Negative Word-of-Mouths in Online Community : Contents and Life Cycles

Word-of-mouths (WOMs) are now an important information source for purchase decision. Due to the advance in internet technology, people now can share online their consumption experience, both positive and negative, to others. The WOMs may diffuse to not only their friends but also enormous online users. When consumers dissatisfy the product or service, they may share the dissatisfactory experience to others as WOM, which may bring out discussions for the product or service. The discussions on the negative WOM may help to communicate the negative information to enormous others, which may damage the sale of the product or service. The diffusion and life cycle of negative WOM is an important issue for managers. However, few studies focus on it. Thus, the current study focuses on the discussion pattern and life cycle of negative WOMs by observing the 782 discussion articles in a large online community.