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Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111 – 128
www.elsevier.com/locate/intmar

Past, Present, and Future of Electronic Word of Mouth (EWOM)

Sanjeev Verma a,⁎& Neha Yadav a
a
National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Vihar Lake Road, Powai, Mumbai-400087

Abstract

Communication platforms are undergoing a transition from physical to digital spaces. The Internet has radically changed the business scenario
wherein people have become the “media” for collaborating to share information. Practitioners have started using electronic word of mouth
(eWOM) for consumer insight through text analytics, sentiment, hashtag analytics, and other machine learning tools. Due to the growing
importance of the topic as a research area, it is vital to map the research domain. This paper uses performance analysis tools (quantitative and
qualitative) and science mapping tools (conceptual and intellectual structures) for literature review and the identification of future research
directions. The content analysis of emergent topics and themes offers directions for future researchers. Recommender systems, data mining
(artificial intelligence and machine learning), semantics, and sentiment analysis are emergent topics. We contribute to the eWOM literature by
canvassing state-of-the-art research and proposing future research directions.
© 2020 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. dba Marketing EDGE. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Electronic word of mouth (eWOM); Performance analysis; Conceptual structure; Intellectual structure

Introduction communications between marketers and consumers (Weisfeld-

More than two decades ago, it was predicted that businesses
would not compete only in the marketplace but also in the
market space and that there would be a paradigm shift in
business models to focus on both of these markets simulta-
neously (Rayport & Sviokla 1994). Currently, consumers are
using multiple channels (offline and online) for becoming
familiar with and purchasing products. In the last decade, the
Internet has radically changed the business scenario by
becoming an important platform wherein people become the
“media” for collaborating to share information (Li & Wang
2011). According to Gupta and Kim (2004), websites are acting
as “coffee shops” where people with similar interests can “find
and then electronically ‘talk’ to each other.” Social media
platforms have given consumers a global platform to share
information via recommendations and opinions with the click
of a mouse (Xiang & Gretzel 2010). Web 2.0 has enabled one-
to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many types of
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sanjeev@nitie.ac.in (S. Verma).
Spolter, Suri, and Gould, 2014).
Due to its continually increasing importance, there has been
a recent spike in the number of articles published on eWOM
communication (Baur and Nystrom, 2017; Hao, Ye, Li, &
Cheng 2010; Lee & Youn 2009; Lee, Rodgers, & Kim 2009;
Purnawirawan, Eisend, De Pelsmacker, & Dens 2015; Zarrad &
Debabi 2015); however, the scope of published literature is
large and fragmented. To consolidate learning on eWOM
literature, previous researchers attempted a review of eWOM
research from different perspectives. A previous review by
Tuma and Decker (2013) systematically reviewed 53 studies
published between 1997 and 2007 and used a paradigm funnel
approach. Cheung and Thadani (2012) conducted a literature
review analysis on 83 articles published between 2001 and
2010 and addressed methodological and theoretical underpin-
nings. Chan and Ngai (2011) used the input-process-output
(IPO) framework for the conceptualization of eWOM with the
help of a systematic literature review. Mishra and Satish (2016)
summarized the existing literature in the eWOM domain and
identified a few research areas with the help of theoretical
underpinnings. Most of the previous reviews used the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2020.07.001
1094-9968© 2020 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. dba Marketing EDGE. All rights reserved.
112 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128
descriptive or theme-based approaches, but the comprehensive
performance analysis of scientific actors and science mapping
of the eWOM research field is missing.
To fill this research gap, the present study aims to offer a
comprehensive performance analysis (quantitative and qualita-
tive) and science mapping (conceptual and intellectual struc-
tures) of the eWOM research field. Performance analysis of
scientific actors such as journals, authors, documents, and
keywords will help in understanding the growth and impact of
the research field. Science mapping with cooccurrence analysis,
strategic maps, and thematic evolution (alluvial diagram) will
help in understanding the conceptual structure of the eWOM
research field. Cocitation analysis will help to identify the
subthemes of the eWOM research domain. Additional content
analyses of emergent topics and themes will offer research
directions for future researchers.
Most of the previous studies of eWOM were authored prior
to 2012 and have included less than 100 articles, while this
study included 1896 articles published between 2000 and 2020.
This study is the most comprehensive both in terms of articles
included and timeframe. Moreover, with a fast-changing
business environment and technological advancements, it is
important to track emerging changes for guiding the future. The
findings of this study will act as a consolidated database of
existing research of eWOM and will act as a guide for future
research. This study makes a significant contribution to the
development of a comprehensive database for eWOM research,
identification of research themes, and emergent topics for
guiding academicians and practitioners.
This paper is organized into six sections. Section two
presents the background of electronic word of mouth (eWOM),
section three focuses on research methodology, section four
focuses on results, section five presents a discussion of
emergent topics and themes, and finally, section six presents
the conclusion of the paper.
Background
One of the primary objectives of marketing communication
is to persuade or convince customers to make a purchase.
Marketing communications enable companies to connect with
customers' imaginations for strong brand image and brand
recall to drive sales. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated a
clear association between marketing communications and a
sales response. In addition to marketer-driven communication
such as advertising, nonmarketer-driven communication such
as word of mouth (WOM) is an alternate impactful channel of
communication (Keller 2007).
Over the years, researchers have proposed different defini-
tions of word of mouth (WOM). According to Arndt (1967),
“WOM can be any oral and personal communication, positive
or negative, about a brand, product, service, or organization, in
which the receiver of the message perceives the sender to have
a noncommercial intention.” In the Arndt definition, word of
mouth involves an object such as a brand, product, service, or
organization, and the subject uses a personal communication
channel to communicate positively or negatively about the
object with noncommercial intention. Westbrook (1987)
defined WOM as “all informal communications directed at
other consumers about the ownership, usage, or characteristics
of particular goods and services or their sellers.” More recently,
Barreto (2014) defined WOM as an “oral or written commu-
nication process, between a sender and an individual or group
of receivers, regardless of whether they share the same social
network, to share and acquire information, on an informal
basis.” All three definitions discussed have treated word of
mouth as an informal communication between subjects (e.g.,
sender and receiver) concerning an object (e.g., products,
brands, organizations, or sellers) or an experience (such as
ownership or usage) for sharing and acquiring information with
noncommercial intent.
With the emergence of Web 2.0 and new media channels,
WOM has transformed into eWOM. Customers' remarks
concerning a product or company on the Internet are called
eWOM communication (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, &
Gremler 2004). Some researchers also started calling eWOM
word-of-mouse (Xia & Bechwati 2010) due to the continually
growing number of Internet users and the advent of Web 2.0
(Vázquez-Casielles, Suárez-Álvarez, & del Río-Lanza 2013).
Web 2.0 enabled consumers to obtain information through
friends and friends of friends via social networks (Barreto
2015). This type of online information seeking and recommen-
dation has been defined in the literature as online word of
mouth (Duan, Gu, & Whinston 2008).
Due to the significance of electronic word of mouth in the
changing marketing environment, it is a fascinating construct
to study. Early research suggests that WOM is a significant
influencer along with mass communication such as advertising
(Katz & Lazarsfeld 1955). Previous studies suggest the
significant role of eWOM in influencing the various stages
of the consumer decision-making process (Davis & Khazanchi
2008; Day 1971) and purchase intentions (Charlett, Garland,
& Marr 1995; Park, Lee, & Han 2007). Electronic word of
mouth has changed the buying environment, and customers
can now access the comparative evaluation of product
attributes with a single click of a mouse (Varadarajan &
Yadav 2002).
Methodology
A literature review is a systematic and scientific approach
to review available research studies to understand the current
state of knowledge and addresses a specific research question
(Fahimnia, Sarkis, & Davarzani 2015). According to
Tranfield, Denyer, and Smart (2003), a literature review
systematically maps the existing research domain and assesses
a future research direction that can further strengthen the
knowledge. In this paper, we followed guidelines from
Saunders et al. (2009) in the conceptualization of a literature
review as an adaptive cycle that involves the process of
defining relevant keywords, conducting a literature search, and
finally, performing analysis. We also referred to Rowley and
Slack's (2004) five-stage literature review approach for
conducting the review. Fig. 1 shows the review methodology
 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128 113

