Facebook官方粉絲專頁對企業聲譽之效果研究：以權證價值理論與羊群效應理論探討 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學傳播學院傳播碩士學位學程碩士學位論文. The Effects of Corporate Facebook Pages on Corporate Reputation:. 政治大. From the Perspectives of Warranting Principle and Herd Behavior. 立. ‧ 國. 學. Facebook 官方粉絲專頁對企業聲譽之效果研究：. ‧. 以權證價值理論與羊群效應理論探討. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 指導教授：陳憶寧博士研究生：黎淑玲. 中華民國一○五年七月.

(2) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i. i n U. v.

(3) ABSTRACT. The rise of social media has changed the way people interact with each other and have also changed the corporate communication strategies of organizations. More and more companies are trying to get consumers engaged in online discussions by including social media like Facebook and Twitter in their communication strategy to enhance corporate reputation. Corporate Facebook Pages, a new feature introduced by Facebook in 2007, has emerged as a popular marketing vehicle for many companies and is regarded as the function. 政治大 media to communicate with consumers who are willing to engage online and provide 立. with the highest commercial potential. Many food service businesses begin to utilize social. opinions and suggestions about their performance. However, the research on corporate. ‧ 國. 學. reputation management on social media context has been limited. A crucial question that has. ‧. not been studied extensively is how the content generated by companies and consumers affect. sit. y. Nat. a company’s corporate reputation.. io. er. An experimental design has been employed. Following the warranting principle and herd behavior theory, the results of this study show that official information. n. al. (company-generated content). v i n andCconsumer reviews U h e n g c h i (consumer-generated. content) on. restaurant Corporate Facebook Pages have different effects on corporate reputation. Moreover, it is found that the popularity of content affects the effect of the source of content on corporate reputation. Corporate reputation management strategies used on corporate Facebook Pages are identified, in order to gain an understanding of the specific features of reputation management in the social media context.. Keywords: Corporate Facebook Pages, corporate reputation, warranting principle, herd behavior, social media, restaurant. ii.

(4) 摘要. 社群媒體的興起不但改變了人們互動的方式，同時改變了企業的傳播溝通策略。愈來愈多公司企圖透過社群媒體如 Facebook、Twitter 等讓消費者加入線上討論，從而加強企業聲譽。Facebook 於 2007 年推出之官方粉絲專頁功能被視為最受歡迎及最有商業潛力的營銷工具，不少餐飲服務品牌加入使用社群媒體與消費者溝通的行列，讓消費者能於線上為其他提供意見及改善建議。然而，過往針對社群媒體環境上企業聲譽管理的研究有限，於 Facebook 官方粉絲專頁上企業提供的資訊與消費者提供的資訊如何影響. 政治大根據權證價值理論與羊群效應理論，本研究將採用實驗法，探討及比較餐廳的立. 企業聲譽並未被探討。. ‧ 國. 學. Facebook 官方粉絲專頁上的官方資訊（企業生產的內容）與消費者評論（消費者生產的內容）對企業聲譽之差異，並探究內容的受贊同的程度如何影響以上內容對企業聲譽. ‧. 的影響。本研究目的為了解 Facebook 官方粉絲專頁上的企業聲譽管理策略，以及社群. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. 媒體環境中企業聲譽管理的特性與特徵。. v. n. 關鍵字：Facebook 官方粉絲專頁、企業聲譽、權證價值理論、羊群效應理論、社群媒體、餐廳. Ch. engchi. iii. i n U.

(5) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. This thesis represents not only my work as a graduate student, but also a milestone in my academic achievements. Having come to Taiwan from Hong Kong for this Master’s degree has been one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. The experience at National Chengchi University (NCCU) has been nothing short of amazing. This thesis represents the knowledge I have gained, and is the result of many precious experiences I have come across at NCCU. I would not have been able to finish this thesis without the help from. 政治大 First and foremost I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Prof. Yi-Ning 立. many remarkable individuals who I would like to acknowledge.. Katherine Chen of the College of Communication at NCCU for her guidance during my. ‧ 國. 學. research. She has not only offered inspiring suggestions and unreserved support which have. ‧. been valuable for the development of this thesis content, but has also been a constant source. sit. y. Nat. of encouragement during the second year of my Master’s program. She consistently allowed. io. er. this thesis to be my own work, but directed me to the right direction whenever she thought I needed. More importantly, she cared for my career planning and has helped me create a. al. n. v i n Cearnest blueprint for my life. Her sincere and will be a benefit for life. U h e nwords i h gc. I would also like to thank my thesis committee, Prof. Jih-Hsuan Tammy Lin of the. College of Communication at NCCU and Prof. Yie-Jing Yang of the Department of Public Relations and Advertising at Shih Hsin Univeristy, for the invaluable suggestions they have given me through the two oral defenses. I am also indebted to my fellow students who have helped me share and complete the survey, and have invited many others to participate in the research. My greatest gratitude goes to my friend Fairuz who has patiently given me her helping hands whenever I encountered any difficulties, and offered her hearty support when I was depressed. I am also deeply thankful to my junior schoolmate Andy who has given me tremendous help in designing the iv.

(6) stimulus materials of the experiment and placing the experiment online. I am very grateful to all the people I have met along the way, and to College of Communication of NCCU. Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents and to my boyfriend for their unconditional support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study. They back me up in whatever decisions I make. Their love and support has allowed me to live the most unique and wonderful life that I am having now. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you and I love you!. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. v. i n U. v.

(7) TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................. 5 2.1 Nature of Social Media .................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Corporate Facebook Pages ............................................................................................... 7 2.3 Impression Management .................................................................................................. 9 2.4 Corporate Reputation Management ............................................................................... 10. 政治大. 2.5 Warranting Value of Information Online ....................................................................... 13. 立. 2.6 Identifying the Source of Information Online ................................................................ 15. ‧ 國. 學. 2.7 Intentions to Purchase .................................................................................................... 17 2.8 Herd Behavior ................................................................................................................ 18. ‧ sit. y. Nat. CHAPTER 3: METHOD ...................................................................................................... 22. io. er. 3.1 Experimental Design Overview ..................................................................................... 22 3.2 Sample ............................................................................................................................ 25. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. 3.3 Stimulus Materials.......................................................................................................... 26. engchi. 3.4 Measures ......................................................................................................................... 27 3.5 Pilot Test ........................................................................................................................ 29. CHAPTER 4: RESULTS ...................................................................................................... 30 4.1 Effect of Content on Corporate Reputation .................................................................... 30 4.2 Effect of Content on Intention to Purchase .................................................................... 31 4.3 Effect of Content on Intention to Click “Like” for Posts ............................................... 33 4.4 Effect of Number of Likes ............................................................................................. 34. CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .......................................................... 44. vi.

(8) CHAPTER 6: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS ......................... 48 6.1 Theoretical Implications ................................................................................................. 48 6.2 Practical Implications ..................................................................................................... 49. REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 50. APPENDICES ........................................................................................................................ 58 Appendix 1: Manipulation Check ........................................................................................ 58 Appendix 2: Screenshots of Stimulus Materials .................................................................. 69 Appendix 3: Research Questionnaire ................................................................................... 78. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. vii. i n U. v.

(9) LIST OF TABLES. Table 1: Experimental Design ................................................................................................. 23 Table 2: Profile of Participants ................................................................................................ 25 Table 3: Hypothesis Supported ................................................................................................ 43. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. viii. i n U. v.

