Examining the Effects of eWOM, Trust Inclination, and Information Adoption on Purchase Intentions in an Accelerated Digital Marketing Context

Abstract

The study focuses on the canvas of online information transmission that has expanded exponentially. Especially due to social media networks, consumers have been exposed to significant amounts of disinformation, misinformation and actual information. Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on social media networks has been facilitating swift information spread. Henceforth, it has become increasingly problematic for consumers to adopt authentic information and differentiate between marketers-generated content and user-generated content. The study aims to unfold the factors that lead to the information adoption that consequently motivates consumers to purchase products and services. The research study provides a comprehensive framework to re-configure factors that lead to consumers’ purchase intentions in the digital economy. Respondents of the study were those individuals who have been buying products online. The theoretically knitted causal relationships were estimated using a structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. The results indicate that trust inclination and information adoption sequentially mediate relationships between information quality, information usefulness, perceived risk and argument quality with purchase intentions.

Keywords

• information adoption
• social media
• eWOM
• trust
• online buying
• purchase intentions