Final Research Report Till Mid2 for Print

Research Proposal Impact of Source Credibility and Information Quality on Adoption of Electronic Word of Mouth

Submitted to: Sir Ahmad Arif

Submitted By : M.Abdullah M.Shoaib M.Safdar Yaseer Zafar11/11/2013

E l e c t r o n i c W o r d o f M o u t h P a g e | 2

Contents

Chapter 1- Introduction...................................................................................................................3

1.1 Introduce the generalized topic.............................................................................................3

1.2 Importance and significance of the research area..................................................................5

1.3 Background information.......................................................................................................6

1.4 Problem Statement................................................................................................................7

1.5 Aim or purpose of study.......................................................................................................7

1.6 Rationale of study.................................................................................................................7

1.7 Research questions................................................................................................................8

1.8 Objectives of the study.........................................................................................................8

1.9 Significance of the Study......................................................................................................8

1.10 Delimitations......................................................................................................................9

Chapter 2-Literature Review........................................................................................................11

Chapter 3- Conceptual Model.......................................................................................................27

3.1 Theoretical framework........................................................................................................27

Figure 1.................................................................................................................................27

3.2 Proposed Hypotheses..........................................................................................................29

Chapter 4 - Research Methodology..............................................................................................31

4.1 Type & Approach of study.................................................................................................31

4.2 Population of study.............................................................................................................32

4.3 Sample of study..................................................................................................................32

4.3 Sample Size........................................................................................................................33

4.4 Characteristics of Sample Size............................................................................................33

4.5 Type of Data.......................................................................................................................33

4.6 Data collection....................................................................................................................34

References....................................................................................................................................35


Chapter 1- Introduction

1.1 Introduce the generalized topic

Marketing has always tried to influence the product image and placement in

customer’s minds. This struggle to grip customer’s psychology has become more difficult

since internet media has become a major participant in channeling information from the

company to the customer. The internet came into the business industry as an information

accessing tool in the early1990’s (Fourth Edition e-Marketing: The essential guide to

digital marketing By Rob Stokes, 2011); this is the time when the marketer’s breadth of

functions increased by a large margin as web 1.0 was created.

Web 1.0 provided the opportunity for marketers to publish their marketing

messages through the internet. This was hard to grasp with the traditional marketing

techniques when web 2.0 was launched where internet became a two way

communication’s platform.

Web 2.0 thus paved the way for social networking sites such as Facebook and

various other blogging, visual and pictorial sharing websites. In the traditional marketing

word of mouth was used to spread positive views about the company or products through

the consumer’s referral and suggestion. But since the emersion of web 2.0 web

communication channels, controlling and influencing the customer’s views and opinions

online over the internet has created drastic difficulties for the marketers. Still Word of

mouth has always been very valuable to the marketers because of social structure that the

human trusts and wishes to communicate.That is why it is the single handedly most


important non paid promotion that the marketers always wish to increase. Electronic

Word of Mouth is in fact more important because brick stores have the leverage of first-

hand experience meaning customers can touch and feel and the products where they can’t

do the same online. That is why the significance of Electronic Word of Mouth have

enhanced so much, as it also single handedly builds or destroys the relationship of trust

with businesses. There have been researches conducted on all the four communications

modules which are communicator, receiver, stimulus and response.

There have been various constructs and concepts examined in each of these four

modules, but as the topic is relatively new being only about a decade old there needs

extensive research on many parts of Electronic Word of Mouth to be widely accepted as a

theory to base further deductive studies.

It is for this reason that marketers have started spending so heavily on the digital

marketing and experts are predicting that in the near future Chief Marketing Officers

would spend more of the company resources on the Information Technology then the

Chief Information Technology Officer would (Jeffrey Bussgang). Out of the World

Economy of 70 trillion of US Dollars, Marketing has 1 trillion US Dollar share (Jeffrey

Bussgang) and this market budget is fast changing from a traditional marketing

dominated budget to a digital marketing one.

