Research Proposal

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Table of Contents
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................2

Significance/rationale of the Study..........................................................................................................3

Aim of the Study......................................................................................................................................3

Research Objective..................................................................................................................................3

Research Question...................................................................................................................................3

Literature Review.....................................................................................................................................4

Literature Gap analysis............................................................................................................................5

Proposed Theoretical Framework............................................................................................................6

Research Hypotheses...............................................................................................................................6

PROPOSED RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................6

Sample Selection.....................................................................................................................................6

Population frame.....................................................................................................................................7

Type of Study...........................................................................................................................................7

Research consideration............................................................................................................................7

Instrument development/selection.........................................................................................................7

Proposed data collection procedures......................................................................................................8

Proposed data analysis techniques..........................................................................................................8

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1. Introduction
Globalization and technological advancement have changes the life of people around the world.
Internet is now becoming an important part of our lives. Internet is not only used as a tool for
communication but it has also imposed significant changes for business (Rosario, Sotgiu, De
Valck, & Bijmolt, 2016). Electronic word of mouth is basically the online discussion of products
or services whether on a chat room or any public provided forum to share a mutual topic.
Electronic word of mouth is a useful component in establishing a opinion about the product or to
spread the information about the product to the mass population. The traditional word of mouth
was described as a means of sharing opinions and comments about a product or a service.
However, the meaning of words of mouth has completely evolved into a new form of
communication that exploits modern technology. This is known as electronic word of mouth
(Cheung & Thadani, 2012).

One type of electronic word of mouth is online reviews which consumer gives on online portal
after using the product. It is considered as the most authentic and credible review which a
business can use to bring improvement in their product and serives. Nowadays, consumers rely
on online information which is share by other consumers to make a purchase decision. In this
modern era social media influence brand awareness, opinions and attitudes of the customers.
Organizations has developed social media pages to spread information about their products and
services and also gives the right to their customers to share their reviews and feedback on their
websites and social media pages (Cheung & Lee, 2012).

Nowadays, customers seek out the information before making a purchase decision. The process
of Ewom allows the customers to make a quick decision about a specific brand. Users can now
develop Ewom information within seconds by using internet therefore; credibility of information
becomes more critical. Consumers often depends upon opinions ad recommendations of experts
and public figures before purchasing complex, expensive, durable and critical goods. User
reviews affect buying decision and influence the choices of new consumers. Electronic word of
mouth help's the buyer to ask the reviews of other users and their experience about the product/
service. the product or service available on the internet can be never be experienced in terms of
features but review of the product from other users can be very helpful as it can be indirect
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experience the study resulted in that consumers are going online in a great number and online
market has a great potential. (Yan et al., 2016).

1.1. Significance/rationale of the Study

This research study addresses the impact of electronic word as procedure of personal influence.
The findings of this study will help out the organizations to efficiently use their social media to
gain attention of the customers. From the academic point of view this research study will fill the
gap of previous research literature. This study will significantly help the marketers as not much
research has been done previously to check the impact of Electronic word of mouth and not only
it will benefit the marketing companies as well as it will help the consumers to get helpful
reviews from the internet.

1.2. Aim of the Study

The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of Ewom on consumer buying behavior. Based on
this aim this research we will investigate the dynamic relationship among independent and
dependent variables by using different statistical tools. The study proposes stratifies through
which business organizations can develop sound strategies to efficiently deal electronic word of
mouth on social websites.

1.3. Research Objective

This research study has the following objectives;

 To analyze the affect of online reviews on consumer purchasing behavior.

 To probe the extent to which trustworthiness affects buying behavior of consumers.

 To analyze the affect of purchase intention on purchasing decision.

 To explore the relationship between purchase intentions and consumer buying behavior.
1.4. Research Question
This research study will address the following question;

What is the Impact of Electronic word of mouth on the consumer buying behavior and how much
it influences the buying behavior of the consumer?
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2. Literature Review
According to Fan, Miao, Fang, & Lin, (2013), there exist two main determinants to measure the
credibility of source these includes source expertise and source trustworthiness. The effect of
electronic word of mouth of purchasing behavior of consumers has been widely studied among
existing literature (Fan et al., 2013). A research study was conducted by Tsao & Hsieh, 2015), to
analyze the effect of electronic word of mouth on purchasing g behavior of consumers. The
results of the study conclude that a highly credible source of information positively correlates
with consumer buying behavior. The research further revealed that a credible source of
information reduces uncertainty, lower information asymmetry and improve purchase experience
(Tsao & Hsieh, 2015).

