eWOM in Mobile Social Media: a study about Chinese … of eWOM (WeChat friends bonded with social...

Symposium on Service Innovation in Big Data Area

eWOM in Mobile Social Media: a study about Chinese

Wechat use

Mengmeng Song1, Lin Qiao2, Tao Hu3

Abstract Drawing upon Theory of Reasoned Action(TRA) and the perspective of the

social influence theory(PSI), the paper proposes an integrated model to identify the

impacts of tie strength and trust on eWOM and how eWOM constructs (opinion

passing and opinion giving) affect purchase intentions via WeChat in China.

Structural equation model was employed to confirm the validity of the model. The

results reveal the significant influence of tie strength on subjective norm among

WeChat users, and equal importance of opinion passing and opinion giving should

also be considered in eWOM management. Our findings offer insight to how boosted

trust in WeChat encourages engagement in eWOM which ultimately enhances

purchase intention. Implications and contributions are discussed.

Keywords tie strength; subjective norm; purchase intention; eWOM

1 Introduction

As the proliferation of mobile social media platform and the ever-growing trend of

shopping via mobile devices, mobile social service has drastically changed peoples’

lives regarding work, shop, social interaction, etc (Nikou and Bouwman 2015).

According to report4, up until the beginning of 2016, over half of online activities

have been conducted via mobile phones in China. The number of social media users

in China reached 659 million, exceeding the sum of that in the US and Europe, and

87.1% of the social media users in China interact via mobile phones.

1.1 eWOM in mobile social media

Social Media is defined as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on

the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation

and exchange of User Generated Content (See-To and Ho 2014). Thus mobile social

media can be interpreted as mobile applications that enable the communication

among users. eWOM, developed from traditional WOM, are interpreted by

(Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler 2004) as a subjective opinion a

previous or potential consumer remark on certain product or a firm, spreading to

numerous potential customers online. Previous research have studied eWOM from

the perspective of brand companies (Chu, Sung 2015; Chang and Wu 2014), Foundation: Research on the Analysis of the Reliability of Tourism Information Service in MSN and

itsApplication, No.71361007; The research of mobile information services based on digital certificates

and RDF,No.714263. 1 Mengmeng Song: lecturer, Hainan University, College of Tourism, Haikou, 570228, China 2 Lin Qiao: postgraduate, Hainan University, College of Tourism, Haikou, 570228, China 3 Tao Hu: professor, Hainan University, College of Tourism, Haikou, 570228, China


Specifically, quantities of researches have been done on the effects of eWOM on

information adoption and purchase intention in the social network and shopping

websites (Erkan and Evans 2016; Filieri 2015; Park and Lee 2009; Wen-Chin et al.

2015; Yang et al. 2015; Yang et al. 2015). Further, the antecedents for eWOM in

facilitate communication and spread of positive eWOM, thereby boosting confidence

and willingness to purchase recommended product/service have been examined,

including trust (Che and Cao 2014), tie strength (Rozzell, Piercy and Carr 2014),

expertise (Lee and Koo 2012), relationship quality (Purnasari and Yuliando 2015),

subjective norm and trust (Che and Cao 2014) etc. Others, however, endeavored to

investigate the effect of eWOM on information adoption from perspectives of review

valence (Lee and Koo 2012; Qiu et al. 2012), or just simply study one single valence

of eWOM (Chang and Wu 2014; Che and Cao 2014). The development of social

media platform has accelerated the expansion of eWOM, as the mobile social media

prevailed throughout the world, people can interact with each other with portable

devices whenever and wherever they want (Xu, Kang, Song and Clarke 2015),

making it easier to reach larger number of users with higher credibility, thus

strengthening the effect of eWOM via mobile social media. However, little research

has addressed the issue of the affecting mechanism of eWOM in the context of

mobile social media, which is the currently the dominant tool for social interaction

worldwide.

Overall, eWOM is widely acknowledged as a crucial factor in influencing

purchase intention and ultimately purchase behavior, and social media has been

widely recognized as a facilitator in eWOM dissemination (Jeff et al. 2014). The

study adopts qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the effect of eWOM and

the motivation behind eWOM via mobile social media platform.

1.2 WeChat

WeChat (WeiXin in Chinese), as WhatsApp and Twitter in foreign countries,

serves as an convenient text and voice communication service in China, and have

been prevailing all over the country ever since its emergence. With full compatibility

and accessibility of WeChat for free, WeChat users can interact with friends in

various forms (one-to-many messaging, video chat, voice message, etc.) through

diverse mobile operating systems such as iphone, android and windows. Boosted by

the steady development of Internet information communication technology and the

popularity of mobile smartphones, mobile social media usage has grown

exponentially in China. For WeChat, MAU (monthly active users) reached 762

million at the end of the quarter in 2016 and covers more than 200 countries in over

20 languages (Tencent 2016). Thus, WeChat ranks among one of the most widely and

frequently used mobile social media nationwide (Tencent 2015). The prevalence of

WeChat has enabled users to interact with each other at ease, and has strengthened

the social relationship between users, accelerating the spread of eWOM in virtual

community (Gao and Zhang 2013).

Quantities of theoretical research have been conducted on eWOM service in social

networking sites (Ladhari and Michaud 2015; Lee et al. 2012), and findings suggest

http://www.tencent.com/en-us/content/at/2016/attachments/20160518.pdf


that Chinese users are inclined to consider the recommended products/services in

social networking sites (HBR 2012), verifying the significance of eWOM in

information adoption and purchase intention (East et al. 2007; Erkan and Evans

2016). As mobile social media penetrates into peoples’ daily lives, increasing ever

faster than that of social networking services, whether the spreading mechanism of

eWOM in web environment still works for that in mobile social media in China is

worth to be examined. Specifically, many research have empirically studied eWOM

under the context of RenRen, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites

(SNS) (Shen et al. 2016; Balaji et al. 2016), few studies can be found empirically

exploring the antecedents of eWOM and how eWOM affect purchase intention via

mobile social media in China (Che and Cao 2014). Further, unlike eWOM in web

social networking sites, where the content of eWOM might come from the unknown

or even merchants, eWOM in WeChat is more trustworthy because of its credible

source of eWOM (WeChat friends bonded with social intimacy).