This research is focusing on the Electronic Word of Mouth adoption by the

Pakistani students who have looked to read or watch reviews of portable electronic

devices. Therefore we are studying the two variables impacting Electronic Word of

Mouth adoption. The first one is Source Credibility; how much the student deems the


source of the information review to be credible. We are measuring this phenomenon

through the Expertise level of the review maker and the level of trustworthiness that the

student denotes with the source of information.

The second variable is Information Quality. The quality of information that the

online review in questions represents. There are again two concepts; namely Relevance

and Comprehensiveness. Relevance measures the relatedness of the electronic device’s

review with the student’s requirements and Comprehensiveness denotes to the

completeness of the review message covering all aspects which the student

reading/viewing has in mind. The target population for our study is one of the fastest

growing online communities as Asia has the most number of internet user’s worldwide

covering 44.8 % of the world internet users (http://www.internetworldstats.com/).

The social media alone has already captured millions of internet users with

Facebook leading the group at more than 1 billion users, second comes Twitter at 500

plus million users; followed Google plus having 400 plus million, LinkedIn at 300 plus

million, Tumblr at 100 plus million blogs and Pinterest at 25 plus million users

(http://giselleaguiar.com/socialmedia/blog/realtors-why-arent-you-using-social-media/).

1.2 Importance and significance of the research area

The emerging era of digital media has changed marketing altogether now

marketers are focusing on digital media to influence current and potential customers

across to the globe so this research will give insight to marketer how to capture

consumers and what really affect them to adopt electronic word of mouth in order to

make purchase intention of electronic devices. This research identifies how consumers

http://giselleaguiar.com/socialmedia/blog/realtors-why-arent-you-using-social-media/

http://www.internetworldstats.com/


adopt electronic word of mouth in terms of source credibility and information quality.

this research also give insights to marketers how to market their brands and products

while promoting them onto social media or websites. This will be beneficial for firms to

know the perception of university students.

1.3 Background information

Word of mouth has been very dear to the marketers because of social structure

that the human trusts and wishes to communicate. That is why it is the single handedly

most important non paid promotion that the marketers always wish to increase.

Electronic Word of Mouth is in fact more important because brick stores have the

leverage of first hand trust meaning customers can touch and feel and the products where

they can’t do the same online. That is why the significance of electronic word of mouth

has enhanced so much, as it also single handedly builds or destroys the relationship of

trust with online businesses.

There have been researches conducted on all the four communications modules

which are communicator, receiver, stimulus and response. There have been various

constructs and concepts examined in each of these four modules, but as the topic is

relatively new being only about a decade old there needs extensive research on many

parts of electronic word of mouth to be widely accepted as a theory to base further

deductive studies. In online community people have a different perception judging the

quality of products and services.


1.4 Problem Statement

Although there has been momentous research done generally on Electronic word

of mouth but almost none in Pakistan. This research provides the trend of Electronic

word of mouth in terms of usage and adoption in Pakistani technical-savvy young

population and differentiate how students adopt electronic word of mouth while

purchasing electronic gadgets (mobile phones, personal computer, laptops, tablets. iPods

etc). The rate at which Pakistani internet community is growing, marketers can obtain

research data specifically on the Pakistani market to target this market. For making the

right choice and effective targeting firms must know the most effective factors for

adoption of electronic word of mouth by students in this fastly growing digital era.

1.5 Aim or purpose of study

This research finds out the perception of university students. This research checks

that students of universities how much they pay attention to Electronic word of mouth

and how message source credibility and information quality influence them to make an

online purchase intention about electronic gadgets.

1.6 Rationale of study

Electronic word of mouth is very popular and all business are operating through

websites. Students are essential part of our economy and they contribute in society so this

study evaluates for students how much message source credibility and information

quality are influential for adoption of Electronic word of mouth. Moreover students

influence their peers and families as well in terms of purchasing electronic devices so


knowing their online purchase intention is an essential activity to make it pleasant for

marketers in terms of targeting this huge segment.

1.7 Research questions

Q1. How electronic word of mouth effective for students to buy online?

Q2. How much source credibility is influential for adoption of electronic word of mouth?

Q3. What is impact of information quality on Electronic word of mouth?