According to Yeap, Ignatius, & Ramayah, (2014), online reviews play a major role in influencing
the consumer buying behavior. A research survey was conducted by opinion Research
Corporation in which two –third of the respondents claimed that they use online reviews, blogs
and other customer feedbacks before making a purchase. The research survey also revealed that
80% of the participants use online reviews to seek information about the products of specific
brands (Yeap et al., 2014). A similar research was conducted by (Tien, Amaya Rivas, & Liao,
(2018) which revealed that 70% of the customers trust opinions which are posted online (Tien et
al., 2018).

According to there exist different dimensions of source credibility these includes trustworthiness,
attractiveness and expertness (Teng, Khong, Chong, & Lin, 2017). Bandyopadhyay (2016) has
found that consistent positive reviews resulted in greater perceived information trustworthiness
than the inconsistent text rating combination (Bandyopadhyay, 2016). Mahapatra & Mishra,
(2017) reported that consumer trust in an online shopping website positively predicts their
perceived credibility of the consumer reviews posted on the site, suggesting a transfer of
perceived trustworthiness from the shopping site to the consumer reviews (Mahapatra & Mishra,
2017).

Stephen W. Litvin et. al (2007) conducted a study to check the relationship between electronic
word of mouth, hospitality and tourism management. The paper first differentiates the traditional
word of mouth from the electronic word of mouth then it describes the implications, challenges
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and opportunities for the tourism industry through the use of Ewom. The digitization of word of
mouth is done through the use of websites, blogs and virtual communities. Ewom plays a
significant role in the consumer decision making process as it helps a lot through the reviews and
opinions of the travelers. Marketers can enjoy advantages of Ewom but on the other hand
challenges to control the traffic on internet are very high. Reacting to the Ewom many of the
travel agencies and hotels have their WebPages to guide their customers with their price and
packages.

Wang, (2014) was of the view that a trustworthy Ewom explains the features, characteristics and
use experience of the product. Consumer doubts on the credibility of a source if they believe that
the source of information is untrustworthy. The source of information is considered to be
trustworthy if the reviews are valid, honest and up to the point (Wang, 2014). Bhayani, (2016)
has found a strong relationship between trust in a message and purchase intentions of customers
(Bhayani, 2016). Lin & Tan, (2010) has stated that messages from experts and non-experts are
equally important but consumer give more importance to the opinion and recommendation of
experts as compare to non-experts. Consumers believe on the information and opinion shared by
experts because they have better skills and information as compare to non-expert (Lin & Tan,
2010).

2.1. Literature Gap analysis

From the analysis of the literature review, it was observed that prior researchers only analyze
determinants of the Ewom and evaluate their impact on buying behavior of consumers. In this
research study two new independent variables which include professional opinions and
trustworthiness were taken into consideration. Moreover, the base paper “Examining the
influence of customer-to-customer electronic word-of-mouth on purchase intention in social
networking sites” Will be taken in to consideration for the development of theoretical
framework.

3. Proposed Theoretical Framework

In this research study there will be five independent and one dependent variable. Independent
variable includes user review, purchase intention, trust worthiness, professional opinion and
source credibility whereas the dependent variable is consumer buying behavior.
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User Review

Purchase
intention

Trust worthiness Consumer

Buying Behavior

Professional
opinion

Source
Credibility

3.1. Research Hypotheses

H1: There is a significant relationship between User reviews and consumer buying behavior
H2: There is a significant relationship between Source credibility and consumer buying behavior.
H3: There is a significant relationship between and Trust worthiness and consumer buying
behavior.
H4: There is a significant relationship between Professional opinion and consumer buying
behavior.
H5: There is a significant relationship between Purchase intention and consumer buying
behavior.
4. PROPOSED RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
4.1. Sample Selection
Due to resource constraints and other time constraints, data cannot be collected from the entire
population, so sampling is a common procedure for collecting data. Probability sampling will be
used in which simple random sampling is the method to collect the data from different
organizations of Pakistan. Participants of the study belongs will include both male and female
members. The general public and professionals will also be asked to participate in this research.
However, preference will be given to those participants who have experience of buying any
online product.
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4.2. Population frame

Population chosen for this study includes the people, who are using internet, have an urge to buy
products online and us online portals to buy products.