Fig. 1. Review methodology flowchart.

used in the present study. Finally, for conceptual and
intellectual network structure analysis, we referred to the
approach by Fahimnia et al. (2015) for bibliometric and
network (citation and cocitation) analysis. Comprehensive
review protocols guided the review, and accordingly, recent
areas of research and future research directions were
identified.
Selection of Bibliometric Databases
The two most reputed bibliometric databases are Scopus and
Web of Science (WoS). Initially, we explored both Scopus and
Web of Science (WoS) databases to search the relevant
literature. Scopus had a broader coverage than WoS (Yong-
Hak 2013), so we restricted our final search to the Scopus
114 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128
database. Scopus is the largest abstract-based bibliometric
database and includes more than 20,000 peer-reviewed journals
from different publishers (Fahimnia et al. 2015). In terms of the
number of indexed journals, the Web of Science (WoS)
databases have only 12,000 titles, while Scopus has more
than 20,000 titles.
Defining keywords (Search Strategy)
An extensive literature search was conducted using key-
words representing electronic word of mouth (eWOM). The
primary and synonym keywords used for searching the
literature are the following:
“e-WOM, Electronic Word of Mouth, Online Word of Mouth,
Internet Word of Mouth, Online Customer Review, Online
Recommendation, Internet Recommendation, Electronic Referral,
Online Rating, Consumer Generated Content, Online Opinion,
User Generated Content, User ratings, User Comments, and User
Review”.
Boolean operators “OR” were used in the “title, abstract,
keywords” tab of the Scopus database for searching the research
papers. Initially, a total of 12,367 articles were retrieved from the
search result.
Refining the Initial Results (Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria)
The search results were delimited with the help of inclusion
and exclusion criteria for the extraction of the most relevant
articles for the literature review. Given the research objective,
the search results were restricted to articles, articles in the press,
and reviews. Conference papers, book chapters, commentaries,
erratum, and so on were excluded from the search results since
articles and reviews published in journals are considered to be
“certified knowledge” (Ramos-Rodríguez and Ruiz-Navarro,
2004). After the application of the first delimiter, the number of
articles was reduced to 6,041.
The search results were then delimited on the second
exclusion criteria of language. Only articles published in
English were included in the final set of articles for further
review. After the application of the second delimiter of the
English language, the number of articles was reduced to 5,741.
The third exclusion was done based on the publication
timeframe. Articles were delimited for publication between
2000 and 2020 because information technology accelerated in
the 1990s, and, initially, information technology was used for
online searches. Online reviews and eWOM accelerated as a
discipline at the beginning of the new millennium; thus, search
results were delimited on a timeframe (i.e., between 2000 and
2020). After the application of the third delimiter of the
timeframe, the number of articles was reduced to 5,709. The
fourth and final delimitation was done based on excluding
articles from nonrelated fields; articles were limited to business,
management, and accounting. The final set of search results
included 1896 articles, and these search results were exported
to.csv and Bibtex format files for future analysis. A detailed
examination of 1896 articles was performed by reading the
abstract and full paper to assess the suitability of the articles for
analysis. The article screening was performed by two
researchers to ensure the suitability for inclusion in the sample.
Data Analysis Plan
Bibliometrics is used for the quantitative and qualitative
research assessment of the academic field (Callon, Courtial, &
Laville 1991; Coulter, Monarch, & Konda 1998; Henderson,
Shurville, & Fernstrom 2009; Ramos-Rodrguez & Ruz-
Navarro, 2004; van Raan, 2005). Specifically, bibliometrics is
a set of methods used to study or measure texts and
information, especially in large datasets. In bibliometrics,
there are the two main procedures of performance analysis
and science mapping (van Raan, 2005). Performance analysis
aims at evaluating groups of scientific actors (documents,
authors, journals, and countries) and their impact on the
research domain (van Raan, 2005). Science mapping aims at
displaying the structural and dynamic aspects of scientific
research. A science map is used to represent the cognitive
structure of a research field. Science mapping can be done
using cocitation analysis (Small 1973) and coword analysis
(Callon, Courtial, Turner, & Bauin 1983).
We have used a combination of performance analysis and
science mapping for detecting and visualizing the conceptual
subdomains of the eWOM research field. This allows us to
quantify and visualize the thematic evolution of the research
field. The performance measure is divided into two categories
of quantitative and qualitative measures. For quantitative
measures, the productivity of the scientific actors (documents,
authors, journals, and countries) are analyzed, whereas
qualitative measures show the quality-based indices. Frequency
computations for various fields of the study indicated the
significance of authors, documents, sources, affiliations, and
countries (Garfield 1972). Qualitative measures total global
citations (TGC) and total local citations (TLC)) measure the
number of citations received and bibliometric indices such as
the h-index (Alonso, Cabrerizo, Herrera-Viedma, & Herrera
2009; Cabrerizo, Alonso, Herrera-Viedma, & Herrera 2010;
Hirsch 2005). TGC indicates the overall impact of the scientific
factor on the specific research field, while TLC denotes the
number of citations within the same literature set. In
conjunction with TGC and TLC, total local citation per year
(TLC/t), global citation score per year (TGC/t), and trending
patterns of total local citations (TLCe) are also reported in this
study. TGC and TLC indicate the significance and impact of
the scientific actors (documents, authors, journals, and
countries) in the research field (Culnan 1986; Sharplin &
Mabry 1985). Although there are contrary views on using
citation analysis as a benchmark for the research impact of an
article, citation analysis is the widely used technique for
literature analysis and identification of significant research
works in the research field (Mac Roberts & Mac Roberts 1989;
Vokurka 1996).
Science mapping or bibliometric mapping is a spatial
representation of how disciplines, fields, specialties, and
individual papers or authors are related to one another (Small
1999). It is focused on monitoring a scientific field and
 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128 115