1.8 Objectives of the study

1. To know the impact of source credibility on the adoption of electronic word of

mouth

2. To know the impact of information quality on electronic word of mouth

3. To know the influence of electronic word of mouth for purchase intention.

1.9 Significance of the Study

This research will be significant to establish marketing norm of emphasizing

electronic word of mouth marketing to capture consumer’s attention. Especially this

research will help how students evaluate electronic word of mouth and on what criteria

do they adopt an online opinion either its source credibility or information quality or

both. This research even highlights the main indicators of source credibility and

information quality for their effectiveness.


1.10 Delimitations

This research has used two variables like source credibility and information

quality. Other dimensions like website design, attractiveness and message appeal are not

used in this research. This research focuses on students of different universities and

checks their attitudes regarding electronic word of mouth. This research has focused

university students of Islamabad and more importantly universities are Shaheed Zulfikar

Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology Islamabad, IQRA University Islamabad

and Islamic International University Islamabad.


Chapter 2-Literature Review

Word of mouth

(Jillian C. Sweeney, 2012) discusses that Word of mouth is known as informal

communication between different parties about the evaluation goods and services. Many

organizations consider word of mouth as a powerful tool for marketing and that’s why

organizations cutting their budgets on other marketing approach.

Three most important dimensions of word of mouth are 1) Cognitive content 2) Richness

of content 3) Strength of delivery

The message content should be cognitive it should be rationale base and base on logic,

message should provide every detail related to goods and services. Hence word of mouth

is not a simple activity as it cannot be measured by number of occasion a comment is

passed about a product or a service.

(Lang, 2011) discusses that word of mouth satisfaction and service quality are related to

each other. It depends on what type of service is encountered. Satisfied customer tells to

five people while people who are dissatisfied they tell to 15 other people. Marketer’s

emphasis on customer’s feedback to service quality because they know that consumers

will spread a word of mouth about their product and services as word of mouth gives

more without investing.


Their study suggests that the engagement level of satisfied and less satisfied customers in

word of mouth is different. consumers who are satisfied will engage more in word of

mouth as compare to consumers who are not satisfied.

(Wang, 2011) says final word of mouth has greater impact on consumer purchase intention

as compare to initial word of mouth because in the end all opinions are cumulated and

consumers can easily recognize that which type of opinions are more about product and

services. It is not necessary that satisfied customers will engage in positive word of

mouth but somehow dissatisfied customers will communicate negative message about

product and service which can be a big challenge for company to avoid altogether

(Wang, 2011) further discusses that service quality perception is very important to make a

purchase intention. When positive word of mouth is generated prior to purchase or usage

then it will effect on to buying decision of a consumer. Finally service quality and

purchase intention gets affected by word of mouth which are almost in the end.

(Tim Mazzarol, 2013) discusses the loyalty factor in generating a word of mouth. loyalty

generates when a consumer consistently repeats the usage of a product of service.

Similarly word of mouth from the loyal consumer will be considered more efficient and

will be adopted. The cognitive appeal of the message tells how much person is into the

usage of product and service and how much loyal he/she is. The cognitive message bases

on the rationale and logical point which appeal to the consumer and make sense to them

in order to adopt the word of mouth and give that particular product and service a try.


(Tim Mazzarol, 2013) further says that cognitive message reduces the related risk of the

product and service that’s why a word of mouth with cognitive appeal is considered

effective.

(Cheng-Hsi Fang, 2011) discusses that word of mouth weighs differently for different

product types. Some products are adopted due to positive word of mouth some are not.

Word of mouth reduces perceived risk either functional or financial and when perceived

risk is considered low about a product and services their adoption level will be high.

Word of mouth sometimes considered more effective for services as compare to products.

Since services are not tangible in nature so their outcomes are not accurate that’s why

consumer rely onto other’s opinion how the service is? products and services that are

really high in quality and which are not a part of daily buying consumer do rely on their

word of mouth before purchase.

Electronic Word of Mouth

(Burton, 2006) discusses that there is a lot of importance of peer opinion and

recommendation about any product or service. Due to digital world people have a lot of

peers across the borders and oceans and people are connected. People these days do

discussion electronically about products before buying them. Different website are

dedicated for this purpose and different type of content is uploaded onto them. Some

website is purely dedicated in terms of quality and features and some website are for

general discussions. These days’ people are highly engaging in online community’s

discussions and these discussions influence purchase intention of a lot of people. These


websites have people from all around the globe with different culture and different point

of views about products. Hence difference websites have different power of influence on

consumers regarding products with different country of origins.

