Determinants of eWOM Effects within Virtual Communities: An Empirical Study

Word of mouth(WOM) communication becomes a major part of online consumer interactions, particularly within the environment of online communities. Nevertheless, there is a lack of empirical research investigating the impact of such communication. The paper aims at investigating the determinants of the eWOM effects within virtual communities. Empirical results show that contrary to offline WOM theory, there is no significantly positive relationships between the online peer-to-peer tie strength and eWOM effects, but site trustworthiness, expertise of receiver and expertise of the recommender have significantly positive influences on eWOM effects.