delimiting research areas to determine its cognitive structure Results

and evolution (Noyons, Moed, & van Raan 1999). Cocitation
and coword analysis are commonly used to map science (Small Due to the emergence of information technology and various
2006). Cocitation analysis maps the structure of a research field meta-search engines such as Google Scholar and Microsoft
through pairs of documents that are commonly cited together Academic Search, researchers are better equipped to obtain a
(Coulter et al. 1998), while coword analysis is a content larger picture of a research domain. However, most of the freely
analysis technique to map the strength of association between available bibliometric tools have their limitations. For instance,
information items in textual data (Callon et al. 1983). Coword Google Scholar provides extensive coverage of the research
analysis directly addresses sets of terms shared by documents, works published in the research domain, but Google's search
mapping the pertinent literature directly from the interactions of result may include conference papers, magazine articles, book
key terms. Thus, coword analysis allows us to discover the chapters, white papers, and trade magazine publications along
main concepts treated by the field; it is a powerful technique for with journal articles. For the literature review, the delimitation of
discovering and describing the interactions between different only journal articles is a tedious task in the Google Scholar or
fields in scientific research. Although both techniques are Microsoft Academic Search platforms. A significant amount of
useful for mapping science, our approach aims to discover the manual intervention is required to purify the search results. Thus,
conceptual structure and evolution of a research field; therefore, we used the most scientific and established bibliometric database,
coword analysis is more suitable. SCOPUS, to search the relevant literature in this study.
The methodological foundation of coword analysis is the Moreover, bibliometric analysis software tools such as
idea that the cooccurrence of key terms describes the content Publish or Perish, HistCite, BibExcel, and VOSviewer also
of the documents in a file (Callon et al. 1991). According to had some limitations. For instance, Gephi requires Java 1.8 or
Krsul (1998, p. 80), “this technique illustrates associations higher for running its analysis. HistCite works only with Web
between keywords by constructing multiple networks that of Science (WoS) data and Publish or Perish works only with
highlight associations between keywords, and where associa- Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search data. Simi-
tions between networks are possible”. In this paper, these larly, there are limitations on input and output file formats with
networks are associated with themes. Each publication in the these bibliometric tools. Computational limitations and a
field can, in turn, be characterized by a sublist of key terms, maximum number of fields in the input file add to the
which are similar to DNA fingerprints of these published complexity. We have used the R language in this study to
articles (Börner, Chen, & Boyack 2003). According to Börner overcome all these limitations. The R language is highly
et al. (2003), “by matching keyword-based fingerprints, one flexible in handling data from different databases such as
can measure the similarity between a pair of publications. The Scopus and offers extensive data analysis. R program codes can
more keywords two documents have in common, the more be modified easily to suit the research purpose, and output files
similar the two publications are, and the more likely that they can be further used with network analysis tools such as
come from the same research field or research specialty at a VOSviewer and Pajek.
higher level. Following the DNA metaphor, if two publica- The descriptive statistics of the data (Table 1) show that this
tions' ‘fingerprints’ are similar enough, they are bound to study included 1896 documents published in 397 sources. We
come from the same species.” With a list of the important have included documents published only in journals. Of the
keywords of the research field, a graph can be built where the total 1896 articles, 1777 were articles and the remaining 119
keywords are the nodes and the edges between them represent were review articles. Articles under review were published
their relationships. Two nodes (keywords) are connected if
they are presented in the same documents. We can add a Table 1
weight to each edge to represent the importance of the Descriptive Statistics of the Data.
associated relationship in the whole corpus. As a result of the Description Results
coword analysis, a set of detected themes is obtained for each Documents 1896
subperiod studied. Sources (journals, books, etc.) 397
To represent the results visually, we have used strategic Keyword plus (ID) 2,494
diagrams and an alluvial diagram. Strategic diagrams (Callon Author's keywords (DE) 4,756
Period 2000–2020
et al. 1991) helped to show the research field and its detected
Average citations per document 37.06
subfields while an alluvial diagram (Rosvall & Bergstrom Authors 3,815
2010) presented the evolution of detected clusters in Author appearances 5,154
successive periods. Coword analysis in a longitudinal Authors of single-authored documents 206
framework (Garfield 1994) presented through an alluvial Authors of multiauthored documents 3,609
Single-authored documents 247
diagram tracked the evolution of the eWOM research field
Coauthors per document 2.72
during consecutive periods. There are different degrees of Collaboration index 2.19
continuance that can be measured with various similarity
measures. We used the stability index (Braam, Moed, & van Document types
Raan 1991; Small 1977) to measure the continuance among Articles 1777
Reviews 119
clusters.
116 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128

