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Introduction
An increasing number of people interact with each other on social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook, WhatsApp LinkedIn, and Pinterest. SNS is a Web-based social media application that builds on the conceptual and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and allows the creation of user-generated content and its virtually free exchange (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Schamari and Schaefers, 2015). As they socialize on SNS, people share product opinions and brand experiences (Zaglia, 2013; Chen et al., 2013), thereby generating electronic word of mouth (eWOM) of various forms, including subjective statements, objective statements and knowledge sharing (Okazaki et al., 2015).
eWOM is commonly defined as “any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet” (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004, p. 39). Due to its higher perceived credibility (Steffes and Burgee, 2009), such customer-to-customer communication has been conceptualized as a general concept of marketplace interpersonal interaction (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010), which can affect consumer attitude toward brands (Kumar et al., 2010; Sridhar and Srinivasan, 2012; Brodie et al., 2013) and buying decisions (Keller, 2007; Abubakar et al., 2016).
Word-of-mouth activity is a major motivational driver of customer engagement behaviors (Van Doorn et al., 2010). Consumer engagement in eWOM on SNS has drawn the attention of numerous researchers over the past few years (Chu and Kim, 2011; King et al., 2014; Brown et al., 2007; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010; Libai et al., 2010). Despite the growing research interest in this emerging domain, it still lacks sufficient empirical support, and our understanding of the concept of engagement remains limited (Brodie et al., 2011; Hollebeek et al., 2014; Bolton, 2011; Verhoef et al., 2010). Consumer research conceptualized online engagement as a multi-dimensional construct (Calder et al., 2009; Hollebeek et al., 2014). The present research contributes to this line of work by demonstrating that behavioral eWOM engagement is a bi-dimensional construct based on consumer intention to receive (ITR) and send eWOM.
One of the top challenges marketers face when attempting to build strong, desirable brands with committed communities around them is getting consumers...