e-WOM: Review and a New Conceptualisation

Electronic word of mouth or e-WOM has gained a lot of salience in marketing literature. However, the conceptualisation of e-WOM in the literature has often relied on past practices in e-WOM generation and use. For example, in the previous few decades, several studies that have used e-WOM to predict future sales/revenue of products and services have conceptualised e-WOM with similar factors such as volume, valence and dispersion of e-WOM, while only adapting it to their research context. In this article, we critique extant conceptualisations of e-WOM, and make a case of moving beyond a uni-dimensional perspective of conceptualising e-WOM and argue for the inclusion of the quality of individual posts/comments in measuring e-WOM. We argue that new conceptualisation of e-WOM must also consider the language, emotions and content of the e-WOM messages. Keeping this in mind, an alternative conceptualisation of e-WOM is offered.