Arcles Expon. (Arcles) Table 2

450
Most Productive Journals.
400 409

350 Sources NP TC TC/t

300 Decision Support Systems 73 4,567 415.2
250 262 Tourism Management 54 4,873 443.0
200 193191 International Journal of Hospitality Management 50 3,061 306.1
150 151 Journal of Business Research 43 2,437 187.5
119128 Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 38 1,507 137.0
100 98
73
50 50
32 37
10 5 5 6 17
0 4 4
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 (number of published papers, NP) shows Decision Support
System has published the greatest number of articles (73). The
Fig. 2. Number of Articles Published per Year. higher numbers of eWOM publications in Tourism Management
(54) and the International Journal of Hospitality Management
between 2000 and 2020. Most of the documents have multiple (50) show the widespread application of eWOM in the tourism
authors, and only 247 documents have a single author. On and hospitality sector. The Journal of Business Research and the
average, every document has been coauthored by 2.72 authors Electronic Commerce Research and Applications journal also
with a collaboration index of 2.19. The average citation per appeared in the top five sources. This indicates the growing
document (37.06) is high, which indicates the popularity of the interest of coupling between eWOM, business, and ecommerce
research field. Keyword plus and author keywords are two performance.
scientific units for cooccurrence analysis. A comparative study of The qualitative measures such as total citations (TC) and
keyword plus and author plus proved keyword plus is as effective total citations received per year (TC/t) provided evidence of the
as author keywords in bibliometric analysis for mapping the growing conceptual and intellectual structure of the research
conceptual structure of a research field (Zhang et al. 2016). The field. Tourism Management received the greatest number of
keyword plus sample for our data is 2,494 keywords. citations (4873), followed by Decision Support Systems.
To understand the development of the eWOM research field, a Tourism Management is one of the best sources to publish
longitudinal analysis was performed. Fig. 2 presents the growth eWOM research as it has the highest TC/t (443). Decision
trajectory of the discipline and indicates its growing popularity. Support Systems, Tourism Management, and International
There is an exponential growth in the documents published Journal of Hospitality Management are the most preferred
between 2000 and 2019. During the last five years, the research journals for eWOM research as they excelled in all three
field's growth has been phenomenal, growing at a rate of three parameters, i.e., the number of papers, total citations, and
hundred percent. By dividing the timeframe in four equal quality of the publication.
intervals, we found the discipline develop slowly in the
beginning (between 2000 and 2005) and its growth accelerated Author Performance
in the second subperiod (between 2006 and 2010). Only 28
documents were authored between 2000 and 2005 while the The h-index, total citations (TC), and number of articles
number was five times that (142 documents) during the following authored (NP) computations indicated the most influential
five years (between 2006 and 2010). The growth trajectory authors (Table 3). Law authored the highest number of articles
accelerated in the last decade, with 569 documents published (26) followed by Xu (11), Duan (10), Gu (10), Bilgihan (8), and
between 2011 and 2015 and 1,055 documents published during Schuckert (8). The h-index score also indicates the significant
the last four years (between 2016 and 2019). The growth pattern contributions of Law (60), Bilgihan (24), and Gu (21). The h-
suggests the relevance and implication of the research field are index and number of publications indicate the involvement of
increasing continuously. The contemporary trend and evolution the author in a research domain, but it does not necessarily
of the discipline can unfold new paradigms for future researchers.
Table 3
Performance Analysis Most Influential Authors.
Author Author Affiliation NP H-index TC
The performance analysis of different scientific actors offers
the structure and development of the eWOM research field. The Law, Rob The Hong Kong Polytechnic 26 60 15,631
University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
various scientific actors used for the analysis are journals, Xu, Xun California State University 11 10 449
articles, authors, and keywords. Both quantitative and qualita- Stanislaus, Turlock, United States
tive aspects of performance analysis provided vital insights for Duan, Wenjing The George Washington University, 10 14 3,010
future researchers. Washington, D.C., United States
Gu, Binx W. P. Carey School of Business, 10 21 4,121
Tempe, United States
Source Performance Bilgihan, Anil Florida Atlantic University, Boca 8 24 2082
Raton, United States
Table 2 presents the top five sources that included research Schuckert, The Hong Kong Polytechnic 8 16 926
Markus R. University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
publications of eWOM research. The quantitative measure
 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128
translate to the popularity of an author due to the quality of the
publication. TLC/t is an indicator of the quality of the publication
and indicates the popularity gain in minimum time. Gu scored the
highest on the TLC/t parameter (206.7), which indicates that every
article authored by B. Gu received the greatest number of citations
per year among the top twenty authors.
Documents Performance
As discussed above, qualitative measures such as total
global citations (TGC) and total local citations (TLC) helped in
the identification of the most influential research papers. TLC
represents the research papers that are cited the greatest number
of times by the group of documents analyzed in this study, and
TGC indicates the documents most cited globally, i.e., that
received citations from any document within or outside the
collection of papers in this study. Table 4 presents the top five
locally and globally cited documents based on TLC, TLC/t,
TGC, and TGC/t computations.
Litvin et al. (2008), Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), Forman et al.
(2008), Vermeulen and Seegers (2009), and Sparks and
Browning (2011) are the top five articles according to the TLC
ranking. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) is the key research paper
that drives the eWOM research domain and received the most
global citations (5568). In this paper, Kaplan and Haenlein
(2010) propagated the use of social media for harnessing business
excellence and provided a classification of social media based on
applications such as collaborative research projects, blogs,
content communities, social networking sites, virtual game
world, and virtual social world. Litvin et al. (2008) is another
very popular research paper based on the total local and total
global citations. Litvin et al. (2008) propounded electronic word
of mouth as a new cost-effective method of capturing, analyzing,
interpreting, and managing influence in the digital era that should
be treated cautiously. Cantallops and Salvi (2014) is another
noticeable research paper that became prevalent in a short period
(TLC/t = 21.20). In this paper, Cantallops and Salvi (2014)
reviewed research on eWOM in the hotel industry published
between 2008 and 2013 and identified two research streams—
antecedents of eWOM and impacts of eWOM from the consumer
and organization perspectives.
Keywords
Performance
In this section, we present the results of our keyword
analysis. This type of discussion assists in revealing the
intellectual core and identity construction of the discipline by
Table 4
Most Influential Research Papers.
Document TLC TLC/t TGC TGC/t
Litvin, Goldsmith, and Pan (2008) 226 20.55 1,084 98.55
Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) 142 15.78 5,568 618.67
Forman, Ghose, and Wiesenfeld (2008) 132 12.00 791 71.91
Vermeulen and Seegers (2009) 132 13.20 561 56.10
Sparks and Browning (2011) 131 16.38 555 69.38
117
looking into keywords used by research papers and their
aggregation (Scott & Lane 2000; Sidorova, Evangelopoulos,
Valacich, & Ramakrishnan 2008). The words most frequently
used by the previous author were computed and presented in
Fig. 3. For the identification of top keywords, both keywords
used by previous researchers and indexed keywords were
considered. The intersection of author keywords and indexed
keywords were included for analysis.
As we can see from Fig. 3, previous researchers have used
keywords such as including user-generated content, electronic
word of mouth, and online reviews for capturing the eWOM
phenomenon. User-generated content is the most frequently
used keyword (108 times) followed by electronic word of
mouth (46 times) and online review (32 times). The most
frequently used keywords also include the channels used for
sharing eWOM, data mining techniques, and expected out-
comes of eWOM. eWOM spreads through online channels and
social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Social
networking primarily focuses on exchanging information
between members of networks, but social media is an online
media to communicate to a larger number of people.
eWOM is a rich source of consumer insight, and marketers are
mining it for their advantage. Keyword analysis of existing
literature suggests the usage of data mining to aid decision
making and effective marketing strategies. Data mining is one of
the most frequently used words, and emerging technological
advancements such as artificial intelligence have improved
marketing intelligence for deeper consumer insights. Most
frequently used words also include outcome-driven keywords
such as marketing (60 times), decision making (44 times),
consumer behavior (64 times), and sales (84 times). In the
outcome related constructs, the sale is the predominant keyword
(33%), which shows the significance of eWOM in driving sales.
Thematic Analysis and Strategic Diagram
We performed coword analysis on indexed keywords to map
the conceptual structure of eWOM research. The themes are
presented on a strategic diagram in a two-dimensional space as per
their centrality and density. Centrality measures along the x-axis
and density measures along the y-axis. A rank value based on the
median is preferred due to its legibility (Cahlik 2000) for centrality
and density computation. Different clustering algorithms are used
to create the strategic thematic map in extant literature (Callon et
Occurrences
140 127
120 108 104
100 86 84
80 63 60 64
60 46 43 44
32 38
40
20
0
s
th
ou
m
of
Fig. 3. Most Frequent Words.
118 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128
al. 1991). Coulter et al. (1998) proposed a simple center algorithm
to compute coword analysis and to prepare a strategic diagram.
Due to its widespread prevalence, popularity, and advantages, we
have used a simple cluster algorithm for strategic mapping in this
study.
Based on the position of themes on the strategic map along
its two-axes (x-axis denotes centrality and y-axis denotes
density), themes can be classified into four quadrants (Cahlik
2000; Callon et al. 1991; Coulter et al. 1998). Themes in the
upper-right quadrant are both well developed and important for
the structuring of a research field. They are known as the
motor-themes of the specialty, given that they present strong
centrality and high density. The placement of themes in this
quadrant implies that they are related externally to concepts
applicable to other themes that are conceptually closely related.
As depicted in Fig. 6, recommender system and data mining are
in the high centrality and high-density quadrant. This quadrant
represents closely related keywords used in the most popular
and widely published research studies.
Recommender systems and data mining are important
subfields of eWOM research. Data mining is relatively higher
in centrality than the recommender system. This implies that
data mining is a much more popular technique for understand-
ing eWOM, its antecedents, and its consequences. Coword
analysis of the data mining theme also include keywords such
as text mining, semantic analysis, and sentiment analysis. This
clearly shows the usage of both quantitative and qualitative
approaches for mining eWOM information. The data mining
theme sphere is also larger than the recommender system theme
sphere, which also validates the heightened popularity of the
data mining technique in eWOM research.
Themes in the upper-left quadrant have well developed
internal ties, but unimportant external ties and so are of only
marginal importance for the field. These themes are very
specialized and peripheral. Fig. 6 indicates theme management
and theme web are placed in the upper left quadrant. The
smaller size of thematic spheres presented in the upper left
quadrant points at a lesser number of studies attempted on
Fig. 4. Thematic Analysis.
eWOM from an information management perspective. Past
studies explored and empirically tested eWOM as an informa-
tion source in a narrow sense and failed to extrapolate it for
wider generalizability. A limited view of eWOM as a source for
information dissemination and data acquisition delimited the
applicability of the research field.
Themes in the lower-left quadrant are weakly developed and
marginal. The themes of this quadrant have low density and
low centrality, mainly representing either emerging or
disappearing themes. Decision-making and social media
themes are placed in this quadrant of the strategic map. Initial
studies of eWOM focused on channels such as the Internet and
social media for exchanging information. The larger social
media theme sphere points at wider coverage of social media
studies for exchanging information.
Themes in the lower-right quadrant are important for a research
field but are not developed. Thus, this quadrant presents
transversal and basic themes. User-generated content and
electronic commerce are present in the lower-right quadrant
(Fig. 4). User-generated content signifies the exchange of
information among users based on their experience with products
and services. Since user-generated content is exchanged without
filters and conveys the first-hand experience of users, it is
considered to be more trustworthy among consumers. User-
generated content is a popular research topic as the information
exchanged on social networks is the original feeling and
experience of the connected users in close-knit social networks.
Past literature also points to the association between eWOM and
ecommerce performance. Both themes (user-generated content
and ecommerce) in the lower right quadrant contributed
significantly to the progression of eWOM research. Due to a
lack of theoretical rigor, studies focused on UGC and ecommerce
could not develop fully and remain transversal.
Thematic Evolution
To understand the thematic evolution of eWOM research
over the last two decades, the raw data were divided into four
time periods (subperiods). R-Script divided the total number of
 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128 119