Henceforth, this study aims to investigate the subdivided dimensions of eWOM

behavior, namely opinion giving and opinion passing, to investigate how social tie,

subjective norm and trust affect dissemination of eWOM among WeChat users in

China, which has scarcely been studied before. Additionally, a theoretical model was

proposed to depict the influencing mechanism of eWOM in determine the purchase

inclination in the context of WeChat.

2 Theoretical background

2.1 Source credibility theory

Source credibility is the recipients’ trustworthiness toward the origin of

information, having nothing to do with the information itself (Chaiken 1980). Source

credibility in this study refers to the level that the reviewer is viewed as credible

information provider and neutral opinion giver. The perceived risk of users to

purchase online will be reduced if the source of information is credible. Prior studies

have verified the crucial role source credibility plays in message credibility (Man et

al. 2009; Wathen and Burkell 2002) and information usefulness (Peng et al. 2016),

and many studies have been conducted on the antecedents of source credibility,

including purchase experience (Kuan et al. 2012), trustworthiness (Cheung et al.

2008).

2.2 Theory of reasoned action (TRA)

Ever since the proposal of TRA theory by Fishbein and Ajzen in 1977, the notion

of behavior intention has been applied to various research in the individual level

(Fishbein and Ajzen 1977). TRA assumes that attitudes and subjective norm will

exert influence on behavioral intentions, and quantities of studies has adopted TRA

to analyze the correlation between eWOM construct and intention to purchase

(Reichelt 2013; Cheung and Thadani 2012). In this study, we select purchase

intention and subjective norm as factors to further investigate the influencing power


of subjective norm on eWOM behavior in the context of mobile social media.

2.3 Theory of planned behavior (TPB)

Theory of planned behavior(TPB), extended from the Theory of Reasoned Action

(TRA) (Fishbein and Ajzen 1977), incorporates the variable of behavior intention to

describe the people’s willingness in certain behavior (Ajzen 1991).TPB model has

been applied to investigate purchase intention in many studies (Paul et al. 2016).

3 Hypothesis development and research model

3.1 EWOM, trust and purchase intention

Trust refers to reliance and positive belief on another person or entity (Kaushik et

al. 2015), and is a determinant factor in ridding of uncertainty (Hajli 2015) and

perceived risks (Mutz 2005) during transaction especially in the online context (Lien

et al. 2015). Trust has also been defined as a “willingness to make oneself vulnerable

to another in the presence of risk”. According to (Gremler et al. 2001), trust consists

of three types: trust between people, trust between organization and trust between a

person and organization. This study focalizes on trust between WeChat users and

WeChat platform. Recently more studies have endeavored to analyze the subgroup of

trust: ability, benevolence and integrity (Pavlou 2003; Xu et al. 2016).

Purchase intention is depicted as the extent to which buyers are willing to

purchase certain products. The more trustworthy the person feels towards the

recommender, the less he/she feels about perceptions of risk, consequently the more

likely the person is to purchase the object. Many scholars seek to find relationships

between trust and purchase intention (Lien et al. 2015; See-To and Ho 2014;

Mansour et al. 2014), and have proved that there is a significant positive effect of

online trust on the intention to purchase online (Jarvenpaa et al. 2000).

Trust towards the mobile social media empowers users to relieve their hesitation

in conducting purchasing behavior (Hajli 2015). The positive impact of trust on

consumers’ intention to purchase in e-commerce have already been validated (Lu et

al. 2010; Gefen and Straub 2004), likewise, we assume that the relationship still

holds water in the context of mobile social commerce since trust towards mobile

social media reduce users’ perceived risk in purchasing intention.

Therefore, the first hypothesis was proposed as follows:

H1.Trust has a positive direct influence on purchase intention in WeChat.

According to a recent survey conducted by William (2012), 4 out of 5 consumers

expressed their skepticism about the product review in terms of the content and the

motive behind the reviewer. Trust is an important factor affecting consumer

behaviors (Giampietri 2017). For example, trust has been verified to have significant

impact on eWOM construct in many studies (Neveen and Arik 2008). Based on

empirical investigation of WeChat users in China, Che and Cao (2014) confirm that

trust between WeChat users and WeChat positively affects WeChat users’ attitudes

and ultimately exerts WOM behavior via WeChat. Additionally, trust also has


significant influence on purchase intention both directly and indirectly (Gefen et al.

2003; Wen et al. 2012).

Traditional WOM is an information source created by individuals and spread

among consumers (Arndt 1967). Boosted by technology and social media, electronic

WOM (eWOM), in which individuals spread opinions about products or services via

virtual community, was developed (Noh et al. 2013).The positive relationship

between eWOM and purchase intention has been well established by many scholars

(Park and Kim 2008; Cheung and Thadani 2012). In this study, we investigate further

the impacts of eWOM constructs on purchase intention respectively. According to

Chu and Kim (2011), eWOM behavior can be reflected by three aspects: opinion

seeking, opinion giving, and opinion passing. Like Facebook, twitter and other SNSs

in foreign countries, WeChat enables users to look for suggestions and advice

(opinion seeking), express prior or post-purchase opinions about products or services

(opinion giving) and share friends’ opinions (opinion passing). The three dimensions

constitute integral circulation of eWOM constructs.

Positive eWOM acts as an effective and cost-effective method of promoting sales

in products or service. Since the majority of eWOM are posted by unknown users,

information credibility is doubted (Qiu et al. 2012). Comparatively, eWOM in

WeChat, built on the reliable relationship among WeChat users, was generated and

spread by users with spontaneity. Thus, it will positively enhance users’ trust towards

WeChat, ultimately increasing willingness to purchase the product.

