is not enough to understand the full sides of this complex, important and normal word of mouth in the perspective of either practice or theory. And also, there are still some important and critical problems needed to be solved. Through understanding the influence factor, motive, and measurement of word of mouth diffusion deeply, and then we can recognize and master the human basic behavior of word of mouth diffusion. Doing the research of word of mouth from the perspectives of diffusion, psychology, sociology and so on, can enlarge the theory of diffusion, marketing and consumer behavior, and also benefits corporation practice.Regarding the research content, the research process and research method, this dissertation contains seven parts: Guide, literature summary, research hypothesis, research method, limitations and future research. To begin with, the dissertation does the literature summary according to the theory of sociology, psychology, diffusion, consumer behavior and marketing, then the consumer word of mouth diffusion model and the measurement model of word of mouth according to some measurement theory. The dissertation emphasizes the influence factor, motive and measurement and application of word of mouth. Under the basis of research outcome, through the empirical research method of observation record, case study and sampling survey, do the research mentioned above. Then according to the data collected, the dissertation has used the SPSS software, Lisrel and Amos of structure equation model to analyze the word of mouth will of consumer, and use MAPLE software to calculate the word of mouth measurement model. According to the statistics and conclusion, we analyze the model and give the suggestion. Finally, the dissertation discusses the limitations and future research.The dissertation has gotten some important conclusions as follows:Firstly, through the literature review and basic theory, the dissertation builds the framework of word of mouth from micro-level and macro-level.Secondly, the dissertation builds the CSQ-E-C model. Individual character, surprising things and consumer perceived quality will do direct influence to the will of word of mouth diffusion and also these three factors will influence the will through consumer emotion response indirectly. According to the empirical research result, the model will be supported in some conditions.Thirdly, information dependence, correlation and condition factor are the important external influence factors, and condition factor makes the biggest influence. Also some obvious tests have been done in the dissertation.Fourthly, the variables in the WOM measurement model contain frequency, quantity, content, attitude, and so on. Through replacement of some variables, the model can be calculated by MAPLE software. The dissertation has done sensitivity analysis and calculated the WOM index under different diffusion disappeared rate and retention rate.The dissertation has made some contributions and innovations as follows:Firstly, the dissertation gives the total framework of word of mouth diffusion research and the merged model.Secondly, the dissertation builds the theory system of word of mouth diffusion, and provides the concept model of word of mouth diffusion, finally has a test.Thirdly, the dissertation builds the measurement model of word of mouth by the application of Logit model and integration concept. And then calculate the total index of word of mouth by SPSS software and MAPLE software.Fourthly, in the process of building measurement model of word of mouth, the dissertation gives the concepts of word of mouth diffuser retention rate and diffusion decreasing rate, which will help us to understand the word of mouth.Fifthly, here is the innovation of research method. On the one hand, the dissertation collects the data by conducting the questionnaire designed with the experimental scene. On the other hand, use the structure equation model to build, evaluate and analyze the consumer word of mouth diffusion concept model.In the meantime, the dissertation has some limitations as follows: Firstly, lack of enough samples. Secondly, the design of experimental scene and the data collected. Thirdly, some variables in the measurement model of word of mouth are instead of by some other variables can be calculated. Fourthly, the dissertation make hypothesis that diffusion retention rate is fit for Logit model.Finally, the dissertation has given the suggestion of future research and some direction maybe useful as follows: Firstly, control the data collected through experimental scene design method. Secondly, deal with the variables in word of mouth measurement model to improve the model. Thirdly, consider more complex consumer emotions and perfect the consumer word of mouth diffusion model.