Fig. 5. Thematic Evolution (Alluvial Diagram).

documents into four zones automatically based on the number
of documents. The total 1896 documents under bibliometric
review were divided into four time periods, i.e., 2000–2013
(460 documents), 2014–2016 (472 documents), 2017–2018
(453 documents), and 2019–2020 (511 documents).
In Fig. 5, the alluvial diagram portrays the thematic
evolution of the eWOM research domain. In different color-
shadows groups, the themes belong to the same thematic area.
Some themes have more than one shadow, which implies that
the theme belongs to more than one thematic area. However, some
themes do not have a shadow, which implies that these themes do
not belong to any thematic area. As depicted in the alluvial diagram,
the eWOM research field presents great cohesion. Most themes are
grouped in some thematic areas and originate from a theme in a
previous subperiod. Thematic areas such as decision making and
recommender systems evolve continuously, which implies their
continually increasing importance. Some thematic areas such as the
Internet, ecommerce, and user-generated concepts follow a

Time Period 1: 2000-2013 (460 documents) Time Period 2: 2014-2016 (472 documents)

Time Period 3: 2017-2018 (453 documents) Time Period 4: 2019-2020 (511 documents)

Fig. 6. Strategic Map of Different Time Periods.

120 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128
sinusoidal graph pattern. The thematic area representing the
decision support system disappears after the first subperiod.
Thematic areas such as such as electronic commerce and social
networking increasingly evolve. Themes such as sales, social
networking, and data mining emerged from the ecommerce theme.
Furthermore, three thematic areas (decision making, UGC,
and ecommerce) are present in all the studied subperiods. These
three thematic areas have maintained the eWOM researchers'
interest in all the studied subperiods. Looking at the
progression of the research fields, the number of themes in
the final subperiod (2019–2020) has increased compared to
previous subperiods. During the last subperiod of 2019–2020,
eWOM research was classified into nine thematic areas
indicating context-specific studies. Marketing, electronic word
of mouth, websites, and information systems themes evolve
during the last subperiod.
A strategic map for each subperiod (Fig. 6) points at the
development of various themes periodically in terms of their
centrality and density. The strategic map of the first subperiod
(2000–2013) shows the Internet garnered significant attention
initially, and various studies attributed the increase in eWOM to
the growth of the Internet. The Internet theme occupies the high
centrality-high density space initially. Recommender systems
and decision making were less evolved in the beginning. A
decision support system was a nascent concept during the
2000–2013 subperiod. User-generated concepts and electronic
commerce were transversal concepts.
In the second subperiod (2014–2016), online social
networking became the motor theme and occupied the high
centrality-high density quadrant. eWOM became the center of
attention, and various studies explored the impact of eWOM on
organizational performance. The organizational performance
was gauged on both economic (sales) and noneconomic (brand
equity) performance parameters. The impact of eWOM on sales
was a traversal concept during the second subperiod. The
Internet was treated as the basic theme in the second subperiod
and few specialized studies of data mining were found.
In the third subperiod (2017–2018), social media become a
popular basic theme. eWOM, social media, and sales
relationship studies became transversal due to higher centrality
index values. Recommender system and user-generated content
themes occupied the right-hand quadrant of the strategic map,
depicting high centrality and high density. This indicates that
user-generated content and recommender system themes
become the major contributor of eWOM research during the
2017–2018 subperiod. This period also marks the presence of
specialized studies of social networking and decision-making
themes.
Recently (2019–2020), social media has become the basic
theme of studies, while eWOM and user-generated content
have become transversal themes. The recommender system
theme occupies the upper right-hand quadrant space of the
strategic diagram, showing the growing popularity of the
recommender system theme. The growing spherical size
representing the recommender system shows the growing
interest of researchers in this theme.
To measure the thematic overlap between two consecutive
subperiods, the stability index is measured (Small 1977). The
stability index for the recommender system for the third
subperiod (2017–2018) and fourth subperiod (2019–2020) is
0.65, which is significant for shared keywords. The stability
index for user-generated content is 0.58, social networking is
0.48, and data mining is 0.42, showing that these themes have a
consistent evolution in the eWOM research domain.
Cocitation Network Analysis
Cocitation analysis is primarily used to understand the
interrelationships between existing research studies based on
authors and documents (Small 1973; Pilkington and Catheriene,
1999). The network analysis of research studies is called
cocitation analysis and depicts the intellectual structure of the
research domain (Chen, Ibekwe-San Juan, & Hou 2010).
Cocitation network analysis works on the data clustering
principle. In the data clustering technique, research papers in
the same cluster share similar characteristics (Radicchi,
Castellano, Cecconi, Loreto, & Parisi 2004). Accordingly,
different clusters are formed to understand the subthemes of
study in the research domain. Nodes represent research papers
and edges represent the connections between research studies.
The thickness and density of the edges indicate the similarity
index between research studies (Clauset, Newman, & Moore
2004; Leydesdorff 2011; Radicchi et al. 2004). The modularity
measures the strength of the relationship between nodes, and its
value varies between − 1 and + 1 (Blondel, Guillaume,
Lambiotte, & Lefebvre 2008). The modularity index is a widely
used and accepted concept for cocitation analysis (Mishra,
Gunasekaran, Childe, & Papadopoulos., & Dubey, R. 2016).
The modularity index can be calculated with the help of
various algorithms such as the edge between algorithms,
Louvain algorithm, leading eigenvalues, spin glass algorithm,
and walk trap algorithm. In this study, we used the Louvain
algorithm to calculate the modularity index. The Louvain
algorithm is an optimization method that appears to run in time
O (n log n). The optimized value is the modularity, and its value
lies between − 1 and + 1. The modularity measures the density
of links within the community compared to links between
communities. For a weighted graph, the modularity is
calculated as follows:
 