(10) LIST OF FIGURES. Figure 1: Research Model ........................................................................................................ 24 Figure 2: Effects of corporate Facebook page content on corporate reputation ...................... 31 Figure 3: Effects of corporate Facebook page content on purchase intention ......................... 33 Figure 4: Effects of corporate Facebook page content on intention to click “Like” ............... 34 Figure 5: Effects of corporate-generated content with “Likes” on corporate reputation ......... 35 Figure 6: Effects of corporate generated-content with “Likes” on purchase intention............ 36 Figure 7: Effects of identifiable consumer-generated content with “Likes” on corporate. 政治大. reputation ................................................................................................................. 37. 立. Figure 8: Effects of identifiable consumer-generated content with “Likes” on purchase. ‧ 國. 學. intention ................................................................................................................... 39 Figure 9: Effects of unidentifiable consumer-generated content with “Likes” on corporate reputation ................................................................................................................. 40. ‧. Figure 10: Perceived corporate reputation of content on Corporate Facebook Page .............. 41. Nat. sit. y. Figure 11: Purchase intention of content on Corporate Facebook Page .................................. 42. n. al. er. io. Figure 12: Intention to click “Like” for posts on Corporate Facebook Page ........................... 42. Ch. engchi. ix. i n U. v.

(11) CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. In recent years, due to the rise of social media, on which people interact, produce and share content, computer-mediated interactions occur on a scale that involves unprecedented numbers of participants (Geisler, 2011). Social media are defined as a second generation of web development that facilitates communication and information sharing and collaboration on the World Wide Web (Paris, Lee & Seery, 2010). The development of social media has. 政治大 make up a new and influential textual space for users to discuss, to voice out their opinions 立. provided a new medium for brand communications (Ahn, Kwon & Sung, 2010). Social media. and to get their voices heard. Moreover, they have changed the way people interact with each. ‧ 國. 學. other and with companies (Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden, 2011), and have also changed the. ‧. corporate communication strategies of organizations.. y. Nat. The rise of Web 2.0 has enabled consumers to actively interact directly with the. er. io. sit. companies without being dependent on third parties (O'Reilly, 2007). Besides, consumers’ information seeking behavior regarding products and services has been shifted from. al. n. v i n Csources, traditional offline sources to online electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) U h e n gincluding i h c. sources like social network sites and review sites (Gruen, Osmonbekov, & Czaplewski, 2006). The information people post online have great influence on viewers’ purchasing decisions and attitude towards the companies (Lee & Shin, 2014). Consumers tend to rely on peer opinions and consumer reviews available online. According to a global survey among 28,000 internet respondents, only about 46% of participants reported trusting traditional advertising, whereas 92% reported trusting word-of-mouth from friends and family and 70% reported trusting online consumer reviews (Nielsen, 2012). Social network sites, like Facebook and Twitter, serve as communication platforms to provide online word-of-mouth (Dijkmans, Kerkhof, & Beukeboom, 2015). 1.

(12) As a result of these developments, companies have changed their communication approach. More and more companies are trying to get consumers engaged in online discussions by including social media like Facebook and Twitter in their communication strategy. 87% of the Fortune Global 100's companies are active on at least one social media platform, mainly Twitter (82%) and Facebook (74%) (Burson-Marsteller, 2012). Many food service businesses begin to utilize social media to communicate with consumers who are willing to engage online and provide opinions and suggestions about their performance (Lee, Xiong & Hu, 2010). The motives for companies to use social media are enhancing. 政治大 which are often referred to as “corporate reputation management”. Corporate reputation is 立 trustworthiness, brand attitude and customer commitment (Weinberg & Pehlivan, 2011),. defined as “a collective representation of a firm’s past behavior and outcomes that depicts the. ‧ 國. 學. firm’s ability to render valued results to multiple stakeholders” (Fombrun, Gardberg, & Sever,. ‧. 2000). Studies showed that corporate reputation has a positive effect on brand trust,. sit. y. Nat. customers’ word-of-mouth intensions and purchase intensions in the food service industry. io. er. (Wood, 2014; Han, Nguyen, & Lee, 2015). Online reputation management involves interacting with people online, creating shareable content, monitoring and keeping track of. al. n. v i n C h negative contentUfound online, and following up on what stakeholders are saying, addressing engchi ideas that are shared through social media (Dijkmans et al., 2015).. The company-consumer interactions, which take place on company’s social media platforms, greatly influence reputation of the company and at the same time illustrate one of the challenges that company representatives face online. Interaction of individuals is a crucial feature of the computer-mediated communication (CMC) environment (Goffman, 1959). This has called for companies to participate actively in the interaction and make use of reputation management strategies in order to establish and uphold desired images of themselves. Earlier studies of IM have come from the field of social psychology (Goffman, 1959; Leary & Kowalski, 1990). Although some scholars have combined IM with the commercial 2.

(13) perspectives and used the IM framework to study organizational communication strategies to develop impressions (Bolino, Kacmar, Turnley, & Gilstrap, 2008), the organizational IM on social media context has received little attention. Regarding the research method, most of the studies employed content analysis to summarize the IM strategies, the empirical research in the related area has been limited. A crucial question that has not been studied extensively is how the content generated by companies and consumers affect a company’s corporate reputation. Moreover, no previous studies have focused on such topic in online restaurant social media communities, such as Facebook Pages.. 政治大 we go for dinner tonight?” is perhaps the most commonly asked question in our daily lives, 立 Social Media is revolutionizing the restaurant industry (Windels, 2012). “Where shall. meaning that we depend on reviews and suggestions of others when we decide which. ‧ 國. 學. restaurant to dine in. Social media has quite so served this purpose and amplified it to another. ‧. new level. Social media websites are now commonly used by consumers to rate different. sit. y. Nat. restaurant. According to Windels (2012), a positive correlation has been found between a. io. er. restaurant’s revenues and its social media reviews and online rating. Social media is changing many aspects of restaurant operations, including marketing promotions, customer relations,. al. n. v i n C h & Thompson,U2013). In a Restaurant.org survey, and methods of hiring employees (Needles engchi. more than eight out of ten restaurant operators stated that they intended to use social media as a major tool in their marketing strategies. Based on the above-mentioned reasons, corporate Facebook Page of the restaurant industry is therefore adopted as research target in this research. According to warranting principle, the less information is perceived to be controllable by the target it describes, the more weight it will carry in shaping impressions (Walther, Van Der Heide, Hamel, & Shulman, 2009). Therefore, information provided online by third-parties about a target is thought to influence viewers’ impressions of the target more than information generated by the target. However, herd behavior suggests that when facing 3.

(14) extensive amount of information, people often imitate others rather than making decisions based on existing conditions (Bonabeau, 2004). They tend to follow the previous behavior of others and disregard their own existing information. Would Facebook Page content generated by third-parties or content supported by many others influence viewers’ perceived reputation of the corporation more? Would the intention to purchase and to click “Like” for posts be influenced? Following the warranting principle and herd behavior theory, this study adopts warranting principle from impression management and investigates how official information (company-generated content) and consumer reviews (consumer-generated content) on. 政治大 study also investigates how the popularity of Facebook content affects the effect of the source 立. restaurant Corporate Facebook Pages affect corporate reputation and purchase intention. The. of content on corporate reputation and purchase intention. It aims at identifying the corporate. ‧ 國. 學. reputation management strategies used on corporate Facebook pages and gaining an. ‧. understanding of the specific features of reputation management in the social media context.. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. An experimental design has been employed to add empirical evidence to the area of study.. Ch. engchi. 4. i n U. v.

