A study of antecedents influencing eWOM for online lecture website. Personal interactivity as moderator
| Date | 12 November 2018 |
| Published date | 12 November 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-10-2017-0275 |
| Pages | 1048-1064 |
| Author | Mi sook Lee,Hongbok An |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
A study of antecedents
influencing eWOM for online
lecture website
Personal interactivity as moderator
Mi sook Lee
Department of Business Administration, Kyungpook National University,
Daegu, The Republic of Korea, and
Hongbok An
Department of Accounting, Keimyung University, Daegu, The Republic of Korea
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to identify the antecedent factors –perceived usefulness (PU),
perceived switching cost (PSC) and perceived web security (PWS) –affecting learners’attitude toward online
lecture website (ATW), which, in turn, affects electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and finds the factor that
online lecture business should focus on the most to make learners have positive attitude.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper investigates the functional relationship among those five
constructs; and examines the moderating role of personal interactivity. Data were collected from learners who
had taken online lectures and were using social network sites, and a research model was analyzed using
structural equation modeling.
Findings –The results show that PU and PSC positively influence ATW but PWS has no significant
influence on ATW; PU is the most influential factor to ATW; ATW positively influences eWOM; personal
interactivity has a moderating effect on some paths; and path coefficients are higher in the high-interactivity
group than the low-interactivity group for all the links except the link from PU to ATW.
Originality/value –This paper contributes to online lecture business by understanding learners’perception
and behavior to the websites. Unlike many previous studies, this study designates eWOM as dependent
variable and personal interactivity as moderation variable. This study shows interesting results occurred
between low- and high-interactivity groups.
Keywords Perceived usefulness, Electronic word of mouth, Attitude toward website,
Perceived switching cost, Perceived web security, Personal interactivity
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Online lectures, including massive open online courses, are rapidly gaining popularity in
South Korea due to the fierce competition for university entrance exams, certificate
acquisition, reeducation programs for workers and lifelong education. Thus, online lecture
institutions should become forerunners in the use of information technology in order to
rejuvenate and find new and more sustainable directions (Jacobs, 2006). Online learners
spread positive or negative word of mouth (WOM) on social network sites (SNSs) about the
lectures they have taken. New learners can decide which online lectures are useful for them
after reading electronic word of mouth (eWOM), saving time and money. SNS users express
their opinions and share information with other users. Thus, SNSs could create valuable
opportunities for eWOM and eWOM posted on SNSs can affect new learners’decision.
Online lecture businesses should consider how to make the most of these new opportunities
to be competitive and make the best use of learners’eWOM because eWOM plays an
important role as an online information source (Andrea and Lorenz, 2016).
Although many studies have analyzed the antecedents and consequences of eWOM,
most have explored the impact of eWOM and regarded eWOM as an antecedent of attitude
or behavioral intention (BI) (Matute et al., 2016; Ye et al., 2011; Zarrad and Debabi, 2015).
Online Information Review
Vol. 42 No. 7, 2018
pp. 1048-1064
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-10-2017-0275
Received 1 October 2017
Revised 10 May 2018
Accepted 27 June 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
1048
OIR
42,7
In particular, few studies have explored the antecedents of eWOM in the context of online
lecture business. Unlike the previous studies, this study seeks to determine the important
factors influencing attitude toward online lecture website (ATW) that is connected to
eWOM. For the antecedents of ATW, we selected perception factors such as perceived
usefulness (PU), perceived switching cost (PSC) and perceived web security (PWS) because
we judged that they are the most influential factors on learners’attitude in online lecture
website with the following reasons. Above all, usefulness of online lecture website will be
very important in that learners seek knowledge and information that is useful to them.
Second, some learners are thinking about switching to the other online lecture website
because they would rather not like the website they are currently using, on the other hand
they are not doing so because of the switching cost (SC). Third, it was revealed that security
has an impact on the consumers’attitude, in many online-related studies.
Moreover, research works dealing with the moderating effect of personal interactivity
are very scarce, while several studies have just examined the interactivity of online learning.
Thus, this study differentiates from the previous studies by investigating the moderation
role of personal interactivity.
With those research situations, this study poses the following main questions:
RQ1. What factor is the mostinfluential antecedent of the ATW in onlinelecture website?
RQ2. Does personal interactivity play a moderating role in this study?
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The second section briefly reviews the online
lecture businesses and the literatures pertaining to eWOM on SNSs. The third section
provides theresearch hypotheses and model and the constructs for this study. The fourthand
fifth sections present the study’s methodology and results, respectively. Finally, this paper
concludes with a discussion of the key findings and provides an outlook on future research.
Online lecture business and eWOM
The key element of online lecture is the use of the internet. With the expansion of internet as
a tool for exchanging information, online lecture businesses include a virtual space in their
websites to share information among learners (Matute et al., 2016). Traditional WOM has
evolved into eWOM and internet has made WOM more rapid, convenient and pervasive,
without face-to-face human communication and pressure (Lee et al., 2013; Phelps et al., 2004;
Wang et al., 2016; Yeh and Choi, 2011). Several online lecture businesses advertised their
website through interactive activities, but new learners tend not to trust the advertising
(Brecht, 2012; Wieling and Hofman, 2010); they are much more trusting the experience of
and information from other existing learners. Online reviews are perceived as helpful tools
in obtaining information of products or services and reducing risks and uncertainty of
buying (Teng et al., 2014).
Shin et al. (2014) regarded eWOM as “the spreading of online reviews, arguments, and
recommendations that pertain to personal experiences with specific products or service
providers with a view to generating persuasive effects on the targeted consumers.”While
people share WOM with their friends, family and colleagues, they also increasingly share
eWOM with strangers through various internet channels. People enjoy talking and posting
online about products and services they have consumed. Nielsen.com (2012) demonstrated
that 92 percent of 28,000 internet users in 56 countries rely on the recommendations of
friends and family, and about 70 percent of them rely on online reviewers/eWOM. Thus,
eWOM is exercising strong influence over customer decision making (Lee and Tussyadiah,
2011). For instance, Ye et al. (2011) showed that traveler reviews and eWOM have a
significant impact on online sales and highlighted the importance of online user-generated
reviews and eWOM for business performance in tourism.
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eWOM for
online lecture
website
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