온라인 구전정보와 수신자 특성이 구전수용에 미치는 영향

The Influences of On Line WOM(word Of Mouth) Information and Receiver's Characteristic on WOM Received

The present paper aims to examine the relationship between the online word of mouth(WOM) contents and the WOM effect and to see how receivers' features such as product knowledge and involvement level influence the WOM received. For that purpose, we categorize WOM contents into two subcategories; product news and personal experience. The WOM effect, in turn, is into the WOM received. Survey questionnaires were given to 268 collegians as to their online WOM activities to purchase MP3 players. SPSS 10.0 package was employed as the method of statistical analysis. We report the following results. First, product news is shown to exert a greater effect on the WOM received than personal experience. Second, their product knowledge plays a moderating role in the relationship between the WOM contents and the WOM received. Finally, it is shown that the factor of involvement level moderates the relationship between the WOM contents and the WOM received. The current paper attempts to develop a hypothetical relationship between WOM information and WOM received and to provide a theoretical foundation for the practical online marketing. We must admit the methodological limitations with respect to subjects and samples. It should be worthwhile, however, to compare online and off-line marketing and to expand the range of research in the current line of thought.