Journal of Arts & Social Sciences

Vol 1, Issue 1, 12‐20 (2017)

The Effect of Source Credibility on Consumers’ Purchase

Intention in Malaysia Online Community
Tee Xue Hui
Faculty of Business, Raffles University Iskandar
Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. Email: tee.xuehui@raffles-rui.com

Abstract
Web-based technologies have created numerous opportunities for word of mouth (WOM) communication
within the online community. This phenomenon affects retailers as this easily accessible information could
greatly impact the consumers’ purchase decision. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of source
credibility on consumers’ purchase intention in Malaysia online community. A questionnaire survey would be
conducted with a sample of 120 university students who had experience within the online community. The
respondents were required to complete the survey regarding source creditability received from the online and
tertiary platform. Data would be analysed by using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) software
version 23 to conduct descriptive statistical analysis and regression analysis accordingly. The empirical result
reviewed that source credibility has a significant impact on consumer purchase intention. In managerial and
theoretical implication, this study contributed the insight to organizations and marketers in deciding the degree
of the message source to be integrated into the marketing tactic development.

Keywords: Word Of Mouth Communication, Source Credibility, Consumer Purchase Intention, Online
Community, Malaysia

Introduction
Marketers and sociologists have recognized the importance of the Word of mouth (WOM)
communication and conceptualized as a naturally occurring phenomenon over the few past decades
(Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955; Arndt, 1967; Engel, Blackwell & Kegerreis, 1969). WOM has been
characterized as every informal communication coordinated at other consumers about the ownership,
usage or characteristics of specific products (Arndt, 1967). Research on WOM has been captured the
underlying concept and its effect on consumers’ purchase decision (Kozinets, Kristine, Andrea &
Sarah, 2010). Since the beginning of human society, its role has been perceived as a standout amongst
the most influential resources of information transmission. However, conventional interpersonal
WOM communication is only effective within constrained social contact limits and the influence
diminishes rapidly over time and distance (Thompson & Sinha, 2008).
The advances in information technology have profoundly transformed the transmission
method for information and have solved the traditional constraints of WOM through the emerging
social networking sites. WOM no longer takes place in exclusive connection of face-to-face settings,
including one source and one recipient. Rather, WOM now increasingly occurs in the more
transparent public domain of online community. Besides Stauss (1997) study, many studies have
conceptualized the effect of WOM to consumer purchase intention in an online community across
several of contexts (Balasubramanian & Mahajan, 2001; Thorsten, Kevin, Gianfranco & Dwayne,
2004; Brown, Broderick & Lee, 2007). Yet, there are many arguments about the underlying WOM
contexts in the online community because there are no consistent contexts of WOM applied in the
previous research.
In a developing e-commerce economy like Malaysia, WOM has been said to be most
persuasive on consumer behavior than other forms of marketing communications such as publicity
and advertising (Khatibi, Haque & Karim, 2006; Alam & Yasin, 2010; Harron & Razzaque, 2015).
According to Internet Live Stats (2016), Malaysia Internet Usage Statistics and Marketing report
shows 68.6% of internet penetration among Malaysian consumers. This primarily implies that

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Malaysian consumers are willing to spend time in browsing online social networks and interact with
other online users. The interactions that related to the product could have unintentionally impact on
their purchase decisions (Nielsen, 2015). Yet, this area of research in Malaysia as a developing
country still at its early stages (Harron & Razzaque, 2015).

Word Of Mouth (WOM) Theory

Early scholarship established word of mouth (WOM) as a significant social force impacting
the early marketing thought and practice. Starting with Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) and Arndt (1967),
the researchers believed that WOM has a solid impact in consumer decision marking than other
information sources controlled by marketers (Kozinets, Kristine, Andrea & Sarah, 2010).
According to Arndt (1967), WOM was characterized as a communication between persons
where he or she receives non-commercial messages in regards to products or services and brand. In
other words, consumers share and exchange their information about consumption experience. Because
of the perceived source reliability and the adaptability of interpersonal communication, Engel,
Blackwell and Kegerreis (1969) and Bolfing (1989) further studied and found that WOM acquires a
unique ability to affect consumers in the decision-making process.
Kozinets, Kristine, Andrea and Sarah (2010) reviewed the past WOM research by grouping
the theories into three stages (Figure 1). The earliest and basic understanding of consumer WOM was
referred as The Organic Inter-consumer Influence Model (Kozinets, Kristine, Andrea & Sarah, 2010).
At the first stage, the researchers such as Arndt (1967) and Engel, Blackwell and Kegerreis (1969)
assume that WOM happens naturally among consumers when marketers perform their jobs of creating
market innovations and performing compelling product notification through the attractive advertising
and promotions.
In the Linear Marketer Influence model, the research conducted tend to focus the essential
role of certain influential consumers in the WOM procedure. According to Feick and Price (1987),
some consumers were potentially seen as opinion leaders who have a high level of knowledge so
marketers could target and influence (Kozinets, Kristine, Andrea & Sarah, 2010). In these early
conceptions, the realistic information in marketing was underlined as these group of consumers were
expected to transmit marketing messages pretty much dependently without substantially modifying
them by ongoing communications with other consumers.
The third stage is known as The Network Coproduction Model. In this stage, Kozinets,
Kristine, Andrea and Sarah (2010) stated that the recent studies have recognized the advancement of
technology and rather emphasized the WOM concept on relationships from transaction oriented. The
transformation can clearly be identified through Thompson and Sinha (2008) research in which they
explored the participation and membership in long terms that significantly affect the behavior when
the consumers adopt new products and services.
With the internet permitting unique new management levels, effective growth and
development of WOM marketing have resulted. Yet, it is questionable how much trust consumers
readily have on them with the tremendous amount of WOM generated in the online community.