(15) CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW. 2.1 Nature of Social Media Social media can be referred to the group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of the Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2011). They are defined as interactive Web platforms via which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss,. 政治大 According to van Dijck (2013), social media platforms include 1) social network sites (SNSs) 立. and modify user-generated content (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011).. like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; 2) user-generated content sites (UGCs) like YouTube. ‧ 國. 學. and Flickr; 3) trading and marketing sites (TMSs) like Amazon and eBay; and 4) play and. ‧. game sites (PGS) like Raptr and Playfire. Among all, SNSs are most commonly used by users. sit. y. Nat. and Facebook is currently the largest social network platform (Spangler, 2016).. io. er. According to Ellison and boyd (2013), a social network site (SNS) is a networked communication platform in which participants 1) have uniquely identifiable profiles that. al. n. v i n C h provided by other consist of user-supplied content, content users, and/or system-provided engchi U data; 2) can publicly articulate connections that can be viewed and traversed by others; and 3). can consume, produce, and/or interact with streams of user-generated content provided by their connections on the site. Besides personal use, social media can be applied in the context of companies in three distinct areas: 1) recruiting and professional career development; 2) relationship facilitation in distributed work contexts; and 3) business-to-customer interactions (Richter, Riemer, & vom Brocke, 2011). The profiles and content generated by users provide firms with a massive amount of useful customer information. Social media users generate content and information when they engage in conversations with others, “like”, share, tag, or comment on posts (McAfee, Howe, & Surowiecki, 2011). Consumers may also use social 5.

(16) media to help them make decisions about purchases because they rely on recommendations from friends (LI & Darban, 2012). Traditionally, companies had control over where their messages were placed and when consumers would have access to them. But with social media, firms possibly can only control the initial placement of information but cannot directly control how that information is disseminated once it is placed (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Consumers may be exposed to messages placed by companies when they are using social media to keep in touch with friends and family or for entertainment. Social media allow companies to talk to their. 政治大 consumers can also talk directly to the companies and to an unlimited number of other 立 customers as with traditional media but unlike traditional forms of communication the. consumers (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).. ‧ 國. 學. Founded in 2004, Facebook is currently the largest social media platform with 1.59. ‧. billion monthly active users worldwide as of the fourth quarter of 2015 (Spangler, 2016).. sit. y. Nat. Launched by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and some of his contemporaries, the service. io. er. was initially only available to Harvard students but soon expanded to regional universities and further universities before opening up to high school students and global users aged 13 or. al. n. v i n C h before using theUplatform and are free to create a above. Facebook users have to register engchi. personal profile in order to interact with the other users, which they can add as friends. Moreover, Facebook users may join user groups based on workplace, college or school and can also follow corporate Facebook pages established by companies, organizations and celebrities according to own interests. Users can post status updates or other content including pictures, videos and links. They can also message each other. Currently, the Facebook usage penetration among internet users in leading markets is above 80 percent (Statista, 2015). Social media and Facebook have been studied from different perspectives such as the characteristics of the users (Bhattacharyya et al., 2011; Hargittai, 2007), usage motivations 6.

(17) (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008), self-presentation and impression management (Walther et al., 2009), social interactions (Nazir, Raza, & Chuah, 2008), and privacy and information disclosure (Debatin, Lovejoy, Horn, & Hughes, 2009). However, the studies about the use of social media in the context of companies have been limited. According to the definition of Richter et al. (2011), this study will focus on the business-to-customer (B2C) interactions on social media platforms.. 2.2 Corporate Facebook Pages. 政治大 the same way they (the consumers) do with their family and friends (Parsons, 2013). Today’s 立. From a corporate perspective, social media allows companies to interact with consumers. consumers almost expect companies to have online presence in social media and the. ‧ 國. 學. challenge for companies is how to get involved and establish a presence (Nair, 2011). Social. ‧. media provides a variety of options for companies to establish a social media presence.. sit. y. Nat. Among all options, “Corporate Facebook Pages”, a new feature introduced by Facebook in. io. er. 2007, has emerged as a popular marketing vehicle for many companies and is regarded as the function with the highest commercial potential. As of December 2015, 50 million small and. al. n. v i n C h Facebook PagesU to reach Corporate engchi. medium sized business use. and interact with the. consumers (Constine, 2016). Corporate Facebook Pages are user profiles for brands (companies, organizations and celebrities). The content shared on Facebook Pages is referred to as posts, which appear on the central part of the Page, known as the wall or timeline. Each Page might have one or more administrators who are responsible for creating, editing and deleting the content. Corporate Facebook Pages have the look and feel of personal pages but offer additional features such as the ability to quickly send messages to thousands of followers (Sysomos, 2009). Facebook users can join and follow the corporate pages as followers. The followers of corporate Facebook pages fall into two categories: followers who only follow the news and discussions and followers who actively voice their views (Lillqvist 7.

(18) & Louhiala-Salminen, 2014). Within a Corporate Facebook Page, followers can engage with a company by: (1) posting content on the wall (depending on the communication policy set by the company), (2) commenting on the existing post shared by the administrator, (3) indicating interest in an existing post by pressing the “like” button, i.e. liking, and (4) sharing the post on their own profile wall. Each of these actions generates a story, which appears on the wall of each of the follower’s Facebook friends. As such, these actions represent a form of word-of-mouth communication. Moreover, stories which were generated by followers’ engagement over corporate posts, foster a propagation of the marketing message, leading. 政治大 The messages and interactions between brands and followers may include texts, pictures, 立. towards the goal of viral marketing (Kirby & Marsden, 2006).. videos, and links. These interactions, unlike those on traditional discussion boards, are not. ‧ 國. 學. anonymous because corporate Facebook pages require that followers have a Facebook profile,. ‧. which usually includes their real name (Lillqvist & Louhiala-Salminen, 2014).. sit. y. Nat. Social media provides a platform for the companies to serve and listen to the consumers,. io. er. monitor customer feedback, encourage dialogue, and establish connections (Nair, 2011). Due to the interactive nature of social media, companies have the opportunities to generate. n. al. Ch. feedback from their consumers that can be helpful. engchi. v i n inUproduct. development, advertising. campaign development, and marketing research (McAfee et. al., 2011). It is suggested that companies should integrate their social media activity with their activity in traditional media to present a cohesive brand image and to increase the likelihood that consumers will be engaged with their brand (Mangold & Faulds, 2009; Kapland & Haenlein, 2010). Moreover, since corporate Facebook pages are public to all Facebook users, not only followers may visit the pages and read the posts and discussions, but also other Facebook users. This has raised the necessity for the corporations to engage in reputation management on Facebook pages as the interactions between brands and followers can reach both existing and potential customers and affect their perceptions of the brands. 8.

