Purpose

This study utilizes social communication theory as the framework to examine the influence of personality on young word-of-mouth (WoM) and electronic word-of-mouth (eWoM) audiences across the US, France and Germany and explores relationships between personality traits and cultural dimensions.

Design/methodology/approach

An adaptation of the consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence (CSII) scale measured WoM influence in an online review context. After pretesting and validating the consumer susceptibility to online review influence (CSRI) scale in Luxemburg, hypotheses were tested, and research questions were explored in a multi-group structural equation model based on French, German and US samples.

Findings

Personality traits are negatively linked to CSRI as well as to CSII across the three countries. Overall, the stronger the personality traits, the weaker the online and offline WoM influence seems. In contrast to France, results for the US and Germany show that young people are either more susceptible to WoM or to eWoM influence. Results imply tendencies for a potential interaction effect between power distance and openness to new experience on WoM and partially on eWoM.

Practical implications

Earned media is more effective among audiences with weaker personality structures. Stronger personalities may prefer to serve as senders of WoM and eWoM (influencers). The non-uniform results between WoM and eWoM susceptibility across the countries favor earned media strategies optimized on a country basis and psychological targeting when communicating online review results.

Originality/value

This study expands knowledge of individual (personality traits) and country similarities and differences across France, Germany and the US and how they affect earned media (WoM and eWoM) influence.

中文翻译：

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人格对 WoM 和 eWoM 易感性的影响——跨国视角

目的

本研究以社会传播理论为框架，考察人格对美国、法国和德国年轻口碑 (WoM) 和电子口碑 (eWoM) 受众的影响，并探讨人格特征与文化维度。

设计/方法/方法

消费者对人际影响的敏感性 (CSII) 量表在在线评论环境中测量了 WoM 影响。在对卢森堡的消费者对在线评论影响力 (CSRI) 量表进行预测试和验证后，对假设进行了测试，并在基于法国、德国和美国样本的多组结构方程模型中探索了研究问题。

发现

人格特质与三个国家的 CSRI 以及 CSII 呈负相关。总体而言，人格特质越强，线上和线下的口碑影响力似乎越弱。与法国相比，美国和德国的结果表明，年轻人要么更容易受到 WoM 的影响，要么更容易受到 eWoM 的影响。结果表明，权力距离和对 WoM 和部分 eWoM 新体验的开放性之间存在潜在交互效应的趋势。

实际影响

赢得媒体在人格结构​​较弱的受众中更有效。更有个性的人可能更喜欢充当 WoM 和 eWoM（影响者）的发送者。各国 WoM 和 eWoM 易感性之间的不一致结果有利于在交流在线评论结果时基于国家/地区优化的赢得媒体策略和心理定位。

原创性/价值

本研究扩展了对法国、德国和美国的个人（个性特征）和国家异同的知识，以及它们如何影响赢得媒体（WoM 和 eWoM）的影响。