‘Strangers to ourselves’ altruism and motivations for posting reviews using eWOM

The literature examining eWOM has identified several important consumer motives for posting opinions online including self-enhancement, product involvement, sense of belonging and economic benefits (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). Amongst them, altruism has been highlighted as a significant motive, however it has remained largely unexplored from a theoretical and conceptual level. Furthermore, while many studies have used altruism as part of their explanation for why consumers share eWOM, it is based on an untested assumption that consumers want to help each other by posting opinions online (Price et al., 1995). Therefore, it is unclear whether altruism really is as important a motivation as implied by the extant literature (Reimer et al., 2016).

This thesis aims to further the understanding of why consumers share opinions with strangers online by examining the role of altruism as a motivation for sharing information and opinions using eWOM. This included a thorough interrogation of the theory surrounding altruism and investigation of the underlying mechanism driving motivation. Emerging from this, empathy and helping were identified as two important factors underlying altruistic motivation. Using a series of scenario-based experiments, an empirical testing of altruism was also conducted while also exploring the moderating effect of various online contexts that are conceptually linked with altruism and online sharing. From the analysis, it was revealed that altruism may not be as important a motive as previously thought. What appears to be altruistically motivated is more often motivated by a need for social affiliation than the desire to help other consumers. Moreover, where altruism may be relevant, it is only insofar as it can be used strategically to earn social benefits towards developing affiliative relationships.

It is therefore suggested that conceptualisations of altruism in the context of online sharing need to distinguish between helping and affiliative motives when examining motivations for posting online. The interpretations provided by this thesis have important implications for the theoretical understanding of altruism in eWOM as well as more broadly for motivations in relation to online sharing.