First Stage: The Organic Interconsumer Influence Model

Consumer Marketing Message and Meanings Consumer

Marketing-Mix Elements

Marketer

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Vol 1, Issue 1, 12‐20 (2017)

Second Stage: The Linear Marketer Influence Model

Consumer
Opinion
Leader Marketing Message and Meanings
Consumer

Indirect
Influence Marketing-Mix Elements Consumer
(Advertisement
s, Promotions)

Marketer

Third Stage: The Network Coproduction Model

Consumer

Consumer
Marketing Message And Meanings Consumer

Direct Marketing- Consumer

Influence Mix Elements
(seeding, one
to one)

Marketer

Figure 1: The Evolution of WOM Theory (Kozinets, Kristine, Andrea & Sarah, 2010)

Source Creditability

Source credibility refers to a message recipient’s perception of the believability of a message

source, reflecting nothing about the message itself (Brown, Broderick & Lee, 2007). It is defined as
the degree to which an information source is seen to be believable, competent and trustworthy by
information recipients. Since consumers could access a number of sources of information, the
compared information was generally felt to be reliable.
Heriyati and Siek (2011) study shows that the role of credibility in informational influence
has been found to most significantly adjust a recipients’ opinion in the bearing pushed by the
communicator when the material was attributed to high-credibility source than when it was attributed
to a low-credibility source. When looking information for the information quality and sources of
information, it could impact on consumers’ acceptance regarding the WOM communication in the
online context (Wathen & Burkell, 2002). This especially occur to teenagers and students easily as
they have less curiosity so they are more likely to be easily convinced.

Consumer Purchase Intention

According to Morwitz and Schmittlein (1992), purchase intention could be utilized as a

measure in the prediction of consumer purchase behaviour. The earliest meaning of purchase intention
is a subjective likelihood that consumers perform a certain conduct (Bansal & Voyer, 2000). If the
consumers have the interest or willingness to get the products or services, it states that there is a
buying expectation in their mind.
Bickart and Schindler (2001) further explained the situation in details. The study outlined that
consumers nowadays perceived numerous imitated WOM in online social networks when compared

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to the conventional way. So they will probably prefer to acknowledge online WOM as the standard
experience (Blackshaw & Hart, 2006). Due to its intangibility, online WOM will alter consumer
purchasing behaviours such as hotel recommendation or travel (Chung & Buhalis, 2008).
From Frambach, Roest, and Krishnan study (2007), the study was found that while many
consumers searched for comments about products online during the pre-purchasing stage, they also
shared opinions in either positive or negative way about their product experience at the post-
purchasing stage. This demonstrates that they are encouraged by their online environment which plays
a significant role in influencing their decisions during the consumers’ purchasing decision process.
These environments including their social status, culture or personal motives motivate them to
experience vicarious learning so the consumers seem to imitate others’ behaviours (Dumrongsiri,
2010).
In summary, purchase intention refers to the anticipated behaviour of a consumer regarding
his or her future purchase decision (Kim, Ferrin & Rao, 2008). The demand for a product can be
established by a number of online opinions generated from social media (Park, Lee & Han, 2007).
Information generated from online WOM is effective in developing other consumers purchase
intentions and the high purchase intention of a specific product will be shaped from high-involved
consumers (Dumrongsiri, 2010).