Based on the above reasoning, we postulate the following hypothesis:

H2. Trust has a positive influence on opinion passing in WeChat.

H3. Trust has a positive influence on opinion giving in WeChat.

H4. Opinion passing in WeChat affects intention to purchase.

H5. Opinion giving in WeChat affects intention to purchase.

3.2 Purchase intention, trust and source credibility

Source credibility refers to the level that the reviewers are viewed as trustworthy

and credible for expressing product opinions. Many scholars have analyzed source

credibility with integration of several theories. For instance, Ayeh (2015) combines

the Technology Acceptance Model with the Source Credibility Theory to further

analyze the mental factors behind the behavior of consumer-generated media (CGM),

whereas studies the underlying impacts of source credibility on the acceptance level

of information system. Recent studies have put more emphasis on the relationships

between source credibility and other factors, such as attitudes, willingness to adopt

information and intention to purchase (Shan 2016; Ayeh 2015; Filieri 2015). Thus

we inference that if the source of information which is transferred via mobile social

media is reliable, it is more likely for the user to adopt the information and ultimately

purchase the recommended products or services. The hypotheses are summarized as

follows:

H6. Source credibility has positive a impact on purchase intention.

Looking back upon previous studies, trust and expertise as widely acknowledged

as two integral dimensions in source credibility (Fogg and Tseng 1999). Hence, the


information will be perceived as accurate and reliable if the source is rich in

expertise or trustworthy (Tormala and Petty 2004). According to O'Keefe (2002),

trustworthiness is the extent to which the receivers feel confident in the motive

behind the reviewer’s review. Trust factor in this study refers to the degree of

reliability the receiver place upon mobile social media. The significant positive

influence of expertise on attitude and behavioral intention has already been

confirmed (Wang 2005), and according to trust transfer theory, the trustworthiness

towards the reviewer can be conveyed to another unknown object, in which there

exists specific relationship. Thus, drawing upon trust transfer theory, we postulates

that in the context of mobile social media, the higher degree of reliability the receiver

feels towards reviewer, the higher the perception of source credibility, which

ultimately leads to higher level of trustworthiness to the mobile social media

platform.

H7. The more credible the source of product review, the higher level of

trustworthiness the receivers feel towards mobile social media.

3.3 Subjective norm, eWOM and purchase intention

Ajzen (1991) defined Subjective norm as a perceived social motivation to conduct

a certain behavior. Similarly, subjective norm has been referred to as people’s

expectations towards a specific action (Kim 2011; Alsajjan and Dennis 2010).

Subjective norm reflects the degree to which a person can be influenced by others in

terms of performance, a particular action and a common deed (Kaushik et al. 2015).

According to the theory put forward by Venkatesh et al. (2003), subjective norm can

exert a crucial influence on certain behavioral intention. Quantities of studies have

been done to study the relation between subjective norm and intention of particular

behavior, proving that subjective norm has positive influence on intention of a

variety of conduct, namely mobile phone usage (Lopez-Nicolas et al. 2008), using

blogs (Hsu et al. 2008), playing games on Internet (Hsu and Lu 2004), and

purchasing online (Biswas and Roy 2015). According to theory of planned behavior

(TPB), subjective norm are predictors of some mobile service behavior (Lu et al.

2008), and the majority of studies confirm an impact subjective norm displays on

purchase intention (Zhao et al. 2014; Ágata et al. 2015; Zhou 2011; Leeraphong and

Mardjo 2015; Kaushik et al. 2015). Nonetheless, others found insignificant relevance

to purchase intention (Ajzen 1991) in which subjective norm are said to be related to

users’ perceptions of opinions of other users. Further research is needed to verify the

effect of subjective norm on purchase online in the context of mobile social media

platform. Therefore, we raise the following hypothesis:

H8. Subjective norm displays a positive effect on peoples’ intention of purchase a

recommended product.

According to Ajzen and Fishbein (1980), Ajzen (1991), subjective norms was

driven by normative beliefs that impose psychological pressure on individuals to act

in accordance with his/her friends and important others, which are believed to be

friends in WeChat in our study. And eWOM conducts, including opinion passing via

friends circle or group and opinion giving one to one or in friend circle in WeChat,


are among those behaviors that people are exposed to every now and then when

using mobile social network. People are inclined to conform to behaviors of their

friends in WeChat in the forms of clicking a “like” button, re-tweet a message and

leave comment under the information, etc. based on the aforementioned theory and

reasoning, we propose the following hypothesis:

H9. Subjective norm exerts great impact on opinion passing in mobile social media.

H10. Subjective norm exerts great impact on opinion giving in mobile social media.

3.4 The effects of tie strength on subjective norm, trust and purchase

intention

Tie strength, also called as social tie, relational closeness (Rozzell et al. 2014) and

social distance, was defined as an integration of mutual intimacy and reciprocal

relationship closeness (Mittal et al. 2008). Previous studies have proven the

significant and positive impact of social tie on trust (Phua et al. 2017), engagement

of eWOM (Brown and Reingen 1987). The level of tie strength can be categorized

into different groups in the context of social networking sites. For example, most

researchers have classified it into two groups, namely strong ties and weak ties

(Rozzell, Piercy and Carr 2014), whereas Éva et al. (2013) proposed a more refined

categories with the social tie “in-betweens” added. Some scholars endeavored to

establish indicators for predicting tie strength, such as frequency of contact and

recency of contact (Arnaboldi et al. 2013). In this study, the classification of tie

strength are beyond consideration, since this study mainly focuses on the

dissemination path of eWOM in affecting purchase intention and how the

antecedents of eWOM impose influence on intention to purchase.

In the context of mobile social media, people are offered more convenient

opportunity to interact with friends or families. Messages delivered by emotionally

closer ties are more trustworthy with no relevance of the message content (Levin and

Cross 2004). On the contrary, though, relationship in weak ties hinders the

willingness to interact and communicate due to lack of trust (Levin and Cross 2004).

