EMPIRICAL STUDY ON ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH: IMPACT OF INFORMATION QUALITY AND SOURCE CREDIBILITY ON INFORMATION USEFULNESS OF ONLINE OPINIONS IN ONLINE COMMUNITIES

Abstract

PURPOSE. The purpose of this study is to examine the consumption decision which is effected by electronic word of mouth in online customer communities and to examine the factors which encourage the information usefulness in online customer communities METHADOLOGY: In this study survey method was adopted to collect the data. Web based questionnaire was used to collect the data from the people easily available on the social sites. Sample size of this study was 384 and sampling technique chosen was convenience sampling. To analyze the results frequencies, regression and correlation was studied. FINDINGS: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the motivation in adopting opinions present on online communities. Further, the relationship between information adoption, information usefulness, information quality in terms of relevance, timeliness, accuracy and comprehensiveness and source expertise and trustworthiness was studied in this study. This study is based on information adoption model which was proposed by (Sussman & Siegal, 2003) Results indicate that information usefulness has a strong and positive influence on adoption of information from online communities. On the web shopper gatherings are more applicable to purchasers as the assessments and surveys are contributed by other kindred shoppers. PRACTICAL IMPLICATION: The outcome of this research is to point out the factor which motivates to adopt opinions present on online communities.