ABSTRACT

The chapter looks at effect of the valence of the information in combination with the consumer's expressed commitment to the brand. It also examines how high and low commitment consumers deal with negative information when they are made aware of the importance of sharing information with others. The two experiments described in this chapter collectively shed light on factors that influence micro blog users forwarding willingness and demonstrate the relationships between the brand commitment and forwarding willingness. Brand commitment has been found to have a moderating role on the negativity effect. This chapter proposes a similar difference between high and low brand commitment consumers when it comes to their forwarding behavior in the context of social media information that they might share in micro blogs. High-commitment consumers care primarily about the brand and their relationship with it. Low-commitment consumers are motivated to provide useful information to others with little consideration of the effect on the brand.