Virtual communities have become more and more popular in the Internet world. Members of a virtual community can disseminate information rapidly to create word- of-mouth (WOM) effect in marketing. Therefore, in-depth studies of the increase use of word-of-mouth marketing in the electronic world become more important.
The object of this study is to use "the virtual book club¡¨, as the subject to investigate the factors that may affect member attitudes by the word-of-mouth. Four main factors were included in the research framework as independent variables, which are the knowledge of the message sender, knowledge of the receiver, quality of the message, and relationship strength between the sender and the receiver. Trust between the sender and the receiver is treated as a mediating factor. The dependent variable is the receiver¡¦s attitude.
A quasi-experimental design was conducted and the findings include the following:
1. The knowledge level of the send can significantly affect the trust of the receiver.
2. The strength of the relationship can significantly affect the trust.
3. The quality of the message content can significantly influence the receiver¡¦s attitude.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0210106-140354 |
Date | 10 February 2006 |
Creators | Cheng, Szu-hung |
Contributors | Y. C. Lee, Ting-peng Liang, Hsiang - Chu Lai |
Publisher | NSYSU |
Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
Language | Cholon |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text |
Format | application/pdf |
Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0210106-140354 |
Rights | restricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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