4.3. Type of Study

In this research study, a quantitative research methodology was used and the results of the study
were presented in the form of numerical data, graphs and charts. A quantitative research method
was suitable for this research study as my intention was to investigate the numerical and
hypothetical data. In this research study the data is supplied in a numerical format and can be
analyzed by using various statistical methods and tools.

4.4. Research consideration

The Participation confidentiality was kept. Questionnaires were escorted by an introductory letter
describing the study aims and significance, with the promise that the responses and identity of
the participants would be kept severely reserved and results would purely be employed for the
academic purpose.

4.5. Instrument development/selection

Selection of an appropriate research instrument is essential for conducting quality research. In
this research, a research questionnaire will be adapted from the base paper. The research
questionnaire will be based on dichotomous questions, demographic portion and likert scale
questions.Response categories range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).A total of
18 question of all the five independent variables will be used in the questionnaire. Questions of
consumer buying behavior will be from (Question1- Question3), Questions of source credibility
will be from (Quesion4-Question5), Questions fo Trustworthiness will be from (Question 6-
Question9), Questions of professional opinion will be from (Question 10-12) and Questions of
purchase intentions will be from (Question 13- Question15) and variable user reviews will be
from (Question 16- Question 18)

4.6. Proposed data collection procedures

The questionnaire will be distributed among the participants by using Google Docs. The
respondents will be asked to first provide their basic demographic information then answer each
question.
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4.7. Proposed data analysis techniques

To analyze the data collected through questionnaire, the software of SPSS was used. In this
research study the data will be tested by applying correlation and regression test. To evaluate
how all the five independent variables will be connected with the dependent variable, correlation
analysis is used. While regression is used to examine that how much change in independent
variable caused change in dependent variable.

References

Bandyopadhyay, S. (2016). Factors Affecting the Adoption of Electronic Word-of-Mouth in the

Tourism Industry. International Journal of Business and Social Science.

Bhayani, A. (2016). Word of mouth in consumers purchase decisions: The moderating role of
product type. 21st IAMB Conference, International Academy of Management and Business,
Canada.

Cheung, C. M. K., & Lee, M. K. O. (2012). What drives consumers to spread electronic word of
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mouth in online consumer-opinion platforms. Decision Support Systems.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2012.01.015

Cheung, C. M. K., & Thadani, D. R. (2012). The impact of electronic word-of-mouth

communication: A literature analysis and integrative model. Decision Support Systems.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2012.06.008

Fan, Y.-W., Miao, Y.-F., Fang, Y.-H., & Lin, R.-Y. (2013). Establishing the Adoption of Electronic
Word-of-Mouth through Consumers’ Perceived Credibility. International Business Research.
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Lin, W.-S., & Tan, C.-H. (2010). A Study of Persuasive Effects of Electronic Words-of-Mouth. Xing
Xiao Ping Lun.

Mahapatra, S., & Mishra, A. (2017). Acceptance and forwarding of electronic word of mouth.
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Rosario, A. B., Sotgiu, F., De Valck, K., & Bijmolt, T. H. A. (2016). The effect of electronic word of
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Teng, S., Khong, K. W., Chong, A. Y. L., & Lin, B. (2017). Persuasive electronic word-of-mouth
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Tien, D. H., Amaya Rivas, A. A., & Liao, Y. K. (2018). Examining the influence of customer-to-
customer electronic word-of-mouth on purchase intention in social networking sites. Asia
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Tsao, W. C., & Hsieh, M. T. (2015). eWOM persuasiveness: do eWOM platforms and product type
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Yan, Q., Wu, S., Wang, L., Wu, P., Chen, H., & Wei, G. (2016). E-WOM from e-commerce websites
and social media: Which will consumers adopt? Electronic Commerce Research and
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Yeap, J. A. L., Ignatius, J., & Ramayah, T. (2014). Determining consumers’ most preferred eWOM
platform for movie reviews: A fuzzy analytic hierarchy process approach. Computers in
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