1 ∞ kik j
Q¼ ∑ij aij − ðCiCjÞ
2m 2m
In this study, the Louvain algorithm captured a 50-node
network, and the cocitation network was drawn to identify
subthemes of the research domain (Fig. 7). Betweenness
centrality was calculated for nodes in different clusters to
identify the most prominent research papers in different
clusters. Usually, research papers in a cluster cite together,
and these research papers share the same area of interest
(Hjørland 2013). Nodes in each cluster were analyzed carefully
with the help of betweenness centrality to identify the most
prominent research papers; five topmost nodes (research
 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128
Fig. 7. Co-Citation Analysis.
papers) represented the whole cluster. Each cluster was
analyzed to identify the focus of the cluster.
The cocitation network layout can take different structures such
as circle, Fruchterman and Reingold, Kamada and Kawai, and
multidimensional scaling layouts. We used an automatic layout
that uses the association strength algorithm. In the cocitation
analysis map, strongly connected nodes occupy the center of the
cluster while loosely connected nodes shift to the periphery of the
cluster. The isolated nodes in the cocitation map represent outliers
and the data clusters do not include these nodes.
Data clustering was performed and tabulated for clear
delineation of nodes in different clusters. As evident from Fig.
7, the cocitation network indicates three data clusters repre-
sented by three different colors. Red denotes cluster 1, green
denotes cluster 2, and blue indicates cluster 3. Table 5 presents
the top five research papers from each cluster.
Content analysis of research papers from each cluster
suggests the primary focus of each cluster. Cluster 1 focused
on the conceptualization of eWOM, while cluster 2 focused on
the role of eWOM in influencing sales. Cluster 3 revolves
around sector-specific applications and the implication of
eWOM. In cluster 3, most of the studies focused on the
experience dominant hospitality and tourism sectors. A detailed
121
description of the content analysis of each subfield (theme) is
presented in the discussion section.
Discussion
Cooccurrence analysis and a strategic map offered the
conceptual structure of the eWOM research field and cocitation
analysis offered its intellectual structure. We performed a
content analysis on both conceptual and intellectual structure
themes. As discussed in section 4.2, the strategic map suggests
the recommender system and data mining are the most
promising emerging topics. Additionally, cocitation analysis
indicated three clusters as important subthemes of eWOM
research. Thus, we focused our discussion on these emerging
topics and themes in this section.
Cluster 1: Conceptualization of eWOM.
Researchers in cluster 1 focused on the conceptualization of
electronic word of mouth. Brown et al. (2007) explored the
prevalence of word of mouth communication in online
communities and conceptualized an online social network.
According to Brown et al. (2007), underlying theories for
122 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128

Table 5
Cocitation Analysis.
Cluster No. Author and Year of Publication
1 Hennig-Thurau et al. (2004)
1 Dellarocas (2003)
1 Bickart and Schindler (2001)
1 Cheung, Luo, Sia, and Chen (2009)
1 Brown, Broderick, and Lee (2007)
Title of Paper
Electronic Word-Of-Mouth via Consumer-Opinion Platforms: What Motivates Consumers to Articulate
Themselves on the Internet?
The Digitization of Word of Mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms
Internet Forums as Influential Sources of Consumer Information
Credibility of Electronic Word-of-Mouth: Informational and Normative Determinants of On-Line Consumer
Recommendations
Word of Mouth Communication within Online Communities: Conceptualizing the Online Social Network

2 Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006)
2 Zhu and Zhang (2010)
2 Forman et al. (2008)
2 Liu (2006)
2 Mudambi and Schuff (2010)
The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews
Impact of Online Consumer Reviews on Sales: The Moderating Role of Product and Consumer Characteristics
Examining the Relationship between Reviews and Sales: The Role of Reviewer Identity Disclosure in
Electronic Markets
Word of Mouth for Movies: Its Dynamics and Impact on Box Office Revenue
What Makes a Helpful Online Review? A Study of Customer Reviews on Amazon.com

3 Litvin et al. (2008) Electronic Word-of-Mouth in Hospitality and Tourism Management

3 Ye et al. (2009)
3 Vermeulen and Seegers (2009)
3 Sparks and Browning (2011)
3 Ye, Law, Gu, and Chen (2011)
The Impact of Online User Reviews on Hotel Room Sales
Tried and Tested: The Impact of Online Hotel Reviews on Consumer Consideration
The Impact of Online Reviews on Hotel Booking Intentions and Perception of Trust
The Influence of User-Generated Content on Traveler Behavior: An Empirical Investigation on the Effects of
E-Word-of-Mouth to Hotel Online

