Influences of External Incentives on Consumers' Positive Electronic Word-of-Mouth Intention

With a wide application of internet, more and more comments on brands, companies, products and services by consumers appeared, which are academically called Electronic Word-of-Mouth (EWOM). It is worth to analyze how to make use of EWOM as a rich resource both for practitioners and scholars. This study focuses on positive EWOM intention by finding the influences of different incentives including economy, return, social elements and self-enhancement incentives on customers' response, as well as the influences of different tie strength. This study combines quantitative data analysis methods to conduct descriptive statistics analysis, validity and reliability analysis, control test and analysis of variance to verify the impact of incentive types and strength of relationship imposed on will of positive word-of-mouth. The research results are as follows: Material incentive is the most effective means to increase the customers' will of WOM; Return incentive has a positive impact on customers' will of word-of-mouth; Enhancement of relationship intensity will promote consumers' will of EWOM; Consumers of different levels of involvement should be treated differently.