According to trust transfer theory, trust can be transmitted among different entities,

such as trust in suppliers’ salesperson to that in firms (Belanche et al. 2014; Kuan

and Bock 2007). Thus we adopted trust transfer theory and hypothesize that in the

context of mobile social media, intimacy and close relationship between two people

will lead to higher level of trustworthiness in between, which will then be transferred

to trust in the mobile social media platform itself. Consequently, we propose our

hypothesis as follows:

H11. Tie strength exerts a positive influence on trust towards mobile social media.

On Facebook or twitter, users can receive information from other users, including

the known and the unknown. Lin and Utz (2015) examines the emotional outcome

that might be evoked while browsing Facebook, supposing that stronger feelings

might be provoked if the information comes from a more intimate friends on

Facebook. For example, the closer the relationship between two Facebook users, the

happier the browser will be when looking through the post of the sender. Unlike


Facebook, WeChat, as a typical example of mobile social media in China, is a virtual

community comprised of people that know each other. Thus the social tie between

WeChat users are more closely interwined, intensifying the positive emotional

feelings brought about by positive reviews from intimate friends. eWOM constructs

consist of information sharing and reviews giving are prevalent among users in

mobile social media, so based on what theorized as bellowed, the effect of eWOM

are determined by social intimacy rather than the mere content of reviews of products

or services, which ultimately exerts impact on intention to purchase the

recommended products or services. Hence we put forward the following assumption:

H12. Tie strength significantly affect purchase intention in mobile social media.

Subjective norm explains the extent to which an individual are affected and

pushed by invisible pressure by important others’ beliefs to accept an attitude or

conduct certain behaviors. Dozens of researches have been done on the influence of

subjective norm on innovation adoption and purchase intention online (Venkatesh et

al. 2012; Jalilvand and Samiei 2012; Pavlou and Fygenson 2006), but little study has

been conducted upon the antecedents of subjective norms. Based on the definition of

subjective norm mentioned above, we assume that the degree of acting in conformity

with others are in positive ratio to the intimacy between those two individuals, since

the closer the relationship between the individuals, the more likely the receiver is

affected both emotionally and in action by the attitude and comments of the reviewer

in mobile social media. Hence we come to the hypothesis as followed:

H13. Tie strength significantly and positively affect subjective norms in

mobile social media.

Fig.1. Proposed eWOM model for WeChat

4 Research methodology

4.1 Source of measures for questionnaire survey method

We used the questionnaire survey methodology to validate the research hypotheses.

The questionnaires were comprised of three parts. The first part is the demographic

questions including gender, age group, education background, identity, income range,

frequency of online shopping via mobile devices, expenses on mobile shopping,


types of items shopped online and so on. The second part of the questionnaire depicts

basic condition of WeChat usage, such as most frequently used mobile social media,

main function used, frequency of retweet and comment. The last part constitutes 24

items to measure the following construsts: Scales for tie strength stem from previous

studies (Chu and Kim 2011; Levin and Cross 2004). Measures for trust were adapted

from Yoon and Occe˜na (2015), Chu and Kim (2011), Chu and Choi (2011), Roy et

al. (2001). The measurement of source credibility were based on the work of Yoon

and Occe˜na (2015), Chu and Kim (2011) and Chu and Choi (2011); Roy et al.

(2001). The subjective norm scales were extracted from Sussman and Siegal (2003),

Berlo et al. (1969). Opinion passing originated from Ajzen (1991), Davis et al.

(1989), Fishbein and Ajzen (1977), Kaushik et al. (2015). To measure opinion giving,

scales were modified from Chu and Kim (2011), Sun et al. (2006). Items for

purchase intention were altered from Liang et al. (2011), Coyle and Thorson (2001),

Erkan and Evans (2016). All the items were measured with a five-point Likert scale

ranging from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5).

Since the study was conducted in China and original items were in English,

drawing from the experiment of Baozhou, we adopted the translations process as

follows for a guarantee of precision and wording. In the beginning, we let a

Chinese-speaking researcher translate the original questionnaire into Chinese; then,

another researcher transfers it back to English by himself. Finally, two researchers

modified the Chinese version after comparison and mutual discussion. In ensuring

the readability of the questionnaire, the first draft was used for a pilot test (Winston

et al. 2002) among 15 WeChat users to acquire feedback about their understanding of

the questionnaire. The result showed that question design is logically consistent and

well understood. After minor modification based on suggestions from the

respondents, the final version of questionnaire was examined by the initial translators

and is presented in Appendix.

4.2 Data collection and sample

The research targeted at WeChat users aged between 20 to 40 in China. Like

Facebook, WeChat is a mobile social medium which provides users with a

convenient access to real-time video chats, text messaging, voice messaging and

group chats. Moreover, it enables users to share, comment, retweet and forward

photos and information concerning daily life, products and services (Xu et al. 2015).

Data was collected randomly through both online and offline. Online surveys were

distributed via Sojump, a professional questionnaire design and survey platform in

China. Paper questionnaires were handed out to staff in the neighboring company

and people who take training classes in Hainan University, age of whom ranged from

20 to 40.

Online data collection went on for 20 days, and is told to be voluntary and

anonymous. Questionnaires are not allowed to be finished by the same person/ IP

address twice. After exclusion of incomplete and invalid papers, 8 pieces were

retrieved. 80 complete questionnaires were delivered by paper and 66 were returned.

Most studies targeted at students for related research since they are the mainstay


as online consumers and mobile users in China (Walczuch and Lundgren 2004; Wang

and Yu 2015; Jang et al. 2016), but in order to increase the validity and reliability of

the data, we enlarge the sample towards people aged between 20 and 40 with

experience of using WeChat. Thus, it would be more reasonable for this study.

The descriptive information of the participants was summarized in Table 1.