Development of Hypotheses

Source credibility and consumer purchase intention

At its simplest, Wathen and Burkell (2002) characterized credibility as believability. The
research has indicated that expertise, knowledge and trustworthiness which mark credible sources of
WOM could influence the consumer assumptions and his or her assessment during purchase decision
making (Wathen & Burkell, 2002). This result has been demonstrated in the study of Senecal and
Nantel (2004) where a critical relationship between source credibility and consumers’ online choices
occurs and it appears that consumers emphasize considerably more on the source credibility of WOM
itself than on which type of social networking sites is utilized.
Consequently Brown, Broderick and Lee (2007) suggested WOM should be perceived as
more credibility when it possesses a higher expertise and is less inclined to bias in the online
community. Similarly, Cheung, Lee and Rabjohn (2008) concurred that WOM credibility has been
found that most fundamentally alter consumers’ purchase decision (Heriyati & Siek, 2011).
Recently, Fan and Miao (2012) extended Elaboration Likelihood Model to clarify the
relationship between creditability of online WOM and consumers purchase intention. The result
showed that the perceived WOM creditability is positively affected to the intent to purchase and the
effects greatly differ on gender. However, gender differences seem are not relevant towards consumer
attitudes in Malaysia culture (Wong & Hanafi, 2007). This study expects the effect to be no different
with respect to online social networks. Thus the below is hypothesized,

H1: Source credibility strongly influences the consumers’ purchase intention in Malaysia online
community (Figure 2).

WOM

Consumers’ Purchase
Source Credibility
Intention

Figure 2: Proposed Conceptual Framework

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Research Methodology

This quantitative research was conducted using both primary and secondary data. The target
population for this study was the students who have a Facebook or Twitter account in the age between
18 and 30 years old. They must be experienced browsing through social networking sites to look for
online comments to guide their purchasing decision making. As this study aims at the general students,
so the non-probability sampling technique was applied. The sample was selected using convenience
sampling method from university students who have the online experience to guide their buying
intention in Malaysia in an easy, affordable and less time-consuming way.
In this study, a questionnaire was distributed to 120 respondents who had online experience
on social networks. Using five-point-Likert scale, the 12 items would be presented through online
platform and tertiary institution primarily. The questionnaire comprised of two sections. General
demographic data constituted the first section and the relationship between WOM and consumer
purchasing intention constituted the following section of the questionnaire. A descriptive statistics
analysis was used to categorize the demographic profile of the respondents. Then, linear regression
analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis.

Results of the Study

Reliability Analysis
With the objective of making sure that all the variables applied in this study are reliable,
internal consistency test using Cronbach’s Alpha was conducted. Table 1 clearly shows that all the
Cronbach Alpha values were more than 0.7. According to Fan and Miao (2012), the researchers
recommended value above 0.7 is commonly acceptable, above 0.8 is good and 0.9 and above is
excellent. The result generally indicates a satisfactory internal consistency so all the measured
variables are considered reliable in this study.

Table 1: Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Analysis

Variables Number of items Cronbach’s Alpha
Source Credibility 3 0.814
Consumer Purchase Intention 6 0.759

Respondent’s Profile
Based on Table 2 shown, the results show the proportions of male and female respondents
were equally distributed, where males were 47.5% and females were 52.5%. This determines that the
gender distribution was equally distributed with close proximity ratio of 1:0.9 (Saunders, Lewis &
Thornhill, 2012). The results also show that respondents’ age ranged from less than 18 years old to
greater than 33 years old. A majority of them (57.5%) completed their Bachelor’s Degree, followed
by 11.7% of respondents completed their SPM or secondary level as well as their Master’s Degree
and 10% of respondents completed their STPM level. Lastly, there is only 9.2% of respondents
completed their Foundation or Diploma. This result could be concluded that the majority of the
respondents were educated.

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Table 2: Respondent’s Profile

Gender
Frequency Percentage (%)
Male 57 47.5
Female 63 52.5
Total 120 100.0
Age
Frequency Percentage (%)
18 years old and below 10 8.3
19- 25 years old 71 59.2
26-32 years old 25 20.8
33 years old and above 14 11.7
Total 120 100.0
Highest Level of Education
Frequency Percentage (%)
SPM or Secondary 14 11.7
STPM 12 10.0
Foundation or Diploma 11 9.2
Bachelor’s Degree 69 57.5
Master’s Degree 14 11.7
Total 120 100.0

Normality Test
According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2012), normality test compares the shape of the
sample distribution to a normally distributed curve with the same mean and standard deviation. Hence,
it is often useful to assess whether the data are accurately modelled by a normal distribution. Two
numerical measures of shape, that is, skewness and kurtosis usually can be used to test for normality.
As a general rule of thumb, the acceptable range of skewness and kurtosis is reported as +3 to -3
(Malhotra, 2010). Therefore, Table 3 demonstrated that the measured variables are normally
distributed as the skewness and kurtosis values were within the acceptable range.