(Jose´ Luı´s Abrantes and Cla´udia Seabra, 2013) discusses that different social networks have

different paradigm to work and they have different settings. Some social networks focus

on in-group discussion and some social networks indulge out of group discussions.

Moreover different factors such as experience learning, mood enhancement effect on in-

group and off- group discussions and level of interaction among people also is an

important factor. Experience learning has proven more effective in group discussion and

electronic word of mouth. Social interaction and electronic word of mouth are very

important because if people are not fully interacted then they don’t trust each other’s

reviews. When consumers receive experienced based reviews then they start enjoying

because they think that their learning level is increasing about product in discussion and

they feel joy and due to feeling of joy they make a favorable decision about product.

(Tor W. Andreassen, 2009) discusses that electronic word of mouth become persuasive

when a non commercial sender of information is indulged in communication with a

product or service concerned information receiver. Conversation context also impact on

the adoption of electronic word of mouth such as conversation is done in a context of

usage experience, and commercial usage of that product and services. In order to provide

most relevant information to consumer it takes a lot of time to search relevant


information needed. Social media is considered as a source of information capital so a lot

of people engage themselves to get the opinion.

(Marianne Kulmala, 2013) discusses different level of electronic word of mouth. Electronic

word of mouth can be generated either consumer (non commercial) organic source or by

company personnel which is known as amplified source of electronic word of

mouth .organic source tells brand related tips features and different usage styles while

amplified source tells brand related advices problems to solutions. Organic and amplified

sources of electronic word of mouth are coproduced in the online social setting. Organic

source of electronic word of mouth is generated when a consumer gives his/her opinion

to other person it is a non paid form. Amplified source occurs when some personnel is

getting paid for his recommendation and tips given to different consumers.

(Mohammad Reza Jalilvand, 2012) discusses that in online communities different people

engage so it becomes very crucial to trust on whom. In these kind of settings people are

of with different experiences and with different knowledge and each gives opinion

according to their own perception. Consumers who seek electronic information have

different motives and expectations example in tourism industry consumers seek online

information about destination and they adopt information about that place online and

even online ticket transaction happens. This thing facilitates consumers a lot.

(Song, 2010) discusses that the high quality of electronic word of mouth generates

consumer trust, association, affiliation with that electronic word of mouth. This electronic

word of mouth then change purchases intention of consumer regarding a particular brand.


This electronic word of mouth can be about any shopping mall and brand outlet. When

shopping mall will have good reputation among consumers then consumers will go a

shop there. Online shopping has more risk as compare to online shopping because

consumers are virtually ordering things and they are not physically checking product

hence a quality based electronic word of mouth is more useful. Hence online trust is very

important and that’s why companies focus on building it.

Factors Effecting Electronic Word of Mouth

(Keith S. Coulter, 2012) discusses different factors which effect electronic word of

mouth. these factors contribute a lot in adoption of electronic word of mouth. different

consumers react differently to source, network, relationship etc. Closeness to an online

member isn’t an important factor like it’s in traditional word of mouth in which person

rely on friends and family or peers reviews but in electronic word of mouth consumers

don’t rely on it rather than it consumers see what is the source network of that person and

whether that person is a friend of any member or not? Hence to evaluate any electronic

word of mouth a long term relationship is very important either consumer to consumer or

consumer to business.

When electronic word of mouth is effective then it surely effects on brand image and

consumer purchase intention as well. People do evaluate others reviews about brand

image and it shapes their purchase intentions.

(Jiyoung Kim, 2013) discusses extension to Mehrabian and Russell’s Stimulus-Organism-

Response model which include both internal and external source of information which


contains reputation and website quality. Website quality is most important for the

perceived information which is given on the website that motivate to consumer buying

decision/intention.

Researcher show the all dimension which effect the consumer intention, Dimensions,

Website design, Reliability, Customer services, Security/privacy. According to these

dimensions this study shows that reputation of website has positive effects on consumer

emotions and has negative impact on the perceived risk.

