An Investigation of Consumer Reactions to Negative Word-of-Mouth on the Internet

Recipients of negative WOM evaluated whether the negative WOM event was consistent with their prior knowledge about the company and they made attributions about what caused the negative WOM event. The concepts of consumer socialization, perspective taking, and naive economics, are discussed to explain respondents' reactions to negative WOM. Using their own standards of fairness, respondents evaluated the behavior of each party in the exchange. The respondents' beliefs about which party acted reasonably in the exchange determined where blame was placed for the negative WOM event. Recipients of negative WOM also recommended a range of strategies that communicators could pursue to ameliorate their problems with companies. Marketing implications of the findings are discussed as well as future research directions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communications

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Newman, Peter James, Jr

Contributors dc:contributor

• Thomas K. Srull

• Mass Communications

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3086146

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/86563