Among them 54% were female and most respondents are well educated (Over 91.8%

reached a high education degree of bachelor.) The average age of the respondents

was 26.5, in which the age group of 20-40 accounted for 94.8%, conforming to the

prerequisite of having experience of using WeChat. 69.2% of respondents were

active WeChat users with frequency of using WeChat several times a day to socialize

(93.6%), work (35.5%) and read news (34.2%). All participants had an experience of

purchasing online, 43.3% of the respondents’ average expenditure on purchasing via

mobile devices every month were 101-500 yuan (=319.5 US$), while most of the

respondents (43.9%) earn no more than 5000 yuan per month.

Table 1. Demographic profile of questionnaires participants {N=224}

Profile category Frequency Percentage

Age

Less than 20 years 6 2.60%

21-25 years 156 66.88%

26-40 years 65 27.92%

Over 40years 6 2.60%

Gender

Male 107 46%

Female 126 54%

Education

High school/secondary school 7 3.0%

Associate degree(2 years) 12 5.2%

Bachelor degree 134 57.6%

postgraduate degree or above 80 34.2%

Occupation

Student 100 43.0%

Administrative unit 12 5.2%

Public service sector 31 13.5%

Enterprise 67 28.7%

Freelance 9 3.9%

others 13 5.7%

Monthly household income

0-1000 65 27.8%

1001-5000 102 43.9%

5001-10000 43 18.3%

>10000 23 10.0%

WeChat use frequency

Several timeson each day 161 69.2%

About once a day 65 27.8%

Weekly 4 1.7%

Scarely 3 1.3%

Monthly expenditures via mobile devices

<100 82 35.1%

101-500 101 43.3%


501-1000 34 14.7%

>1000 16 6.9%

Usage of WeChat(multiple choice)

Social interaction 218 93.6%

Work 83 35.5%

Shopping 23 9.8%

Merchandise 8 3.4%

News 80 34.2%

Financial transaction 26 11.1%

5 Data analysis and results

As suggested by Anderson and Gerbing (1988), we adopt a two-step approach to

examine the validity of the measurement models and test the relations among potent

variables in structural models. SEM was used to perform the analysis procedure due

to its edge over other statistical analysis methods (Gefen et al. 2011). The analyzing

tools chosen are Amos 17.

For the sake of accurate evaluation and sufficient statistical persuasion, we

rechecked our sample size following the rule of Chin (1998).

In order to ensure the accuracy of the results of data analysis, we conducted

exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using Principal Axis extraction and Direct Oblimin

rotation. We went through theKaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) test and the Bartlett

sphericity test to ensure properness of the data. The results, as depicted in Table,

demonstrating good results for the following factor analysis. Seven factors were

extracted via principal component analysis, each of which showing an eigenvalue

value exceeding one. Moreover, factor loadings of less than 0.5 were suppressed and

those with cross-loading phenomenon were abandoned. Factor loadings catering to

the baseline requirements of 0.6 (Hair et al. 1992), indicating that all factors are

accepted in the model. The final remaining factors account for of the total unique

variance.

5.1 Measurement model

5.1.1 Reliability

Reliability is employed to check to stability of the measures adopted in the model

(Sapsford, 2006). Construct reliability was evaluated via the index of composite

reliability (CR) (Wasko and Faraj 2005) and Cronbach's alpha. A satisfactory

reliability was suggested by CR values over 0.7. As shown in Table 2, all CR values

are well over the 0.7 benchmark. If the results are all over 0.5, then the measures are

accepted with internal consistency. As presented in Table2, all the Cronbach’s alphas

are within realm of acceptance, indicating a satisfactory level of internal consistency

(0.932). Based on the above analysis, we are confirmed about the reliability and

validity of the model.

5.1.2 Validity

The convergent validity of constructs were calculated by factor loadings and

average variance extracted (AVE) (Fornell and Larcker 1981). As shown in Table 3,


the standardized factor loading of the constructs on its affliated variables outnumbers

the 0.7. Besides, all the AVE value exceed criterion of 0.5 (Fornell and Larcker 1981;

Hair et al. 2010), manifesting good convergent validity and inner uniformity of the

measures (Fornell and Larcker 1981).

In discriminant validity, as suggested by (Chin 1998; Wasko and Faraj 2005),

loadings for every item of the potent variables should exceed the squared reciprocity

between any randomized two variables. Evidently, as depicted in Table 2 , the overall

outcome indicates a good condition of discriminant validity in the model.

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied to examine the model fit,

reliability and validity in the measurement model. The measurement model is made

up of 7 latent variables. Furthermore, to evaluate the level of multi-collinearity, we

adopt variance inflation factors (VIF) put forward by Kleinbaum and Kupper (1988).

A regression analysis was carried out to examine the relationship between purchase

intention and other 6 variables. The VIF values are all within the standard of 3.3,

given by (Diamantopoulos and Siguaw 2006; Diamantopoulos 2011). Thus

multi-collinearity was beyond worry in this study (Pedhazur 1982). In a nutshell, the

good-fitting measurement model is verified with ample reliability and validity prior

to the following section of structure model analysis (Kenny 2014).