All four dimension of the website which discuss in this study have negative effect on the

perceived risk and have positive impact on the consumer emotion excluding customer

services. According researcher perceived risk has negative impact on the consumer

emotions and both these perceived risk and emotions have a positive relation with buying

decision of the customer.

Website design

(Young Ha, 2012) discusses that this research shows that how website design influence

the consumer emotional and cognitive response that leads to satisfaction and generating

positive word of mouth. When customer willing to buy? Which thing motivate them to

buy and generate positive word of mouth? What is the satisfaction level of customer?

Which content/dimension of website influence more? After the research conducted

researcher give results that showed website design quality has direct and positive relation

with customer joy and stimulation, and what customer perceived about quality is

indirectly influence the customer satisfaction and generating positive word of mouth


intention. The result of this research showed satisfaction mediate the relationship of

positive word of mouth and cognitive and emotional response.

Perceived risk

(Shu-Yun Cheng, 2012) discusses that this study trying to mix up all the factors which affect

in online buying, It contains perceived risk and how social group influence the buying

intentions of customer, This study also focus on the customer perception regarding

perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.

This study shows that minimum amount of risk has maximum effect on purchase

intention through online group buying. The finding of this study shows that perceived

usefulness and community on the website have positive effect on the online buying, and

also both perceived ease of use and the quality of website effects to perceived usefulness.

From this study it is clear that perceived risk has negative relation with online

buying/intention.

(Neda Samiei, 2012) discusses that in digital media information speedily flow from one

place of the world to another place. If the information is positive then the impact will be

positive and if the information is negative the impact will be negative and its effect

ultimately on the purchase intention of a consumer. For building great image electronic

word of mouth through social media is very important when great and positive image is

built about a brand more favorable results will be for that brand in any industry, if

electronic word of mouth is about that a particular brand is better in usage in comparison

to other brand then the prior brand will be sold even more. On different social media a lot


of consumer who are satisfied they contribute with pleasant words about positive brand

image.

There are a lot of other factors are influencing on electronic word of mouth in which one

of them is following.

Message Appeal

(Paul C.S. Wu, 2011) discusses that there are different factors of message appeal that make

electronic word of mouth effective and results in adoption of electronic word of mouth.

The message appeal has two types 1) rational appeal. Which deals with the logical part of

information and it is based on facts. 2) emotional appeal in which message deals with the

emotional part of message to influence the reader of comments. In this message focuses

to evoke feelings about brand or product.

Level of Involvement

(Paul C.S. Wu, 2011) further says that level of product involvement also effects on adoption

of electronic word of mouth. When the involvement level will be high the electronic

word of mouth will be useful more and when level of involvement is low electronic word

of mouth is considered less.

Incentives

(Jan Ahrens, 2013) discusses that different incentive strategies also effect on adoption of

electronic word of mouth, when higher incentives will be given to consumer more

consumers will adopt electronic word of mouth more signups will be done on websites


for adoption of electronic review. By this strategy consumers feel encouraged and get

attracted. This equity concept tells that higher will be incentives more the effective will

be strategy and more people will adopt electronic word of mouth.

Information Quality

(Do-Hyung Park, 2007) discusses that in social media and digital world consumers reviews

are considered as an informants. These reviews will be effected on the basis of

information given. Not every information is going to be adopted but only information

will quality will be considered by consumers. the quality of information makes up a

consumer mind to adopt the review and ultimately consumer buy that product. Since

quality is subjective term so every consumer evaluate message quality onto their own

judgment level. Regarding quality generally a comment with more logics and persuasion

will be considered as a more quality comment.

(Do-Hyung Park, 2007) further discusses The importance of online reviews have

impacted the e-commerce industry significantly; mainly due to the reason that online

businesses do not have the strategic advantage of providing the tangible touch and feel

but online reviews have provided that customer oriented feedback or analysis giving

confidence to the consumer leading to purchase intention .