explaining the offline word of mouth are inappropriate to
describe eWOM and its impact on consumer behavior. In social
networks, individuals behave such as a communication channel
and individual identification acts as a social proxy in online
social networks. Bickart and Schindler (2001) discussed the
role of Internet forums as an influencer for consumer behavior.
Experiments on a real-life case study prove that user-generated
content is more influential than marketer-sponsored communi-
cations (Bickart & Schindler 2001). Given the overarching
influence of electronic word of mouth, Dellarocas (2003)
discussed the promises and challenges of online feedback
mechanisms. According to Dellarocas (2003), the bidirectional
characteristics of online feedback fosters trust and confidence
among consumers. To leverage the benefit of electronic word of
mouth, organizations are using it for brand building, customer
acquisition, and retention (Dellarocas 2003). Hening-Tharou et
al. (2004) and Cheung et al. (2009) discussed the determinants
of electronic word of mouth. Hening-Tharou et al. (2004)
studied electronic word of mouth through consumer opinion
platforms and tried to understand the underlying motivators for
consumers' expressions on the Internet. The desire for social
interaction and concern for other consumers are overt
motivators for electronic word of mouth. In contrast, the desire
for economic incentives and the elevation of self-image are
covert motivators. Cheung et al. (2009) assessed informational
and normative determinants to assess the credibility of
electronic word of mouth. The level of consumer involvement
and prior knowledge moderates the influence of electronic
word of mouth (Cheung et al. 2009).
Cluster 2: eWOM and its Impact on Sales.
The primary emphasis of research cluster 2 is to find the
impact of eWOM on sales. To understand the effect of eWOM
on sales, various contexts such as Amazon.com, online book
reviews, and box office revenue were considered. Liu (2006)
studied the impact of eWOM on box office revenue. Tracking
eWOM during the prerelease and opening week of a movie
helps to understand the explanatory power of eWOM.
According to Liu (2006), the volume of eWOM reviews has a
higher explanatory power than the valence of the reviews and
proved that eWOM impacts box office revenue positively.
Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006) studied the effect of eWOM of
sales of books on ecommerce platforms. Chevalier and Mayzlin
(2006) postulated that consumers do not rely on the volume of
reviews; rather, consumers look for the quality of information
shared in an online review. The content and description in
online reviews are more influential than the number of reviews.
Mudambi and Schuff (2010) studied the influence of eWOM
and tried to investigate the helpfulness of reviews. According to
Mudambi and Schuff (2010), review extremity, review depth,
and product type are the factors that determine the helpfulness
of a review. In examining the relationship between reviews and
sales, Forman et al. (2008) tried to understand the role of
reviewer identification in the whole process. Their findings
suggest that reviewer identification improves online product
sales (Forman et al. 2008). Zhu and Zhang (2010) explored the
moderating effect of product and consumer characteristics in
the dyadic relationship between eWOM and sales. According to
Zhu and Zhang (2010), firms' online marketing strategies
should incorporate product and consumer characteristics while
devising eWOM strategies for improved sales performance.
Cluster 3: eWOM, Hospitality, and Tourism.
Research papers in cluster 3 revolve around the role of
eWOM in experience-dominated sectors such as hospitality and
tourism. Experience-dominant services are intangible and
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difficult to evaluate before consumption, so they rely heavily
on word of mouth. Litvin et al. (2008) studied the influence of
eWOM as an economical means for marketing communication
in hospitality and tourism. Ye et al. (2009, 2011) used a log-
linear model to study the effect of eWOM on hotel room
bookings and found a 10 % increase in travelers' review ratings
can improve hotel room online booking by more than 5%.
Vermeulin and Seegers (2009) studied the impact of hotel
reviews on consumers' consideration with the help of
experimentation methods. They found review valence, hotel
familiarity, and the reviewer's expertise have a significant
impact on consumer consideration. Sparks and Browning
(2011) used experimentation design to understand the effect
of review target (core or interpersonal), review valence
(positive or negative), review framing, and numerical rating
on influencing a consumer's hotel choice.
Emergent Topic 1: Recommender system.
Newly emerging location-based and event-based social
network services offered a new platform to understand users'
preferences based on their activity history (Yin, Cui, Sun, Hu,
& Chen 2014). User ratings based on past experiences form the
basis for recommender systems in ecommerce (Guo et al.
2014). Due to multiple information channels, consumers are
overloaded with information, which adds to the complexity of
selecting the correct products (Baum & Spann 2014). The
magnitude of the problem increases when people travel to new
and unknown places. The recommender system based on user
ratings solves the problem (Qui et al., 2016) and improves
decision making through predictive performance based on prior
ratings (Guo et al. 2014). The location content-aware
recommender system (LCARS) offers useful recommendations
for venues or events based on personal interests and local
preferences (Yin et al. 2014). Thus, the recommender system is
useful not only to travelers but also to local residents.
A recommender system uses different modeling algorithms
to nest the user ratings to offer useful recommendations. The
location content-aware recommender system (LCARS) works
on the two components of offline modeling and online
recommendation. Offline modeling (LCA-LDA) learns the
interest of individual users by mapping cooccurrence patterns.
At the same time, online recommendation decodes the user
query and automatically combines the learned interest to offer
recommendations (Yin et al. 2014). The performance of the
recommender system depends on the recommendation context
(Huang 2011). For instance, recommendations for high- and
low-involvement products would vary based on user ratings
and context. The recommender system model integrates user
ratings and review texts to link latent factors for topic
distribution. The aspect-based latent factor model (ALFM)
integrates ratings and review texts via a latent factor model; by
integrating rating, user-review, and item-attribute matrixes,
word latent factors can be derived (Qui et al., 2016). In
collaborative recommender systems, the overall ratings do not
offer detailed reasoning behind the user's preferences, but
123
multicriteria based fuzzy systems can improve the accuracy of
recommendations (Palanivel & Sivakumar 2011).
Emergent Topic 2: Data Mining.
With the advent of Web 2.0, electronic word of mouth on
social networking sites became the source for exchanging
ideas and experiences among users (Netzer, Feldman,
Goldenberg, & Fresko 2012; Ravi & Ravi 2015). With the
availability a significant amount of user-generated content
(big data), it has become an excellent source for mining
consumer sentiments and latent needs (Tirunillai & Tellis
2014). Consumer-generated content is a new information
source that encapsulates all stages of the consumer purchase
cycle (Guo, Barnes, & Jia 2017), and it can help in
understanding the drivers of consumer satisfaction/dissatis-
faction (Berezina et al. 2016). User-generated content
provides the opportunity to extract market structures and
competitive landscape insights (Netzer et al. 2012).
Research in the eWOM domain has largely focused on
quantitative ratings (Guo et al. 2017). For instance, numeric
measurements representing volume and valence of eWOM can
model the impact of product reviews on sales. However, rich
information embedded in eWOM cannot be captured in scaler
terms (Archak, Ghose, & Ipeirotis 2011). Advanced techniques
such as linguistic analysis can delve deeper to draw rich
consumer insights (Guo et al. 2017). Text mining, opinion
mining, and sentiment analysis are better determiners of
consumers' choices than scaler valence and volume of reviews
(Archak et al. 2011; Ravi & Ravi 2015).
To demonstrate the use of text mining in building a
consumer choice model, Archak et al. (2011) used text mining
to decompose textual reviews into segments. The text analytics
based on text mining techniques can offer drivers of customer
satisfaction and dissatisfaction (Berezina et al. 2016). Semantic
characteristics of online user reviews improve the ability to
diagnose the consumer characteristics and their latent needs
(Cao, Duan, & Gan 2011). Guo et al. (2017) used the latent
Dirichlet analysis (LDA) to identify the latent needs of
customers to serve them better. The text-mining approach,
combined with semantic network analysis tools, helps in
understanding market structure (Netzer et al. 2012).
Data mining offered multifaceted advantages to both
academics and practitioners. Both qualitative and quantitative
modeling techniques can be applied to big data to delve deeper
into consumer minds. Econometric modeling with text mining
techniques can be used for predictive modeling of future
changes in sales (Archak et al. 2011). According to Archak et
al. (2011), textual content in product reviews can significantly
predict future consumer behavior and forecast demand with
changes in product price, product age, trends, and seasonal
effects. Netzer et al. (2012) compared market structure based on
user-generated content with sales and survey-based data; results
suggest a significant correlation between the two methods
(Netzer et al. 2012). Main concerns revealed through text
mining match significantly with the main concerns revealed
through traditional sales and survey-based data (Netzer et al.
124 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128
2012). Text mining provides additional associations that need
the attention of marketers.
Future Research Directions.
Previous research studies of recommender systems are
context-based. For instance, Huang (2011) studied a recom-
mender system for shopping, but the need and effectiveness of
the recommender system may vary with the nature of the
products and services. Convenience and specialty goods
involve a different level of complexity in consumer decision
making. It would be interesting to understand the comparative