Table 2. Factor loadings for individual items

Construct/item Loading(>0.7) Cronbach’s alpha

Tie strength(TS) 0.774

TS1 0.821

TS2 0.819

Trust(T) 0.780

Trust1 0.500

Trust2 0.768

Trust3 0.826

Source Credibility(SC) 0.881

SC1 0.823

SC2 0.845

SC3 0.841

Subjective norm(SN) 0.593

SN1 0.481

SN2 0.620

SN3 0.541

Opinion Passing 0.749

OP1 0.701

OP2 0.772

OP3 0.549

Opinion Giving(OG) 0.837

OG1 0.836

OG2 0.870

OG3 0.819

Purchase Intention(PI) 0.800

PI1 0.659

PI2 0.772

PI3 0.701

Note: CR, construct reliability; SMC,

* p < 0.001. TS=Tie strength; SN=Subjective norm; SC=Source credibility; OP=Opinion passing; OG=Opinion

giving; PI=Purchase intention;


Table 3. Descriptive data, correlations and the square root of AVE

Constructs TS SN Trust SC OP OG PI

TS 1

SN 0.488 1

Trust 0.313 0.493 1

SC 0.243 0.446 0.682 1

OP 0.160 0.352 0.401 0.480 1

OG 0.061 0.235 0.379 0.425 0.619 1

PI 0.240 0.345 0.330 0.403 0.565 0.473 1

Mean 2.558 2.658 2.936 3.140 3.057 3.571 2.80

Standard deviation 0.893 0.714 0.812 0.849 0.890 0.955 0.891

Note: The bolded diagonal elements are the square root of average variance extracted (AVE) for each variable.

5.2 Structural model

After confirming the validity of the measurement model, the structural-path

analysis was conducted among exogenous and endogenous variables. of the structure

model was shown in Figure 2 as below, presenting a good model fit compared with

the recommended value respectively (x2/df=1.876，GFI=0.993，NFI=0.996，

CFI=0.990，RMSEA=0.086), a comparative fit index (CFI) value of 0.926 (N0.9),

normed fit index (NFI) value of 0.917, and root mean square error of approximation

(RMSEA) value of 0.067 (N0.05).). In spite of different thresholds of RMSEA given

by scholars, ranging from 0.01 to 0.1 (Maccallum et al. 1996; Hu and Bentler 1998;

Browne and Cudeck 1993), we could take it as one of the indicators of fitting

goodness.

Fig. 2. Path analysis result

Note: * significant at the .05 level, ** significant at the .01 level, *** significant at the .001 level.

Table 4. Results of hypothesis testing

Hypothesis Path Path coefficient C.R Supported?

H1 Trust→ Purchase Intention 0.619* -2.059 Y

H2 Trust→ Opinion Passing 0.561*** 5.005 Y

H3 Trust→ Opinion Giving 0.565*** 5.418 Y

H4 Opinion Passing→ Purchase Intention 0.504*** 4.136 Y

H5 Opinion Giving→ Purchase Intention 0.283** 2.724 Y

H6 Source Credibility→ Purchase Intention 0.557* 2.243 Y

H7 Source Credibility→ Trust 0.866*** 6.669 Y

H8 Subjective Norm→ Opinion Passing 0.155* 1.789 Y

H9 Subjective Norm→ Opinion Giving -0.004 -0.053 N

H10 Tie Strength→ Trust 0.141* 2.255 Y

H11 Tie Strength→ Purchase Intention 0.271** 2.818 Y

H12 Tie Strength→ Subjective Norm 0.731*** 4.897 Y

Note: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.C.R e Critical Ratio.


5.3 Hypothesis testing

The majority of path coefficients present p value below 0.05, suggesting that

presumed relationships were statistically significant under the level, supporting the

assumed hypotheses. The impacts of Trust, Opinion Passing and Opinion Giving on

intention to purchase(b= 0.619, t= -2.059, p > 0.01), (b=0.561, t= 4.136, p < 0.001),

(b= 0.565, t= 2.724, p < 0.01)on were found significant, showing that opinion

passing and opinion giving are both key indicators of purchase intention. Trust exerts

positive impact on the corresponding eWOM dimensions, including opinion passing

and opinion giving, corroborating hypotheses from H4 to H5 (b = 0.504, t = 5.005, p

< 0.001) and (b = 0.283, t = 5.418, p < 0.01). Conformed with prior research, the

effect of source credibility on purchase intention was marked, thus verifying H6 (b =

0.557, t = 1.789, p >0.01). The results of H7 validation favors the previous findings

(Erkan and Evans 2016), indicating the crucial role that source credibility plays in

trust towards WeChat platform (b = 0.866, t =6.669, p < 0.001). Further, the findings

reveals that subjective norm significantly influences opinion passing, thus supporting

H8 (b = 0.155, t = 1.789, p>0.01), whereas the relationship between subjective norm

and opinion giving is insignificant, henceforth, H9 is not empirically supported (b =

-0.004, t = -0.053, p>0.1). Additionally, the hypothesis 10 &11 also demonstrate that

social closeness proves to exert impact on trust and ultimately on purchase intention

(b = 2.255, t = 2.607, p > 0.01), (b = 2.818, t = 2.607, p<0.01), which mirrors prior

findings (Rozzell et al. 2014). Finally, a potent relationship was validated between tie

strength and subjective norm, thereby backing H12 (b = 0.731, t = 4.897, p < 0.001).

Results of path coefficients and hypotheses testing are illustrated in Figure 3 and

Table 5.

6 Discussions and implications

The study aims at analyzing the mechanism behind eWOM spreading via mobile

social media, developing a theoretical model to depict how WeChat as a mobile

social media platform affect WeChat users’ purchase intention in China. WeChat has

become predominant mobile social media platform in China. Furthermore, the study

examines how control variables affect the purchase intention in the mobile social

media context.

6.1 Key findings

The study contributes to the few literature on the effects of trust, tie strength,

source credibility and subjective norm on eWOM effectiveness in influencing

purchase intention via WeChat. Unlike previous research, in which respondents were

confined to university students (Hasbullah et al. 2016). This study extends the scope,

targeting at those who have experience of using WeChat, making the research more

accurate and rational. As shown in Table 3, of all 12 hypotheses, 11 were supported

in the model. Theoretical and practical implications can be drawn from data analysis.