Electronic word of mouth whether as a source of information or recommendation

contribute largely to a product sales or decision making. The level of involvement as a

moderating factor for the relationship between electronic word of mouth and purchase

intention and they came up with three findings with this study. First of them being that


the quality of the stimulus (online review) directly and positively affects the purchase

intention of consumers, secondly the quantity of customer reviews in terms of number of

reviews also increases positively the chances of customer’s purchase intention; and lastly

the customer’s level of involvement e.g. low involvement leads to considering the

quantity of reviews rather than the quality of those reviews.

So in a nutshell for a consumer to consider a product in terms of purchase intention, the

online consumer review content must be persuasive through quality and quantity

(Xia Liu, 2008) discusses that Chinese online customers’ shopping satisfaction and what

factors influence that satisfaction. This paper deals with a holistic perspective in terms of

variables affecting online consumer satisfaction. The results found eight constructs and

indicated that response time for customer satisfaction isn’t very significant, and the rest

seven main constructs have considerable positive effect on customer online shopping

satisfaction. These are customer service, delivery, payment, security/privacy, transaction

capability, merchandise attributes, website design layout, information quality.

Relevance

(Dan Wu, 2012) discusses that it is the digital world everything is available on the internet

so it is very difficult to distinguish which is relevant and which is irrelevant .information

is available in different language so it is need of time to access different libraries to

understand the meaning to check relevancy of information available on internet.


In this study researcher aim is to study the effectiveness of relevant information and

translation enhancement to get the maximum information from online.

(Christy M.K. Cheung M. K., 2008) discusses that in online communities consumer adopt that

information which is relevant to the topic and precise.

Comprehensiveness

(Christy M.K. Cheung M. K., 2008) discusses that the information should be complete and

full so that consumer may relate to them and this will affect the overall quality of

information and eventually electronic word of mouth will be adopted.

Source Credibility

(Kelley O’Reilly, 2011) discuses that the characteristics of the information seeker;

specifically how they assess and credibility leading to adoption. Their sample population

targeted youngsters who were tech-savvy so they could find out the impact of such

population in adoption and assessing electronic word of mouth. Their findings found out

that tech-savvy receivers were now inclining more towards the clicks from the bricks.

They indulge in online reviews to increase their knowledge and self enhancement as well

as to avoid any online risks. Other findings included that receivers assessed online

reviews credibility by examining the polarity of reviews (difference in views), logic of

reviews, the number of online posts, articulation of online reviews, their ability to

discover corroborating sources (supporting statements)and the past experiences the

receivers have had with certain sellers


(Paul C.S. Wu, 2011) discusses that the relationship of message appeal and the

credibility of the source affecting the brand attitude in terms of brand trust, brand

affection and purchase intention. Positive electronic word of mouth settings have been

used to effectively study this relationship. The results indicated that positive message

plus higher message source credibility leads to improved brand attitude but with positive

message and lower source credibility the brand attitude has a decreasing effect. The study

also found out that with high-involvement in products the rational appeal in messages

met with more favorable brand attitude result than emotional appeal.

(Christy M.K. Cheung M. K., 2008) discusses that the impact of electronic word of mouth in

relation to adoption of online reviews in online customer communities. This study also

focuses on the extent by which opinion seekers would adopt online information and what

persuasive factors would lead them to do so. They found out that argument quality

engages and attracts customer to adopt information, particularly comprehensiveness and

relevance were found to be most effective in terms of argument quality. Source

credibility and information quality effect on adoption of electronic word of mouth as

consumers adopt that suggestion which they find most authentic and complete.

(Christy M.K. Cheung D. R., 2010) discusses that on electronic word of mouth source

credibility and information have a significant effect. Source credibility is going to be

determined by expertise and trustworthiness of a message source means message source

must have a experience about that product in consideration. Information quality is also

impactful on adoption of electronic word of mouth and information relevance, accuracy


and information completeness are dimension which also effect on electronic word of

mouth.

(Richard Buda, 2000) discusses that many studies on consumer reacting to different

product messages as in this era of information, there are so much advertised messages

flashing in the direction of consumers through various marketing communication

channels. This has caused a red flag for marketers as the message’s effectiveness is

becoming more and more questionable. To determine the effectiveness of the message,

three variables were selected namely the message framing, source credibility and

presentation order. In an experiment; the presentation of the message being positive or

negative information presented, the credibility of the source of information e.g. some half

the subjects were told that the information was reviewed by experts and the other half

was told that it was reviewed by customers, and lastly the presentation order where

subjects were given positive information either in the beginning of the product

information and others were given positive information at the end. The result showed that

these variables alone are not sufficient to understand the full effect of advertised

information to the consumer.