(19) Corporate Facebook pages have been receiving more attention in the area of scholarship recently. Champoux, Dugree and McGlynn (2012) suggested that corporate Facebook pages allow companies to establish connection with existing customers and also potential consumers as they create an expectation of interaction in the mind of consumers. Nevertheless, little is known about specific communication strategies or practices that appear on corporate Facebook pages.. 2.3 Impression Management. 政治大 to control the perceptions that others have about them (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). Goffman 立. Impression management (IM) is an interpersonal process by which individuals attempt. (1959) introduced the Dramaturgical Approach on social interaction, in which human. ‧ 國. 學. interaction is viewed as drama with actors performing in front of audiences. A core. ‧. assumption of the dramaturgical approach is that activity takes place in specific bounded. sit. y. Nat. settings. Goffman separated these settings into the “front stage” and the “back stage”. In the. io. er. front stage, people try to present an idealized version of oneself according to a specific role because audience is present. In the back stage, people do much of the real work necessary to. al. n. v i n Cregion keep up appearances. The backstage where people can polish or refine their U h e nis ga place i h c. performance without revealing themselves to the audience. It also allows them to express aspects of themselves that the audience may find unacceptable. Earlier studies of IM have come from the field of social psychology (Goffman, 1959; Leary & Kowalski, 1990). Although some scholars have combined IM with the commercial perspectives and used the IM framework to study organizational communication strategies to develop impressions (Bolino et al., 2008), the studies regarding organizational IM on social media context have been limited. This study will investigate how companies manage their organizational impressions through official information (company-generated content) and consumer reviews (consumer-generated content) on corporate Facebook Pages. 9.

(20) Like individuals, companies and other organizations (or their representatives and spokespersons) may use IM to influence the perceptions that others have of them (Bolino et al., 2008). Corporate Facebook Pages can be seen as a frontstage environment because communication on the pages is public, and participants may not know each other. However, corporate Facebook communication could include some backstage settings as well because Facebook is an arena for interaction unlike traditional one-way corporate communication such as leaflets (Lillqvist & Louhiala-Salminen, 2014). Lillqvist & Louhiala-Salminen (2014) used discourse analysis to identify the IM. 政治大 how this social media context might affect corporate IM. Two significant categories of IM 立. strategies on the Facebook pages of two Finnish companies and to gain an understanding of. strategies were identified: upholding social acceptability and promoting credibility. Three. ‧ 國. 學. types of IM strategies that corporate representatives used to uphold social acceptability. ‧. included conventional politeness, moral discourses and diversion. These strategies worked to. sit. y. Nat. uphold and increase social acceptability by complying with the cultural system of norms and. io. er. values. As for promoting credibility, the strategies involved the use of category entitlement and stake, varying footings and ridicule.. n. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 2.4 Corporate Reputation Management. Corporate reputation is defined as “a collective representation of a firm’s past behavior and outcomes that depicts the firm’s ability to render valued results to multiple stakeholders” (Fombrun, Gardberg, & Sever, 2000). Corporate reputation is a valuable intangible asset for companies to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, employee attraction and retention, firm equity, and investor awareness (Roberts & Dowling, 2002). Dowling (2002) further proposed that reputation enhances bargaining power in trade channels, helps raise capital on the equity market, provides a second chance in the event of a crisis, provides access to the best professional service providers, facilitates new product introduction, and adds value (e.g., 10.

(21) trust) to products and services. Reputation is thus a potentially priceless asset whose beneficial outcomes are much better understood than its formation. Corporate reputation is crucial for several reasons. First, consumers are more likely to choose companies with a positive corporate reputation, and are willing to pay more for their products (Graham & Moore, 2007). Companies with a positive corporate reputation can thus attract more potential customers (Gardberg & Fombrun, 2002). It has been shown that corporate reputation has a positive effect on brand trust, customers’ word-of-mouth intensions and purchase intensions in the food service industry (Wood, 2014; Han, Nguyen, & Lee,. 政治大 create market entry barriers for competitors (Nguyen & Leblanc, 2001). Moreover, a positive 立 2015). Second, a positive corporate reputation can foster customer loyalty and retention, and. stakeholders' willingness to invest in a company (Chun, 2005).. 學. ‧ 國. reputation enables the company to attract higher quality employees and therefore increases. ‧. While being active on social network sites may provide benefits for the reputation of. sit. y. Nat. companies, there are also certain drawbacks (Wepener & Boshoff, 2015). The interactive. io. er. nature of social media allows users to freely spread opinions and ideas about a company, for instance with regard to operational issues, product quality or customer satisfaction. Since. n. al. social media platforms are no. v i n C h one-way channels orderly for communication, engchi U. but rather. uncontrolled arenas for participation, social media may pose a risk of reputation damage for firms (Aula, 2010). Reputation Management (RM) is the practice of attempting to shape public perception of a person or organization by influencing online information about that entity. The concept was initially intended to broaden public relations outside of media relations (Shankar, 1999). As the Internet and social media became more popular, the meaning has shifted to focus on electronic communities, such as review sites and social media. Specifically, reputation management aims on monitoring the reputation of an individual or a brand on the internet, addressing content which is potentially damaging to it, and using customer feedback 11.

(22) solutions to get feedback or early warning signals to reputation problems (Milo, 2013). Most of reputation management is focused on pushing down negative search results (Lieb, 2012). Under business circumstances, reputation management may attempt to bridge the gap between how a company perceives itself and how others view it. If it is to emerge as a significant business function, RM clearly rests on a foundation of what is traditionally termed “public relations,” which in recent decades has become known commonly, in a corporate context, as “corporate communication,” “corporate affairs,” “corporate relations” and similar terms. In some respects, the introduction of “reputation. 政治大 serious identity crisis, in terms of public relations’ ability or willingness to define itself in a 立. management” as a potential business function has further complicated what was already a. consistent manner.. ‧ 國. 學. A historical review of public relations definitions suggests that public relations. ‧. practitioners and scholars have put forth an extraordinary number of definitions and. y. Nat. metaphors for the field, including: “lawyer in the court of public opinion,” “engineer of. er. io. sit. public consent,” “developer of goodwill,” “builder of public opinion,” motivator, persuader, clarifier, lubricant, catalyst, interpreter, devil’s advocate, educator, “creator or manipulator of. n. al. symbols,” “news engineer,”. v i n C h doctor,” “perception “publicity engchi U. manager,” middleperson,. advocate, relationship manager, and reputation manager.. Further, some scholars have pointed out that concepts such as “reputation” and “image” are not generally something that can be managed directly, but are omnipresent and the global result of a firm’s or individual’s behavior. Attempting to manage one’s reputation might be likened to trying to manage one’s own popularity (a rather awkward, superficial and potentially self-defeating endeavor). On the other hand, some advocates see reputation management as a guiding new force or paradigm for the entire field, in keeping with Warren Buffet’s admonition that losing reputation is a far greater sin for an organization than losing money. The most common concerns of reputation-management advocates revolve around 12.