Most important of all, drawing upon source credibility theory, tie strength was


found to significantly and positively affect subjective norm with a direct effect of

0.76. This finding provides a supplement to previous studies regarding subjective

norm, in which the impact of subjective norm on intention toward adoption and

purchase has already been confirmed (Zhao et al. 2014). The critical role that tie

strength plays in affecting subjective norm are consistent with social common sense,

since relational closeness will directly determine the significance that the reviewer

means towards the receiver, thus leading to psychological, attitudinal and behavioral

uniformity between the reviewer and the receiver. With the popularity of WeChat

among Chinese users, people can chat and interact with friends at ease, strengthening

the social intimacy between users in WeChat. The strengthened social ties between

users can intensify the motivation and willingness to comply with the perceived

beliefs and attitudes of the reviewer, thus facilitating the dissemination of eWOM in

the context of WeChat. Therefore, the significant, direct and positive impact of social

closeness on subjective norm reflects that WeChat should constantly put forward

new methods to motivate social interaction among WeChat users, intensifying the

social intimacy between users.

Also, the study expands the existing research to the context of mobile social media

in China, revealing that trust has a significant and positive impact (0.661) on

purchase intention, complying with existing studies concerning social media and

B2B commerce (Wang et al. 2013; Chu and Kim 2011). Further, by shedding light

on the relationship between trust and components of eWOM, the study found that

trust displays a significant and direct influence on eWOM (opinion passing (0.615)

and opinion giving (0.634) respectively, indicating that trust exerts equal importance

on opinion passing and opinion giving in the environment of WeChat. The study

shed light on the constructs of eWOM in mobile social media, contributing to

eWOM literature, thus disclosing the fact that equivalent emphasis should be placed

upon opinion passing and opinion giving in maintaining eWOM among WeChat. The

higher the level of trust user feels towards WeChat platforms, the more likely he/she

is to actively participate in eWOM behaviors, such as expressing reviews and sharing

friends’ comments in WeChat circles or among chat groups. Besides, opinion giving

and opinion passing also act as influential factors affecting purchase intention. In

particular, opinion passing (0.53) is slightly more influential compared with opinion

giving (0.31) in terms of purchase intention. This implies that compared with opinion

giving, opinion passing serves as a more critical factor influencing intention to

purchase the recommended product or service. Meanwhile, manufacturers should

attach great importance to incentives of both eWOM conducts in WeChat, thus

promoting the popularity and reputation of the products and boosting sales.

Besides, we find the unrecognized relationship between subjective norm and

opinion passing, extending theory of planned behavior. We looked into the influence

that subjective norm imposes on opinion giving and opinion passing respectively.

Prior studies neglected the normative influence on eWOM. Specifically, we make an

attempt to consider further the relation between subjective norm and eWOM

constructs. We found subjective norm positively affects opinion passing in WeChat

(0.197), whereas its impact on opinion giving was insignificant. This might be


attributed to the fact that opinion passing refers to the recognized reviews and

information from others that you share in friend circle in WeChat, therefore more

susceptible to perceived expectation of compliance with reviewers, whereas opinion

giving is self-generated contents with spontaneity, less likely to be affected by

subjective norm. Overall, the results demonstrates that users who are more

susceptible to subjective norm will have more chance to pass opinion of the

reviewers in friend circle, while the correlation between subjective norm and opinion

giving is insignificant.

As expected, tie strength exerts significant and positive influence on trust towards

WeChat platform (0.158) and purchase intention (0.284), compatible with existing

literature. However, the impact of tie strength on trust is slightly weaker than that on

purchase intention, due to the fact that trust towards WeChat platform, transmitted

from trust between users in the light of trust transfer theory, displays relatively

weaker effect compared with direct impact of tie strength on purchase intention.

Chinese WeChat users are reported to purchase a large variety of product online,

which provides great room for sales promotion via mobile social media. The

exponential growth of WeChat usage in China can be accounted for eagerness to

interact with their friends Chang and Zhu (2011), leading to the explosively viral

spread of eWOM both extensively and intensively. And WeChat developers

themselves have cleverly come up with stimulus to further motivate social interaction

with their friends through WeChat, such as the annually activity of “Chinese new

year red envelope” , which began in January, 2014. And the overall number of red

envelope delivered and received soared to 32.1 billion, with 516 million WeChat

users involved. Other novel incentives includes a random envelope delivered to the

friend in WeChat enables you an access to view the photo he/she posts on the friend

circle.

Regarding source credibility, the results presents great impact source credibility

has on trust towards WeChat platform (0.886). It not only reconfirms the conclusion

discussed in preceding research (Erkan and Evans 2016), but also adds to the

conclusion a case from China. The more reliable the source of information is in

WeChat, the more trustworthy the receiver feels towards WeChat platform.

6.2 Implications

6.2.1 Implications for research

The theoretical implications for this study are threefold. First, this study

supplements to current theory by identifying the relationship between tie strength and

subjective norm. Deriving from rational behavioral theory, subjective norm is

regarded as crucial factor affecting “attitude towards use”, “intention towards

adoption” and “perceived usefulness” from psychological aspect (Kim et al. 2009;

Casalò et al. 2010; Kaushik et al. 2015). Quantities of research has been done to

confirm the positive influence of subjective norm on attitude and intention to adopt,

however, few tried to investigate antecedents of subjective norm from social

interaction perspectives. Hence, this study bridge the theoretical gap by exploring

impacts that social factor exert on subjective norm in mobile social media context.


Results ascertain that social intimacy serves as an extremely vital role in subjective

norm, which deserve future research in relevant field combining theory of planned

behavior (TPB).

Second, rooted in literature related to eWOM, the study have significant

contributions in providing deeper understanding in how trust towards mobile social

media affect eWOM in subdivided aspects. Prior studies have mentioned that eWOM

constructs comprised of two variables, namely opinion giving and opinion passing

(Chu and Kim 2011), Tien Wang and Ralph (2015) overlooking the relationship

among trust, subjective norm and eWOM as a multi-dimensional construct. The

proposed model offers two edges. First, the segmentation of the construct uncovers

which dimensions of eWOM are more susceptible to its antecedents such as trust and

subjective norm, and which aspects of eWOM exerts greater influence on intention to

purchase in the context of WeChat. Second, the theorization illustrates elaborately the

influencing mechanism of trust on eWOM, ultimately purchase intention in details.