(Frost, Source Credibility:Do We Really Believe Everything We're Told?, 2002) discusses that

there have been always stories told down by the generations so these stories slowly

become rumors and from there legends and myths. There is of course another type of

information that is passed on by looking at facts and figures of past and present and how

would they formulate in the future. These two types of information have everything


common in each other as far as it’s going viral is concern and the demand for both type of

this information. So the only difference between the two is the truth. Nowadays the news

and rumors are both fed to the public by the same source of information e.g. journalist

which of course give most of their published information as news based on facts and

figures but if the story poses enough interest and is likely to be true, these stories are also

passed on to the receiver of this published media who holds high credibility of its source.

This is creating a problem and may impact how message receiver would look at source

credibility in the future.

(Schwarzkopf, 2007) discusses that Source credibility is evaluated by message receiver

through an articulation of various methods to judge the credibility of the source of the

message. One is the message itself showcases the level of quality and authenticity with

information that the message receiver is already aware of. Others are how the source’s

accountability and how independent that source is from any external influences

(Kenneth E. Clow, 2006) discusses that the message design for services is far difficult as

products can be shown through the presentation of their physical attributes. Therefore to

make the source of that message more credible different models and celebrities are used.

But the source credibility through such influencers on its own cannot impact the attitude

towards the message appeal. It also requires the perception that the message receiver

develops or has of the service quality

(Jyh-Shen Chiou, 2012) how much the severity of negative messages presented to

message recipients formulate their perception of it, given the brand attachment the


recipient has and the credibility of the source of information that the recipient holds. The

results showed that negative message information contributes more to the negative image

of the company about which the message refers given the source of that message is

deemed credible by the message recipient

Expertise

(Wu, 2013) discusses that skills competency and knowledge of a person about product is

very important, the more source will be expert the more information will be considered as

a credible and authentic.

Trust worthiness

(Wu, 2013) further discusses that personal identifying information has a great influence on

information receiver like how much time a information sender spend on online

community how quickly that person sends information this also increase source

credibility


Chapter 3- Conceptual Model

3.1 Theoretical framework

Figure 1

Theoretical Framework of Effectiveness of Electronic Word of Mouth


Figure 1 shows that the information quality and source credibility has an impact

on electronic word of mouth in an online community. This research model shows that the

source credibility is being measured in terms of expertise and trustworthiness and they all

together effect on source credibility and then source credibility effects on adoption of

electronic word of mouth. Similarly information quality is being quantified by relevance

and comprehensiveness and information quality then effects on adoption of electronic

word of mouth

3.2 Proposed Hypotheses

H1: Source credibility has positive relationship with electronic word of mouth.

Hıa: The higher the perceived expertise of a message source, the more the source will be

credible.

Hıb: The higher the perceived trustworthiness of a message source, the more the source

will be credible.

H2: Information quality has positive relationship on electronic word of mouth.

H2a: The more the relevance of information, the higher information quality will be

perceived.

H2b: The more comprehensiveness of information, the higher information quality will be

perceived.


The source credibility and information quality have positive effect on adoption of

electronic word of mouth. This research studies that source expertise and trustworthiness

are important dimension of source credibility to investigate in detail. Source expertise

means that the person who is providing information has experience with that related

product and trustworthiness is the trust of consumer on source that whether the source is

capable of delivering what has been promised and how much promised value is delivered.

In online community, people are free to give their opinion about product and

services without telling about themselves. It is on to users to judge the expertise and

trustworthiness of the message source regarding the adoption and rejection of information

given. If a person views that opinions and reviews are uploaded by high credible

individual then he/she will adopt electronic word of mouth.

In virtual environment students buying intention about electronic devices can be

identified by the perceived quality of information which they get from source. When

students think that the information fulfill their criteria, they adopt the information. It is

very important to know the perception of the students about the information quality in

online community to know their purchase intention.