Table 3: Skewness and Kurtosis from Normality Test

Variables Skewness Kurtosis
Source Credibility -0.528 -0.802
Consumer Purchase Intention -0.606 -0.520

Relationship between Source Credibility and Consumer Purchase Intention

The result of the relationship between source credibility and consumer purchase intention was
recorded in Table 4. R2 value, the beta coefficient of source credibility and P value were 0.200, 0.447
and 0.000 respectively. According to Malhotra (2010), R square value represents the total percentage
of variance. So there was 20% of the variation in the source credibility affecting the consumer
purchase intention.
Standardized coefficient Beta value helps the researchers to determine the strength of the
effect of an independent variable to the dependent variable when the data is standardized and the
intercept assumes a value of 0 (Malhotra, 2010). The beta coefficient can be formed in either negative
or positive value and have a t-value as well as the significance of that t-value associated with each.
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2012) states that the higher the absolute value of the beta coefficient,
the stronger the effect. Hence, the result demonstrated that with every increase of one standard
deviation in source credibility, a consumer purchase intention rises by 0.447 standard deviations. This
assumed the other predictors are held constant.
In order to determine the relationship is statistically significant, calculated probability or P
value of the observed finding should less than the chosen significance level, that is, 0.05 so the null
hypothesis is rejected and the sample provides satisfactory evidence to support the alternative
hypothesis (Malhotra, 2010). Table 4 clearly signified that the relationship was statically significant.
The analysis indicated that source credibility has a positive and significant correlation towards
consumer purchase intention and therefore the hypothesis was supported.

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Table 4: Linear Regression for Source Credibility

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Standard Error of the
Estimate
1 0.447 0.200 0.193 0.68690
a. Predictors: (Constant), Source Credibility

Unstandardized Standardized
Coefficients Coefficients
Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
1 (Constant) 2.490 0.217 11.452 0.000
Source Credibility 0.321 0.059 0.447 5.426 0.000
a. Dependent Variable: Consumer Purchase Intention

WOM

0.447 Consumers’ Purchase

Source Credibility
Intention

Figure 3: Model of Online WOM context and Consumer Purchase Intention

Discussion

This study found a significant effect for source credibility to influence Malaysian consumer
purchasing intention (R2= 0.200, β= 0.447, t= 5.426 and P= 0.000). So the empirical finding of this
study is consistent with the study of Brown, Broderick and Lee (2007) where source credibility is said
to directly affect the consumers’ purchase intention in the context of interactive marketing. The result
also corresponds to the result of other researchers that the source credibility was proved to have an
association with consumer purchase intentions (Wathen and Burkell, 2002; Senecal and Nantel, 2004;
Cheung, Lee and Rabjohn, 2008; Heriyati and Siek, 2011; Fan and Miao, 2012). In view of this, the
result fulfils the first research objective.

Implications

By confirming the principal hypotheses of this study, it can be inferred that the underlying
contexts of online WOM especially in social networking should be cautiously considered by the
companies and marketers. In practice, this finding may provide an indication to retailers and
marketers to understand the degree of online WOM context that should be consolidated. It was also
identified in this study, which Malaysian consumer purchasing intention has a tendency to be more
affected by source credibility of a message in the online community. In this phenomenon, this study
provides a step closer to understand the degree of WOM’s source credibility to be incorporated in the
development of marketing tactic. Companies and marketers are suggested to work with the most
trustable content creators and the type of message appeal used so a persuasive message is effectively
delivered through appropriate media.
From the academic point of view, this study contributed the specific literature review
regarding the online WOM communication and its impact towards Malaysian consumers’ purchase
intention. It was perceived that online WOM through social networking sites is a recently developed
phenomenon, in which research is still in the proposal stage and numerous aspects have not been
explored in details. Consequently, this study made a noteworthy contribution to answering the
research problem by following the general understanding about the online WOM theory. To a certain

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extent, this study proved the role of online WOM contexts by clarifying 20 percent of the variance on
Malaysian consumers’ purchase intention. It can be clearly assumed that this study added credit to the
limited existing theories.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of WOM communication on consumer
purchase intention in Malaysia online community. The primary focus is to understand the impact of
source credibility towards consumer purchase intention in the Malaysia context so the researchers
gain a better understanding for retailers and marketers in developing their online communication
channels.
The data were analyzed using linear regression analysis correspondingly. All the research
objectives were confirmed with the research findings. The result of the analysis shows that the
independent variable (source credibility) was positively regressed with the dependent variable
(consumer purchase intention). Accordingly, this study implied that the results may be applicable to
the organizations, retailers and marketers as well as contribute to the limited existing theory. Finally,
this research also revealed its limitation and future suggestions for other researchers.
There were two perspectives to the suggestions for future research, which could add values to
this examination. Further study on this topic could also add extensions to this study. Since this study
was based on a convenient sample, the future researcher who will look at this topic is prescribed to
embrace a non-convenience sample. This ensures that the study will then be able to generalize the
findings to the whole sample population. Besides, it is also recommended that another population
other than university students should be further analysed as the online WOM using social networking
attracts a wider scope of age population.

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