(23) measures of reputation management, which have been criticized as unstable and invalid (in terms of construct validity, discriminant validity and other types of statistical validity). A number of observers have suggested that reputation is a meaningful concept only as it applies to specific audiences or publics, and that no across-the-board measure of reputation is or can be valid for all stakeholders.. 2.5Warranting Value of Information Online When individuals form impressions about others through the Internet, they are usually. 政治大 2009). When they use information online to evaluate the target (a person, company or 立. concerned about the reliability of the self-presentations that others put forward (Walther et al.,. organization), they would consider the extent to which the target has control over the. ‧ 國. 學. information to guide their evaluations (Walther & Parks, 2002). The warranting principle. ‧. (Walther & Parks, 2002) proposes that individuals rely on information which has greater. sit. y. Nat. warranting value. Warranting refers to the capacity to draw a reliable connection between a. io. er. presented person online and the anchored person in the real world. The construct of warranting value reflects the perceptions about the extent to which information is immune to. al. n. v i n C h These perceptionsU and how they affect impressions manipulation by the target it describes. engchi function as the explanatory core of warranting theory.. Walther and Parks (2002) observed a phenomenon in which people first met online and then met offline. These experiences were sometimes positive and other times were negative. To explain this, they adapted the concept of warranting originally presented by Stone (1996), describing connections between a person’s actual self and self-presentation as a continuum, moderated by anonymity. Walther and Parks (2002) suggested that anonymity may result in the potential for a discrepancy along this continuum. The greater the potential discrepancy, the more compelling it is for the viewers to be doubtful about the information provided by the individual about himself/herself. According to Walther and Parks (2002), warrants are the 13.

(24) perceived reliable cues that viewers use to estimate how one’s true identity matches the online presentation. However, warrants possess a warranting value. Warrants that are perceived to be difficult to be manipulated by the target are considered to have high warranting value, while those that are easily manipulated have low warranting value. According to the warranting principle, online information about a person is more credible when the information cannot be easily manipulated by the person to whom it refers. It indicates that the less information is perceived to be controllable by the target it describes, the more weight it will carry in shaping impressions (Walther et al., 2009). Information. 政治大 the target more than information generated by the target. Thus, a person’s self-presentational 立 provided online by third-parties about a target is thought to influence viewers’ impressions of. claims online should have less warranting value than the claims provided by another member. ‧ 國. 學. of the person’s social network as they can be easily manipulated or simply can be faked.. ‧. The warranting principle has been applied to diverse online settings to explain how. sit. y. Nat. information is evaluated, and has been proven to be applicable to Facebook use. Most of the. io. er. existing studies regarding warranting examined how perception and judgments about an individual are influenced by others-generated information. Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim,. n. al. Westerman, and Tong (2008). v i n C hmock-up FacebookU profiles used engchi. to assess whether the. attractiveness of friends and what these friends said on an individual’s profile had an effect on social attraction. It was found that social attractiveness of the target was positively correlated with the physical attractiveness of commenting friends. This indicates that the observable presence and cues of others in one’s social network can help the viewers to make social judgements. A significant effect was found, although the effect was depended on the gender of the profile owner. This confirms the proposition in warranting theory that comments made by others affect warrant judgments, but adds that these judgments may be moderated by the initial claims made by the target. Although this study by Walther et al. (2008) confirmed that perceptions of the target are 14.

(25) influenced by others, it was unable to prove the power of others-generated cues over self-generated claims because the claims made by the target were purposefully kept neutral. A follow-up study was thus conducted in order to fill in the theoretical gap. Walther et al. (2009) tested the effects of self-generated information against others-generated information. The study found that when asked to make judgments of attractiveness, results were strongly in conformity with predictions made by warranting theory. Others-generated statements about the target have higher warranting value and can influence viewers’ impressions of the target more than self-generated information because people have less control over what others post. 政治大 While most studies regarding warranting have been conducted at an individual level in 立. online (Walther et al., 2009).. and. Louhiala-Salminen. (2014). examined. 學. Lillqvist. ‧ 國. social media environment, very little research focusing on an organizational level exists. interaction. between. corporate. ‧. representatives and critical consumers on Facebook. On corporate Facebook pages, followers’. io. er. affect impressions positively and critical comments negatively.. sit. y. Nat. posts seem to represent a type of warranting - positive comments by consumers are likely to. al. n. v i n C h positive consumer-generated H1a: On corporate Facebook Pages, content is perceived to engchi U have more positive effect on corporate reputation than corporate-generated content.. 2.6 Identifying the Source of Information Online Companies have been attempting to manipulate and control consumer-generated content for self-serving reasons. Despite the fact that some corporations have been caught and fined for paying people to generate phony online reviews that favor their own businesses and slander their competitors (Bort, 2013), there are still some company representatives who pretend to be neutral third parties online to influence viewers’ impressions of the corporations. For instance, some companies falsely present themselves as average online peers and leave 15.

(26) untruthful negative comments on competitors’ Facebook pages, trying to create negative impressions that other viewers form of the competitors. The practices of masking the true source of online information and generating false online reviews create challenges for both companies and consumers (DeAndrea, Van Der Heide, Vendemia, & Vang, 2015). For companies, the potential exists for competitors or resentful employees to depreciate a company while presenting oneself as a neutral third-party. For consumers, the knowledge that online reviews can be faked might affect how people evaluate the target. In general, information generated by third-parties is considered to have a. 政治大 control of the target being evaluated (Walther et al. 2009). However, the warranting value of 立. greater influence on impressions than self-generated information because it is under less. the reviews may be affected when the viewers cannot identify whether the reviews are. ‧ 國. 學. generated by true consumers. DeAndrea (2014) proposes that the uncertainty about the true. ‧. identity of a third-party weakens how greatly the third-party-generated information affects. sit. y. Nat. viewers’ impressions. The more uncertain consumers are about the true identity of a. io. er. third-party, the less warranting value the information produced by the third-party holds. DeAndrea et al. (2015) examined how viewers’ evaluations of a target on websites are. al. n. v i n C hThe results indicateUthat the less people are confident influenced by user-generated content. engchi. that user-generated reviews are truly produced by third-party reviewers, the less people trust those reviews. H1b: On Corporate Facebook Pages, positive identifiable consumer-generated content is perceived to have more positive effect on corporate reputation than positive unidentifiable consumer-generated content.. H1c: On Corporate Facebook Pages, corporate-generated content is perceived to have more. positive. effect. on. corporate. consumer-generated content. 16. reputation. than. positive. unidentifiable.

(27) 2.7 Intentions to Purchase Grewal, Monroe, and Krishnan (1998) defined purchasing intention as a probability that lies in the hands of the customers who intend to purchase a particular product. Hoy & Milne (2010) discovered that the application of advertising together with user-generated word-ofmouth (WOM) leads to recommendations by users who find the brands worthy of consideration. Customers’ decision to buy a product (purchasing intention) depended largely on the product’s value and recommendations that other consumers have shared, for example on social media (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2009).. 政治大 likely to facilitate customers’ intention to make transactions with them. Some other previous 立. According to Ajzen (1991), trust creates favorable feelings towards the sellers, which are. studies have also found that buyers generally have stronger intentions to make purchase from. ‧ 國. 學. sellers they trust (Bhattacherjee, 2002; Pavlou & Gefen, 2004). As warranting value refers to. ‧. the capacity to determine the reliability of the information presented online, warranting value. er. io. sit. y. Nat. in other words can be described as “trust”. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:. H2a: On corporate Facebook Pages, positive consumer-generated content is perceived to. al. n. v i n C h intention than U have more positive effect on purchase corporate-generated content. engchi. H2b: On Corporate Facebook Pages, positive identifiable consumer-generated content is perceived to have more positive effect on purchase intention than positive unidentifiable consumer-generated content.. H2c: On Corporate Facebook Pages, corporate-generated content is perceived to have more. positive. effect. on. purchase. consumer-generated content.. 17. intention. than. positive. unidentifiable.