In this research two dimension are used for information quality: relevance and

comprehensiveness. Students are more concerned about their time therefore relevance of

message is very crucial. Students scan the web-pages to get the desire information

instead of reading every web page in detail because they don’t have enough time.


Students want maximum information in less time with little bit of efforts. Hence

relevancy of information is more preferable in online communities as relevance of

information is important indicator in buying intention. Comprehensiveness shows the

completeness of a message by which student’s perceived detailed information. The more

the information and reviews generated by others consumers in complete and detail way

the more the student will acquire and retain that information.

Chapter 4 - Research Methodology

4.1 Type & Approach of study

This study is quantitative in nature as we are using empirical method where the

primary data is converted into numerical form to quantify the results for unbiased

analysis by measuring through its dimensions and statistical analysis which is being

achieved through a questionnaire that will end in conversion of information into

numerical data. The testing population for this research’s hypothesis is university

students mainly from the institutes of Islamabad namely Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

Institute of Science and Technology, Iqra University and Islamic International University.

The reason to limit as such the Sample of this study is to create better Quantifiable data

as time and resources spent on this sample would be efficiently processed and taken care

of. If we increase the sample population any further than three to four Universities, we

might get filled questionnaires but not filled information as these questionnaires would be


haphazardly filled due to lack of time and resources and therefore we might get biased

data as ample time would not be spent in the questionnaire’s consideration.

The second type of this study is Causal as two independent variables called

Source Credibility and Information Quality are studied of their effect in terms of

Adoption of Electronic Word of Mouth. Source Credibility is concluded through its two

concepts which is the Expertise of the source and the level of trustworthiness that the

message recipient has on the message source. The other Independent variable;

Information Quality is also concluded by its two concepts which are the relevance of the

message information with the message recipient and the Comprehensiveness of the

message. The relationship of Source Credibility and Information Quality is analyzed in

this study as causes to the effect of adopting that message information through electronic

word of mouth.

4.2 Population of study

The population of this research is young students belonging from the middle and

upper middle class. These students are pursuing some academic degree and have

exposure to urban living life style. These are technology savvy individuals meaning they

have basic knowledge of the usage of Web 2.0 and its applications. These units of

population are literate and understand reasonable level of written and verbal English

language so they can interact online and receive electronic word of mouth. These units

are both male and female and they spent at least 1 hour on the internet using some web

2.0 applications such as social media.


4.3 Sample of study

The sample crafted out of the population has same characteristic but most of the

dimensions of characteristics of these units have been further defined and narrowed down

in the below sections. Due to limited resources and other delimitations, the sample for

this study is taken from 3 universities which are Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of

Science and Technology (SZABIST), Iqra University and Islamic International

University. All of these Universities and the sample is taken from Islamabad again due to

scarce resources. The qualification level of the units in sample is in pursuit of Bachelor’s

Degree from one of these universities. These students come between the age group of

eighteen to twenty three years.

4.3 Sample Size

One hundred students are used as our sample size to quantify our independent

variables by students of the above mentioned three Universities. Our circle of research is

around these students. We have collected data in shape of questionnaires from these one

hundred students and we chose one hundred samples size due to lack of time and

resources as well as to not decrease the quality of the filled questionnaire through

haphazard filling.

4.4 Characteristics of Sample Size

Gender: Male and Female

Age: 18-24 years


4.5 Type of Data

To view and understand the developments of the framework of this topic, we have

used secondary data presented in the literature review, which is taken mostly from

marketing journals and books published in the context of digital marketing or

conventional marketing. The other data that we have used is of course the primary data to

test our hypothesis and to conclude results and implications through tangible facts and

figures which are numerically measured. This type of data is taken from universities in

Islamabad.

4.6 Data collection

This research has used questionnaire to gather data from student of Shaheed

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology Islamabad, IQRA University

Islamabad and Islamic International University Islamabad. The data is collected by

visiting the three universities mentioned above in the research paper, and convenience

sampling is used to select units of the sample but these units of course would be in a

setting of university that satisfies all the criteria and characteristics set for the sample of

the study.


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