Predicting customers' online word of mouth intention: The theory of planned behavior applied to understand youth Saudi social media behaviors

Abstract

Word of mouth (WOM) is the oldest, yet still a very common form of marketing. Over the years, it has undergone under significant transformation as a result of the changing business strategies and rapid improvement in technology. Today, WOM has gained traction as a very effective and economic form of advertisement. With the increase in the use of internet technology and use of social media for marketing, online word of mouth (OWoM) is significantly changing the sphere. Today, many marketers prefer to use OWoM through platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for marketing their products. However, consumer's behaviors and attitudes are found to strongly influence OWoM. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, the study explored the factors that predict the use of the OWoM marketing among youths in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from 440 samples using structured questionnaires and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results have succeeded in showing the complex relationship between attitude, behavioral control and subjective norms; the underlying beliefs, and the intention towards the OWoM.

The role of content marketing in enhancing customer loyalty: an empirical study on private hospitals in Saudi Arabia

“…After tracing the importance of content marketing, we do not find any research in the health sector of Saudi Arabia addressing multi-dimensional relationships among content marketing and clients' engagement, trust and loyalty. Although, some studies have investigated the issues regarding usage of social media, word of mouth and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the sectors other than health sector (Ajina et al, 2019;Ajina, 2019a;Ajina, 2019b). But the Saudi health sector literature is still silent towards the very important multi-dimensional relationships amongst content marketing and clients' engagement, loyalty and trust.…”

Online Video Game Influencer's Credibility and Purchase Intention

“…Furthermore, the audience can generally identify well with influencers (Schouten et al, 2020), which may serve as a confirmation of their credibility as sources when it comes to the subjects in which they are considered experts. Other researchers also included source credibility within the scope of subjective norms (see Aditami, 2016;Ajina, 2019). However, gaming influencers can, theoretically, do more than that.…”

Examining the determinants of consumer support for corporate social advocacy

“…However, there has been limited research employing the TPB to assess individuals' WOM intention toward organizations. Although some researchers found attitudes toward WOM, subjective norm, and PBC were positively associated with WOM intention (Fu et al, 2015), other researchers found no significant relationship between intention and subjective norms (Ajina, 2019) or PBC (Overton et al, 2020). The inconsistent findings may result from the context between previous studies.…”

“…Pan and Truong (2018) also found that self-efficacy but not perceived controllability positively predict individuals' intention to use low-cost airlines. When it comes to WOM intention, some researchers reported positive relationships between the self-efficacy and WOM intention (Cheung and Lee, 2012) whereas others found negative relationships between perceived controllability and WOM intention (Ajina, 2019) as well as no significant relationship between perceived controllability and WOM intention (De Canni ere et al, 2009). Given the different roles in determining WOM intention between self-efficacy and perceived controllability, we pose the following.…”