(28) 2.8 Herd Behavior Some online platforms are incorporating website features to verify whether product reviews or comments are generated by real consumers (DeAndrea et al., 2015). Expedia.com only allows customers with confirmed transactions to post product reviews on their website. Despite Facebook has not yet introduced similar verification features (Corporate Facebook pages are open to all Facebook users), the functions of “Like”, “Share” and “Comment” on Facebook allow the viewers to comprehend the opinions of other consumers. On Facebook, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) of a brand can be spread by users liking, sharing and. 政治大 used by users to show that they agree, support, like, or are interested in the content. 立. commenting on the posts (Hsu & Liu, 2013), while “Like” is the function most commonly. ‧ 國. 學. H3a: On corporate Facebook Pages, positive consumer-generated content is perceived to. er. io. sit. y. Nat. content.. ‧. have more positive effect on intention to click “Like” for posts than corporate-generated. H3b: On Corporate Facebook Pages, positive identifiable consumer-generated content is. al. n. v i n perceived to have more positiveCeffect on intention toU h e n g c h i click “Like” for posts than positive unidentifiable consumer-generated content.. H3c: On Corporate Facebook Pages, corporate-generated content is perceived to have more positive effect on intention to click “Like” for posts than positive unidentifiable consumer-generated content.. When groups of consumers share information or express their opinions about products and services, their attitudes or behavior sometime align without centralized coordination. This phenomenon is known as herding. Herd behavior describes how individuals in a group 18.

(29) can act collectively without centralized direction. Banerjee (1992) utilized herd behavior in the area of human society and described people’s decision making process from a marketing perspective. Banerjee (1992) investigated the herd behavior in a population of agents who make choices between assets based on their own information and also on the observed behavior of other agents. It showed that decision makers look at the judgments made by previous decision makers in taking their own decisions. In other words, people tend to converge on similar behavior, resulting in a situation with people doing what others are doing rather than using their own information. The decision made is dependent on the population. 政治大 1992). For example, people often decide on what restaurants to visit based on how popular 立 level of the decision and the focus is on the group of people expressing a behavior (Banerjee,. they seem to be.. ‧ 國. 學. There are significant differences between traditional (offline) and online herd behavior. ‧. (Langley, Hoeve, Ortt, Pals, & van der Vecht (2014). According to Barry and Fulmer (2004),. sit. y. Nat. three important attributes of the online setting are social bandwidth, interactivity and. io. er. surveillance. Langley et al. (2014) proposed that these attributes are relevant to herding as they change the way that people interact and influence each other. Social bandwidth, which. al. n. v i n Crelevant refers to the transmission of socially informationUvia the online medium, will affect heng chi. the process of herding by providing social identity cues through which individuals can assess their similarity to others in the herd. For example, on a Corporate Facebook Page, users are devoted to a specific topic. Interactivity also play a role in herding in the online setting, as individuals can interact with a wide range of others both real-time and asynchronously. Moreover, many-to-many discussions between a large number of people is possible online. Surveillance refers to the publicly observable nature of much online information. A herd can make its intention visible via an online application such as Corporate Facebook Page, allowing many other users or followers to see what is happening and follow developments, without the need for the intervention of traditional media. Taken together, these distinctive 19.

(30) attributes of online setting and social media represent a foundation for a change in herding dynamics (Langley et al., 2014). Herd behavior in the online setting has received research attention in the marketing and management literature. Peterson and Merino (2003) showed that consumers tend to search for information to reduce uncertainty and risk in the computer-mediated communication (CMC) environment. They make decisions based on existing online information. However, when facing extensive amount of information, people often imitate others rather than making decisions based on existing conditions (Bonabeau, 2004). They tend to follow the previous. 政治大 (2006) suggested that consumers influence each other when downloading music from a web 立. behavior of others and disregard their own existing information. Salganik, Dodds, and Watts. application. By comparing the conditions which individuals download songs after listening to. ‧ 國. 學. them versus which they also see the download choices of others, it was shown that social. ‧. influence can drive online herd behavior and the herd behavior can produce unpredictable. er. io. sit. y. Nat. outcomes in terms of which songs become popular within a population.. H4: On Corporate Facebook Pages, corporate-generated content with more “likes” is. al. n. v i n C heffect on (H4a) corporate perceived to have more positive reputation, (H4b) purchase engchi U. intention and (H4c) intention to click “Like” for posts respectively than that with less “likes”.. H5: On Corporate Facebook Pages, positive identifiable consumer-generated content with more “likes” is perceived to have more positive effect on (H5a) corporate reputation, (H5b) purchase intention and (H5c) intention to click “Like” for posts respectively than that with less “likes”.. 20.

(31) H6: On Corporate Facebook Pages, positive unidentifiable consumer-generated content with more “likes” is perceived to have more positive effect on (H6a) corporate reputation, (H6b) purchase intention and (H6c) intention to click “Like” for posts respectively than that with less “likes”.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 21. i n U. v.

(32) CHAPTER 3 METHOD. 3.1 Experimental Design Overview In this study, a 3 (content on Corporate Facebook Page) x 3 (number of “post likes”) between-subject experimental design has been employed. The experiment was conducted online. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the nine conditions. Each of the participants received the website address (URL) of the experiment which connected him/her. 政治大 Page, the participants were directed to an online questionnaire which aimed at measuring 立. to a mock-up Corporate Facebook Page. After reading the content on the Corporate Facebook. their perceived corporate reputation of the target, intention to purchase and intention to click. ‧ 國. 學. “Like” for the posts.. ‧. For the content on Corporate Facebook Page factor, participants were randomly assigned. sit. y. Nat. to read one of three posts on a mock-up restaurant Corporate Facebook Page, which are. io. er. generated by the target corporate, identifiable consumers and unidentifiable consumers respectively. This factor corresponds to H1 and compares the effect of corporate-generated. al. n. v i n C h content and Uunidentifiable consumer-generated engchi. content, identifiable. consumer-generated. content on corporate reputation.. For the number of “post likes” factor, participants were randomly assigned to read one of the three posts with “many likes”, “few likes” and not showing the number of likes. The posts without showing the number of likes serve the purpose of testing the effect of corporate-generated content, identifiable consumer-generated content and unidentifiable consumer-generated content on corporate reputation without being moderated by the number of post likes i.e. herd behavior. Participants read the content solely and determine how they perceived the reputation of the target without being affected by the opinions of others. The posts with “many likes” and “few likes” were thus for testing how herd behavior moderated 22.

(33) the effect of the content on corporate reputation. “Like” is the function most commonly used by Facebook users to show that they agree, support, like, or are interested in the content (Hsu & Liu, 2013). Therefore, the number of likes represented the number of other Facebook users who agreed with the content. After viewing the stimulus materials, participants completed an online questionnaire to measure their perceived corporate reputation of the target, intention to purchase and intention to click “Like” for the posts. The questionnaire is based on the “Corporate Reputation Measurement Model” proposed by Han et al. (2015), while the intention to purchase was. 政治大 intention to click the “Like” button was assessed with the model proposed by Chin, Lu and 立. accessed using the model proposed by Ashton, Scott, Solnet and Breakey (2010) and. Wu (2015).. Content on Corporate Facebook Pages Identifiable. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. Experimental design. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Table 1. Corporate-generated. Ch. v ni. e n g cConsumer-generated hi U. Unidentifiable Consumer-generated. Number. Not showing. Group 1. Group 2. Group 3. of. “Few Likes”. Group 4. Group 5. Group 6. “Likes”. “Many Likes”. Group 7. Group 8. Group 9. 23.

