What motivates consumers to communicate eWOM: evidence from Tunisian context

ABSTRACT

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is increasingly important in consumer decision-making. Even though marketers don’t have complete control over eWOM, they still need to understand how it works. Few studies have investigated the antecedents of such behavior in different cultural contexts. This paper proposes a model to explore the factors motivating Tunisian customers to communicate eWOM. The empirical investigation was conducted using a sample of 624 hotel industry customers. The results of the regression analysis show that eWOM is significantly linked to customer satisfaction, which is the result of expectation confirmation. This tendency is moderated by consumers’ altruism and age. Findings also suggests that females are more likely to communicate eWOM than males do. The findings improve the understanding of eWOM in a new cultural context and help Tunisian authorities setting their marketing strategies. In addition, its findings help online review sites attracting and retaining active contributors.

KEYWORDS:

• eWOM
• satisfaction
• expectation confirmation
• moderators
• regression analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).