社交网络情境下消费者口碑生成的影响因素模型:基于真实口碑文本的扎根研究

The Factor Model of Consumers' Word-of-Mouth Generation in Social Networks: Based on Grounded Theory and Analysis of True Word-of-Mouth Texts

在社交网络时代,越来越多的企业试图利用口碑进行产品或品牌宣传。然而,如何促进消费者主动传播口碑是很多企业的困惑。本研究利用基于扎根理论的质性研究方法,以新浪微博中消费者真实口碑为研究对象,构建了社交网络情境下消费者口碑生成的影响因素模型。在理论模型中,促进口碑生成的客观因素包括特定消费情境(情感性、初始性、稀缺性和过程性)和特定产品/服务属性(趣味性、独特性、昂贵性和情感性)。促进口碑生成的主观因素涉及消费者对产品/服务的满意度(对单一属性的认可/满意和对整体的认可/满意)和积极情绪(积极自我意识情绪、高唤起积极情绪和中等唤起积极情绪)。客观因素可能直接促进口碑的生成,也可能通过消费者主观因素进而促进口碑生成。此外,很多时候不是单一因素而是多重因素共同促进口碑的生成。

In the era of social network,a growing number of companies try to promote their products or brands by word-of-mouth mar- keting.Word-of-mouth can improve consumers'brand perception, promote new product diffusion,increase sales volume,and then enhance business profit and market .competitiveness.However,lots of companies are confused about how to promote consumers to post positive or neutral word-of-mouth about products or brands proactively in social networks.The existing literature about word-of-mouth generation mainly focuses on consumers'mental motivation to share word-of-mouth information,while lots of possible antecedent factors are still unexplored,such as the specific situational factors,the attributes of products or services,and consumers'emotion. Maybe the quantitative research methods in previous researches have a contextual gap with the actual world,which leads to its underdeveloped research status. This study adopts grounded theory to discuss research questions by qualitative research method,which is ideal for determining new concepts.The qualitative data used in this study is from the famous social network site "Sina Microblog"in China.Consumers'true word-of-mouth texts are used to construct a factor model of con- sumers'word-of-mouth generation in social networks.Totally,660 texts of consumers'true word-of-mouth are collected.Thereinto, 600texts are used to conduct open coding,axial coding and selec- tive coding,and then build the initial model.The remaining 60texts are used to test the theoretical saturation of initial model.By means of grounded theory approach,this study proposes the objective and subjective factors of consumers'word-of-mouth generation,and their potential relationships. In the theoretical model,objective factors mainly include specific consumption situations (emotional,initial,scarce,and procedural consumption situations)and specific attributes of products or services (interestingness,uniqueness,expensiveness,and emotionali- ty).Furthermore,the subjective factors involve the aspects of consumers'cognition and emotion.More specifically,subjective factors include satisfaction of products or services (the acceptance and sat- isfaction of a single attribute,overall acceptance and satisfaction), positive emotion (positive self-conscious emotions,high-arousal emotions,medium-arousal emotions).The objective factors may promote the generation of word-of-mouth directly or indirectly by the mediating effects of subjective factors (such as positive emotion, the satisfaction of products of services).Besides,multiple factors in- stead of a single factor promote consumers'word-of-mouth together for most of the time obviously.