(34) Content on Corporate Facebook Pages H1. Corporate Reputation. Corporate-generated Content Identifiable Consumer-generated Content H2. Unidentifiable Consumer-generated. Purchase Intention. Content. 政治H3 大. 立. Intention to Click “Like” for Posts. ‧ 國. 學. Content on Corporate Facebook Pages. ‧. with different number of “Likes” Corporate-generated Content with “Many. y. Nat. H4. al. H5. n. with “Many Likes” or “Few Likes”. Ch. Unidentifiable Consumer-generated. e n g cH6h i. Content with “Many Likes” or “Few Likes” Figure 1. Research model.. 24. er. io. Identifiable Consumer-generated Content. sit. Likes” or “Few Likes”. i n U. v.

(35) 3.2 Sample The sample consisted of 270 participants, who were the students and staff members of National Chengchi University and friends of the researcher, recruited by an invitation email which included the website address (URL) of the mock-up Corporate Facebook Page and questionnaire. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the nine groups (9 groups, 30 participants each group) in the main experiment. Participants ranged in age from 20 years old or below (6.7%) to 51-60 years old (0.7%). Most participants were 21-30 years old (75.9%). The participants were identified to be. 政治大 including Mainland China, Singapore and the USA. More participants identified as female 立. residing in Taiwan (53.3 Hong Kong (41.1%), Macau (2.6%), and other places (3%). (61.1%) than male (38.9%).. ‧ 國. ‧. Female Age. Residence place. y. sit. al. n. Male. er. io. Gender. Nat. Profile of participants Items. 學. Table 2. 20 or below. Ch. n U engchi. iv. Number (%) 105 (38.9%) 165 (61.1%) 18 (6.7%). 21-30. 205 (75.9%). 31-40. 38 (14.1%). 41-50. 7 (2.6%). 51-60. 2 (0.7%). Taiwan. 144 (53.3%). Hong Kong. 111 (41.1%). Macau. 7 (2.6%). Others (Mainland China, Singapore and the USA). 8 (3%). 25.

(36) 3.3 Stimulus Materials A mock-up restaurant Corporate Facebook Page was created for a restaurant that does not exist and used in this study. Prior to the main experiment, a manipulation check was conducted to select the stimulus materials for each group. The manipulation check aimed at selecting: 1) Facebook user profile of identifiable consumers and unidentifiable consumers; 2) posts generated by the restaurant (official corporate information), identifiable consumers and unidentifiable consumers; and 3) posts with “many likes” and “few likes” in the perceptions of participants. For the Facebook user profile of identifiable consumers and unidentifiable. 政治大 whether they were posted by the restaurant, identifiable or unidentifiable consumers, clues 立. consumers, clues included profile pictures and user names. For the generator of the posts,. included the content and tone of the information, and photographs uploaded.. ‧ 國. 學. The manipulation check had 40 participants, who were excluded from participating in the. ‧. main experiment. Chi-square test for independence was adopted to test whether there is a. sit. y. Nat. significant relationship among the variables of the manipulation check. The stimulus. io. er. materials with significance level p < 0.05 were taken and adopted in the main experiment. After the manipulation check, an invitation email which included the website address. n. al. Ch. (URL) of the mock-up Corporate Facebook Page. engchi. v i n and U questionnaire. was sent to the. participants. The website address (URL) of the experiment connected the participants to a mock-up restaurant Corporate Facebook Page. After reading the content on the Corporate Facebook Page, the participants were then directed to an online questionnaire which aimed at measuring their perceived corporate reputation of the target, intention to purchase and intention to click “Like” for the posts. The screenshots of the stimulus materials are shown in appendix 2, figure 5 to figure 13.. 26.

(37) 3.4 Measures The perception of corporate reputation was accessed using the “Corporate Reputation Measurement Model” proposed by Han et al. (2015). The model is a 24-item instrument to measure the consumer-based corporate reputation of chain restaurants along 7 dimensions: food and service quality, brand affect, self-congruence, brand awareness, brand association, brand trust and overall brand reputation. Participants were asked to rate their agreement with the statements on a seven-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 = “Strongly disagree” to 7 = “Strongly agree”). The dimensions and the statements are shown below:.  . 學. This restaurant brand provides comfortable seats and tables;. . The staff of this restaurant brand is talented and displays a natural expertise;. . This restaurant brand offers fresh foods; and. . This restaurant brand prepares food and drinks according to hygiene standard.. . y. sit. er. al. v i n C hI dine in this restaurant I think I will feel good when brand; engchi U n. . io. Brand affect:. ‧. . . 3.. This restaurant brand offers a tidy environment;. Nat. 2.. 政治大 The staff of this restaurant brand is helpful and friendly; 立. Food and service quality:. ‧ 國. 1.. I believe this restaurant brand will make me happy; and I believe this restaurant brand will give me pleasure.. Self-congruence: . The customers who dine in this restaurant are very much like me;. . The customers who dine in this restaurant reflect the type of person I would like to be; and. . The customers who dine in this restaurant are very much like the person I admire.. 27.

(38) I am aware of this brand;. . I am familiar with this restaurant brand; and. . I can recognize this brand among other restaurant brands.. Brand association: . This brand has an attractive logo;. . I like the logo of this brand; and. . I like the colors of building or interior of this brand..  . This brand guarantees satisfaction; and. . I have confidence in this brand.. 學. Overall brand reputation: This brand is trustworthy;. . This brand is reputable; and. . This brand makes honest claims.. y. Nat. . ‧. 7.. 政治大 I can rely on this brand to solve the service dissatisfaction; 立. Brand trust:. io. sit. 6.. . er. 5.. Brand awareness:. ‧ 國. 4.. al. n. v i n C accessed The intention to purchase was theU model proposed by Ashton et al. h e n gusing i h c. (2010). It included 4 items to measure the intention to purchase in restaurant dining.. Participants were asked to rate their agreement with the statements on a seven-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 = “Strongly disagree” to 7 = “Strongly agree”). The statements are shown below: 1.. I might dine in the restaurant in the future;. 2.. I would certainly dine in this restaurant;. 3.. I would consider dining in this restaurant;. 4.. I would recommend this restaurant to the others.. 28.

(39) The intention to click “Like” for the posts was assessed using the model proposed by Chin et al. (2015). The instrument included 3 items to measure Facebook users’ intention to click the “Like” button for the posts. Participants were asked to rate their agreement with the statements on a seven-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 = “Strongly disagree” to 7 = “Strongly agree”). The statements are shown below: 1.. I am very willing to click “Like” after reading this post;. 2.. I would like to click “Like” for this post;. 3.. I do not think I should click “Like” for this post.. 3.5 Pilot Test. 立. 政治大. Before testing the hypotheses, a pilot test was conducted to confirm the design of the. ‧ 國. 學. stimulus materials and the questionnaire. 45 participants (9 groups of stimulus materials, 5. ‧. participants in each group) took part in the pilot test. The website address (URL) of the. sit. y. Nat. mock-up Corporate Facebook Page and questionnaire was sent to the participants. After. io. er. viewing the mock-up Facebook Page, they were directed to the online questionnaire to measure their perceived corporate reputation of the restaurant, purchase intention and. al. n. v i n C hThe questionnaires intention to click “Like” for the posts. were collected and the data was engchi U. entered into the SPSS. Analysis indicated that the scales for corporate reputation along the 7. dimensions (food and service quality, brand affect, self-congruence, brand awareness, brand association, brand trust and overall brand reputation), purchase intention and intention to click “Like” for posts were reliable (α value > 0.7). The corporate reputation measurement scale was reliable with Cronbach’s α = 0.859, the intention to purchase scale was reliable with α = 0.752, and the intention to click “Like” for posts scale was reliable with α = 0.925.. 29.

