온라인 커뮤니티 활동과 개인 특성이 구전 효과에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

Recently. word-of-mouth(WOM) behavior receives much attention in a form of NPS(net promoter score>' which is considered as an alternative measurement for firms' marketing performance supplementing a traditional consumer satisfaction index. Compared to the offline market. on-line environments make it possible for consumers to obtain electronic WOM from other consumers in a faster and broader way. and firms begin to utilize the internet for improving their marketing communication with consumers. Even though the importance of on-line WOM has been much emphasized. relevant research tends to replicate the off-line WOM research models applying them to the on-line setting in a limited way. For example, the type of social ties. which has been played an important role in off-line WOM behaviors and performance. has been missed in the recent on-line WOM studies. This study attempts (1) to investigate the effects of online community activities and perceived usefulness of the consumer feedbacks on WOM behavior and performance. (2) explore the roles of interactivity in a community site and its reputation as external factors influencing the mediating variables. (3) test the differential effects of consumers' personal characteristics. such as need for cognition(NFC), on the cause-effect relations among the factors. and (4) finally suggest some utilization guidelines of on-line WOM for the on-line marketing communication strategy. Empirical data for testing the research model was collected via an online survey of members of a brand community site. The online survey for eight days lead to 671 usable responses. Five constructs were measured in this study: interactivity, site reputation, sense of online community. perceived usefulness of feedbacks, effectiveness of WOM. The research instrument was validated using confirmatory factor analysis. and a structural equation modeling analysis was performed using LISREL 8.50 to examine the proposed research model. Results show that the sense of community and perceived usefulness of the consumer feedbacks have positive impacts on the WOM behavior and performance. Interactivity and site reputation tends to play positive roles in improvement in the sense of community and perceived usefulness. But. the sense of community does not assure the validity and trustworthiness of the feedbacks provided by other members. This indicates that firms need to separately manage the sense of community and consumer perception of the feedbacks. Accordingly. firms need to enhance the facility for interactivity among the members in their brand community site in order for members to involve more actively with WOM. Depending on the level of NFC. site reputation shows differential impacts on the sense of community. perceived usefulness and the WOM effects. A group with high level of NFC tends to reveal their WOM behaviors by perceiving the usefulness of other consumers' feedbacks. rather than just relying on site reputation. This indicates that firms need to consider individual characteristics for managing the online WOM strategies(i.e.. design of the feedback incentive and monitoring systems).