A Research About The Relationship Of The Content Of Negative Word Of Mouth And Consumers’ Innovation Resistance

For businesses, new product is the foundation of survival and development, it’s increasinglybecome the means of gaining competitive advantage. However, because of customers’ naturalreluctance to innovation, the failure rate of new product remain high. It’s undoubtedly true thatnew product diffusion objectively carries risks. For now, the research of overseas and domesticscholars are substantially based on the successful new products. The empirical research about theinfluences and risk management of new product failure is very limited.The enormous impact of word-of-mouth on consumers’ attitude and behavior is now widelyrecognized. The coming of web2.0offers a new transmission channel to WOM and makes theinfluence and reach of WOM increases in a geometrical ratio. Combined with pre-existingresearch about online WOM and innovation resistance, this thesis build the theory model basedon product hierarchy theory and decision process theory. By using experiments, we collect600questionnaires. Then, this thesis empirically analyzes what does the content attributes of negativeon-line WOM impact customers’ innovation resistance.The result shows that the more important the product attributes involved in the negative WOM,the lower value and higher risk will the customer perceive. Therefore, the customer will resistmore strongly. Besides, the gender is regulated to the effect of negative WOM. Generally, facingthe same negative on-line WOM, female customer perceives slightly higher risk than male one.The study provides a foundation for how to supervision and control the potential risk can occurin the process of new product diffusion. That will be helpful to increasing success rate.Meanwhile, the thesis also make a beneficial supplement to the research about the risk of newproduct diffusion.