(40) CHAPTER 4 RESULTS. 4.1 Effect of Content on Corporate Reputation An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to test Hypothesis 1. It aimed at examining and comparing the effects of corporate-generated content, identifiable consumer-generated content and unidentifiable consumer-generated content on corporate reputation. The corporate reputation variable was created from a 24-item seven-point Likert. 政治大 ANOVA, corporate-generated. scale by accumulating the score of each item. The scale was reliable, α = 0.961, n = 270. According. to. the. results. of. 立. content,. identifiable. consumer-generated content and unidentifiable consumer-generated content had significantly. ‧ 國. 學. different effects on corporate reputation, F(2, 87) = 6.49, df = 2, p < 0.05. Thus, fisher least. sit. y. Nat. the effects (figure 2).. ‧. significant difference (LSD) test was then conducted to further investigate the differences of. io. er. Supporting H1a, participants in Group 2 (the identifiable consumer-generated content condition) reported that the identifiable consumer-generated content had significantly more. al. n. v i n C hM = 5.28, SD = 1.01, positive effect on corporate reputation, relative to participants in Group engchi U 1 (the corporate-generated content condition), M = 4.77, SD = 0.51, F(2, 87) = 6.49, df = 2, p < 0.05. Next, participants in Group 2 reported that the identifiable consumer-generated content had significantly more positive effect on corporate reputation, M = 5.28, SD = 1.01, relative to participants in Group 3 (the unidentifiable consumer-generated content condition), M = 4.53, SD = 0.89, F(2, 87) = 6.49, df = 2, p < 0.05, supporting H1b. Regarding the comparison between the effect of corporate-generated content and unidentifiable consumer-generated content on corporate reputation, participants in Group 1 reported that the corporate-generated content had more positive effect on corporate reputation, M = 4.77, SD = 051, than unidentifiable consumer-generated content (participants in Group 30.

(41) 3), M = 4.53, SD = 0.89, F(2, 87) = 6.49, df = 2, p = 0.258 > 0.05. According to descriptive statistics, corporate-generated content had stronger effect on corporate reputation than unidentifiable consumer-generated content, yet the effect was not significant according to LSD. Therefore, H1c is not supported.. Effects of Corporate Facebook Page Content on Corporate Reputation. 5.28. 5.28. 5.2 5. 4.53. 4.53. Group 3 2. ‧. H1b p < 0.001. Nat. H1a p < 0.05. H1c p > 0.05. y. 0 4.2. Group 2. io. sit. 4.4. Group 1. er. 4.6. 立. 4.77. ‧ 國. 4.8. 政治大 4.77. 學. Average Corporate Reputation. 5.4. Figure 2. Effects of corporate Facebook page content on corporate reputation.. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. Note. Group 1 = Corporate-generated content without showing number of “Likes”; Group 2 = Identifiable consumer-generated content without showing number of “Likes”; Group 3 = Unidentifiable consumer-generated content without showing number of “Likes”.. engchi. 4.2 Effect of Content on Intention to Purchase An analysis of variance was conducted to test Hypothesis 2, examining the effect of corporate-generated content, identifiable consumer-generated content and unidentifiable consumer-generated content on purchase intention. The purchase intention variable was created from a 4-item seven-point Likert scale by accumulating the score of each item. The scale was reliable, α = 0.892, n = 270. According to the results of ANOVA, corporate-generated content, identifiable consumer-generated content and unidentifiable 31.

(42) consumer-generated content had significantly different effects on purchase intention, F(2, 87) = 4.23, df = 2, p < 0.05. Thus, fisher least significant difference (LSD) test was then conducted to further investigate the differences of the effects (figure 3). Participants in Group 2 reported that the identifiable consumer-generated content had more positive effect on purchase intention, M = 5.40, SD = 1.14, relative to the corporate-generated content in Group 1, M = 5.15, SD = 0.55, F(2, 87) = 4.23, df = 2, p = 0.296 > 0.05. Descriptive analysis shows that identifiable consumer-generated content had stronger effect on intention to purchase than corporate-generated content. However, ANOVA. 政治大 participants in Group 2 reported 立. shows the effect to be not significant. H2a is not supported. Supporting. H2b,. that. the. identifiable. consumer-generated content had significantly more positive effect on purchase intention, M =. ‧ 國. 學. 5.40, SD = 1.14, relative to the unidentifiable consumer-generated content in Group 3, M =. ‧. 4.72, SD = 0.97, F(2, 87) = 4.23, df = 2, p < 0.05.. sit. y. Nat. H2c is not supported as participants in Group 1 reported that the corporate-generated. io. er. content had more positive effect on purchase intention, M = 5.15, SD = 0.55, relative to the unidentifiable consumer-generated content in Group 3, M = 4.72, SD = 0.97, F(2, 87) = 4.23,. al. n. v i n df = 2, p = 0.072 > 0.05. AccordingCto descriptive statistics, h e n g c h i U corporate-generated content had. stronger effect on purchase intention than unidentifiable consumer-generated content, yet the effect was not significant on ANOVA.. 32.

(43) Effects of Corporate Facebook Page Content on Intention to Purchase 5.6. Average Purchase Intention. 5.4. 5.4. 5.4 5.2. 5.15. 5.15 Group 1. 5. Group 2 Group 3. 4.8. 4.72. 4.72. 2. 4.6 4.4 0. H2a p > 0.05. 立. H2b 治政 p < 0.01 大. H2c p > 0.05. Figure 3. Effects of corporate Facebook page content on purchase intention.. ‧ 國. 學. Note. Group 1 = Corporate-generated content without showing number of “Likes”; Group 2 = Identifiable consumer-generated content without showing number of “Likes”;. ‧. Group 3 = Unidentifiable consumer-generated content without showing number of “Likes”.. y. Nat. er. io. sit. 4.3 Effect of Content on Intention to Click “Like” for Posts. An analysis of variance was conducted to test Hypothesis 3, examining and comparing. al. n. v i n corporate-generatedCcontent, identifiableUconsumer-generated hengchi. the effect of. content and. unidentifiable consumer-generated content on intention to click “Like” for the posts. The intention to click “Like” for posts variable was created from a 3-item seven-point Likert scale by accumulating the score of each item. The scale was reliable, α = 0.934, n = 270. According to the results of ANOVA, corporate-generated content, identifiable consumer-generated content and unidentifiable consumer-generated content did not have significantly different effects on intention to click “Like” for posts, F(2, 87) = 1.82, df = 2, p = 0.167 > 0.05. H3 is not supported. Participants in Group 2 reported that identifiable consumer-generated content had more positive effect on intention to click “Like” for posts (figure 4), M = 4.78, SD = 1.54, than 33.