As a whole, the study highlights the equal importance of opinion giving and opinion

passing in facilitating eWOM and promoting sales.

What also deserves to be mentioned is that the study empirically examines eWOM

in a less-studied research area, China, targeting at a well-received mobile social

media (WeChat). Previous studies, in the vast majority, focused on online networking

sites or B2B sites such as Facebook, RenRen (from China)in western cultures

ignoring the rapid popularity of mobile social media. In order to enrich the

theoretical content in the context of mobile social media, we empirically conducted

the research with case of WeChat in China. Future studies are suggested to make

comparisons between eWOM models from different cultures.

6.2.2 Implications for practice

Our research also offers managerial implications as follows. First, although the

mediating effect that trust plays between tie strength and purchase intention has been

confirmed by prior studies, rarely does scholars examine the effect on the context of

mobile social media in China. Thus we provide sufficient evidence that social

closeness between users plays an important role in determining users’ trust towards

mobile social platform and subjective norm. This illustrates that WeChat practitioners

should continually come up with novel stimulations to facilitate interactions among

WeChat users, strengthening social intimacy and finally reinforcing effect of

subjective norm and trust towards the platform itself.

Second, the findings show that trust towards WeChat platform will equally lead to

intention to purchase and engagement in eWOM, namely opinion giving and opinion

passing. As expected, two dimensions in eWOM can significantly provoke intention

to purchase the recommended product/service, specifically, opinion passing exerts

greater influence in purchase intention. Therefore, mobile social network developer

in China should establish multiple measures to enhance users’ trust towards the

platform, thus driving users to actively participate in eWOM activities with

spontaneity. Further, enterprise practitioners are advised to figure out enjoyable

activities to arouse users’ willingness to express their opinions and feelings of the

products and share the comments posted by their friends. For example, minor


economical incentives such as coupons and gifts can be incorporated to encourage

review posting in mobile social media by product manufacturers. The rapid spread of

eWOM among trustworthy friend circle is a powerful ensurance of establishment of

product reputation and image, ultimately leading to purchase intention and even

actual purchase behavior.

7 Limitations and directions for future research

Several limitations should be acknowledged beforehand in this study. First, this

study explores impacts of tie strength, subjective norm, source credibility, trust in

affecting eWOM conducts and purchase intention in a particular context, that is,

among WeChat users in China. Future research is advised to generalize conclusion in

wider areas, enriching data by incorporating cases of WeChat usage in other

countries as well. Second, despite the fact that the survey was mainly conducted

online, acquiring data from all over the nation, but the majority of respondents are in

Haikou, a relatively under-developed province in China. Hence, in order to make the

result more persuasive, it is suggested that future studies extending to other provinces

and even make comparisons among different regions if possible. Third, instead of

focusing merely on convenient sample of university student, this study extends the

scope of the participant to whoever owns experience of using WeChat. It would be

meaningful to compare intention to purchase the recommended product/services by

friends in WeChat among different age groups, gender, educational background,

economical status, etc. For example, age factor was confirmed to be a significant

moderator moderating the effect of trust in C2C commerce (Yoon and Occe˜na 2015).

Finally, considering its absolute focus on social and psychological factors affecting

dissemination of eWOM and intention to purchase, several critical factors are beyond

consideration in enhancing purchase intention , such as privacy concerns, perceived

risks of commerce online (Featherman and Hajli 2015; Hajli and Lin 2014) and

self-disclosure (Green et al. 2016). Therefore, the current research of purchase

intention in the context of WeChat can be enriched if extra theories are applied to

include variables such as privacy concerns and self-disclosure in the model.

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Appendix

Constructs and items

Tie strength(TS) (Chu and Kim 2011; Levin and Cross 2004)

TS1 Overall, I feel very important about the contacts on my “friends” list on social networks

TS2 I communicate very frequently with the contacts on my “friends” list on my social network

Trust(T) (Yoon and Occe˜na 2015; Chu and Kim 2011; Chu and Choi 2011; Roy et al. 2001)

T1 A person from my online community (i.e., groups with whom I interact online) recommending a

seller/buyer in C2C e-commerce reduces my risk in the transaction

T2 I think that the information offered by this system is sincere and honest.

T3 I feel confident about having discussions with the contacts on my “friends” list on social networks

Source Credibility(SC) (Sussman and Siegal 2003; Berlo et al. 1969)


SC1 I think the reviewer is trustworthy

SC2 I think the reviewer is an expert in this field

SC3 I think the reviewer is highly rated by other WeChat users.

Subjective norm(SC) (Ajzen 1991; Davis et al. 1989; Fishbein and Ajzen 1977; Kaushik et al. 2015)

SN1 People who influence my behavior think that I should use the system.

SN2 People who are important to me think that I should use the system.

SN3 Using a system enhances my stature within my surroundings.

Opinion Passing(OP) (Chu and Kim 2011; Sun et al. 2006)

OP1 When I receive product related information or opinion from a friend, I will pass it along to my other

contacts on social networks

OP2 I tend to pass along my contacts’ positive reviews of products to other contacts on social networks

OP3 I tend to pass along my contacts’ negative reviews of products to other contacts on social networks

Opinion giving(OG) (Chu and Kim 2011; Sun et al. 2006)

OG1 I often persuade my contacts on social networks to buy products that I like

OG2 My contacts on social networks pick their products based on what I have told them

OG3 On social networks, I often influence my contacts’ opinions about products

Purchase Intention(PI) (Liang et al. 2012; Coyle and Thorson 2001; Erkan and Evans 2016)

PI1 I will purchase the recommended products the next time I need the related products.

PI2 If a friend called me to get my advice about which snacks to buy, I would advise them to buy the

recommended products.

PI3 I am willing to buy the products recommended by my friends on RenRen

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