inducing word-of-mouth by eliciting by surprise.pdf

文档介绍：Inducing word-of-mouth by eliciting surprise – a pilot investigation Christian Derbaix a,Jo €eelle Vanhamme b, * aDepartment of Marketing, Catholic University of Mons (FUCAM), Consumer Behavior Laboratory, FUCAM, 151, Chauss ?eee de Binche, 7000 Mons, Belgium bDepartment of Marketing, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Postbus 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, herlands Received 11 June 2001; accepted 13 September 2002 Abstract This research – using the critical incident technique – brings to the fore the emotion of sur- prise and its in?uence on word-of-mouth (WOM). The results show – as expected – that the intensity of surprise is signi?cantly correlated with the frequency of WOMand that this rela- tionship is pletely mediated by subsequent positive or negative emotions. This rela- tionship is explained in terms of social sharing of emotions. ? 2003 Elsevier Science . All rights reserved. PsycINFO classi?cation: 2360 JEL classi?cation: M31 Keywords: Word-of-mouth; Surprise; Emotions; Social sharing; Critical incident technique 1. Introduction Word-of-mouth (WOM) is the most important informal means munica- tion between consumers (Filser, 1996). It is de?ned as ‘‘the munication directed at other consumers about ownership, or characteristics of particular goods and services and/or their sellers’’(Westbrook, 1987). The reasons justifying the *Corresponding author. Tel.: [phone]; fax: [phone]. E-mail addresses: ******@ (C. Derbaix), ******@ (J. Vanhamme). 0167-4870/03/$ - see front matter ? 2003 Elsevier Science . All rights reserved. PII: S0167- 4870( 02) 00157- 5 Journal of Economic Psychology 24 (2003) 99–116 ate/joep power of WOMare ?rst that WOMis more credible mercial sources of in- formation controlled panies (. advertising, sponsorship). Most of our dis- cussions are indeed with friends, family, . people we trust and whose goal is not the promotion of a pany. Second, WOM is munication, . th