Information dissemination via electronic word-of-mouth: Good news travels fast, bad news travels faster!

The purpose of this research is to investigate negativity bias in secondary electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Two experiments, one laboratory and one field, were conducted to study actual dissemination behavior. The results demonstrate a strong tendency towards the negative in the dissemination of secondary commercial information; in fact, consumers disseminate negative contents to more recipients, for a longer period of time and in a more elaborated and assimilated manner than they do positive information. The research is important from both a theoretical and managerial perspective. In the former, it enriches existing literature on e-WOM, introducing an important taxonomy (primary and secondary WOM) and giving insight into theoretical dimensions of the negativity theory not examined before (duration, role of valence, elaboration, assimilation and credibility). Findings provide managerial insights into designing more effective WOM and publicity campaigns. Based on ratios of dissemination calculated on collected data, companies should allocate more resources to deal with negative WOM than positive WOM and pay more careful attention to negative reactions than to positive commercial WOM, given the high ration of reactions to commercial information of opposite valence.