performance of a recommender system for different product
types (context). Moreover, future studies should attempt to
compare recommender system dynamics for services and goods
purchase behaviors.
The use of corating data for a similarity index has certain
limitations (Adomavicius & Tuzhilin 2005; Zeng, Xing, Zhou,
& Zheng 2004), so future researchers should incorporate
multiattribute utility data for better results. Combined analysis
of rating and review data in the latent factor model also has
constraints (Qiu, Gao, Cheng, & Guo 2016), and incorporation
of additional contextual factors such as geometrical or temporal
information in future studies can boost the predictive ability of
the model. Moreover, modeling a recommender system on
long-horizon longitudinal data will provide strategic implica-
tions for a recommender system for forecasting sales. A
combination of prior- and postpurchase recommendation data
for model building in future studies will further improve the
scope of the recommender system.
Existing research differentiated the vertically differentiated
products such as electronics (Archak et al. 2011), but online
reviews for horizontally differentiated products are expected to
be more complex. Horizontally differentiated products are
difficult to evaluate based on quality parameters due to the
marginal differences between them. Future researchers should
attempt to explore text mining techniques for horizontally
differentiated products to define the small differences perceived
among consumers. Previous studies assumed that consumers
learn product attributes linearly, but consumer learning is
fuzzy. Future studies should attempt to build a more advanced
model to incorporate a multidimensional and multiproduct
evaluation environment.
Semantics characteristics in online reviews at the aggregated
level provide generalized cues (Cao et al. 2011) and contain
rich inputs for future decision making. Each component of a
semantic is a cue and to develop a robust model, future studies
should delve into the specific component of semantics. It is
important to use multiple single value decomposition (SVD)
from multiple datasets and identify the most significant factors
(Sidorova et al.). Existing studies focus on the most frequent
words for analysis. However, rare or infrequent words in the
long tail of the distribution may reflect emerging consumer
preferences and could be very helpful in developing a new
marketing model (Guo et al. 2017).
The use of text mining tools during different stages of the
product lifecycle can become instrumental in devising
appropriate strategy in future studies. Analysis of market
structure based on text mining is more often descriptive and
explains past/present phenomenon. Text mining has enormous
potential to predict the future, and future studies can unlock the
predictive modeling potential of data mining (Netzer et al.
2012). Incorporation of multiple trails of communications on
different channels, including social media handles, may
improve the predictive ability of the model (Netzer et al.
2012). The only caution is to filter the big data for fitness for
use, as online reviews may be biased due to online herd
behavior (Huang and Chen, 2006). It is necessary to check the
representative population to minimize the noise in the findings
(Dellarocas, 2006). Data can be full of incorrectly spelled
words and unstructured themes, so future researchers should
preprocess data before analysis (Ravi & Ravi 2015).
Evolved techniques such as artificial intelligence and
machine learning can provide automated analysis for rich
consumer insights (Ravi & Ravi 2015). Ontology orientation in
past studies proved successful in representing, visualizing, and
determining sentiment units (Kontopoulos, Berberidis,
Dergiades, & Bassiliades 2013; Lau, Li, & Liao 2014;
Martinez, Deagustini, Falappa, & Simari 2014). A combined
approach with machine learning and ontological orientation can
open new research opportunities in the future (Ravi & Ravi
2015). Ontology applied in a native language can make it easier
to access latent consumer psychology. Currently, opinion
mining of non-English language is not available, which limits
the reach of emerging technologies. In the future, opening
mapping of cross-linguistic populations can further strengthen
the eWOM research field. Cross-linguistic and cross-domain
sentiment analysis remains a challenge (Ravi & Ravi 2015).
Aspect level sentiment analysis can help in understanding the
laggard relationship between reviews and sales.
Emerging techniques such as natural language processing
(NLP), deep learning, and machine learning have already
opened new dimensions to the eWOM research field; however,
there are additional intelligent techniques ready to emerge
shortly. Intelligent techniques such as the random forest,
evolutionary computation, association rule mining, fuzzy rule-
based systems, rule miner, conditional random field theory
(CRF), formal concept analysis, radial basis function neural
network (RBFNN), and online learning algorithms are emerg-
ing techniques that can be exploited in the near future. Since
sentiments are often fuzzy, fuzzy logic offers a tremendous
opportunity for future researchers. RBFNN and online learning
algorithms are especially useful for mining data in realtime.
Conclusion
There has been a paradigm shift in marketing communica-
tion channels in recent years. Marketing-sponsored communi-
cation channels are being replaced with customer-to-customer
social network channels. Products and services are under the
stringent vigil of consumers. The consumers are sharing their
product and service experiences in virtual communities that
have no geographical boundary. Moreover, such electronic
word of mouth is more prevalent, relevant, and needed
 S. Verma, N. Yadav / Journal of Interactive Marketing 53 (2021) 111–128
specifically in the case of service due to its intangible
characteristics. Service is more experience dominated and
difficult to evaluate before consumption. Therefore, consumers
rely on shared experiences and eWOM to reduce the perceived
risk associated with services. Thus, research on eWOM became
popular and attracted the attention of researchers globally.
Several studies tried to understand the antecedents and
consequences of eWOM. Due to wider scope and extensive
coverage, the metasynthesis of existing studies for identifica-
tion of future research directions is extremely important. Given
this, previous researchers have attempted to author systematic
literature reviews, but existing reviews are mostly descriptive,
and the latent conceptual and intellectual structure was
unexplored. To fill this research gap, the present study attempts
a comprehensive performance analysis of the research domain
and science mapping with conceptual and intellectual structure
analyses.
A scientifically established literature review methodology,
as suggested by Saunders et al. (2009), Rowley and Slack
(2004), and Fahimnia et al. (2015), was followed to conduct
this study. The performance analysis of different scientific
actors offers the structure and development of the eWOM
research field. Various scientific actors used for the analysis are
journals, articles, authors, and keywords. Both quantitative and
qualitative aspects of performance analysis provided vital
insights for future researchers. Quantitative measures such as
frequency of publications and qualitative measures such as
citation index are used for performance analysis. Finally,
cooccurrence and cocitation analyses helped to understand the
conceptual and intellectual structure of the existing literature
for the identification of future research directions.
In this study, we reviewed 1896 research papers published
during the last two decades (between 2000 and 2020).
Longitudinal data analysis indicates the growing popularity of
the research field. We used coword analysis to map the
conceptual structure of the eWOM research. Recommender
systems and data mining emerged as the most promising topics
within the eWOM research field. Data mining includes
keywords such as text mining, semantic analysis, and sentiment
analysis. It clearly shows the usage of both quantitative and
qualitative approaches for mining eWOM information. The
recommender system addressed specific issues such as online
rating and collaborative filtering for predictive modeling.
We plotted a thematic evolution map (alluvial diagram) to
understand the longitudinal progression of the research field.
Themes such as decision making and recommender system
evolve continuously, and the diagram shows their continually
growing importance. Some thematic areas, such as the Internet,
ecommerce, and user-generated concepts, showed a sinusoidal
pattern. For a microscopic understanding of eWOM research
evolution, we plotted the strategic map of each subperiod to
understand the importance of growing themes by phase.
Initially, the Internet garnered significant attention, and various
studies attributed the increase in eWOM to the growth of the
Internet. With time, online social networking became the
central theme. In recent years, social media became the basic
theme of studies, while eWOM and user-generated content
125
become transversal themes. The recommender system and data
mining became the motor themes, showing their growing
popularity. The stability index for a recommender system is
0.65, user-generated content is 0.58, social networking is 0.48,
and data mining is 0.42. This shows that these themes have a
consistent evolution in the eWOM research domain.
Further, we used cocitation analysis for mapping the
intellectual structure of the research field. Cocitation analysis
resulted in a three-cluster structure. Studies in cluster 1 address
the conceptualization of eWOM, studies in cluster 2 focused on
the impact of eWOM on sales, and studies in cluster 3 revolve
around the implication of eWOM communication on experi-
ence dominated sectors such as hospitality and tourism.
Previous researchers used a multitude of methodological
techniques such as log-linear modeling (Ye et al., 2009) and
experimentation (Vermeulin and Seegers, 2009) to understand
the impact of eWOM.
Content analysis of emerging topics and emerging themes
helped in the identification of ongoing debates and future
research directions. Recommender system research may see
shifts in the research lens and is expected to offer effective
predictive modeling. Due to the complexity in corating data,
future researchers should incorporate multiattribute utility data
for better results. Incorporation of additional factors such as
geometrical or temporal information along with contextual data
in future studies can boost the predictive ability of the models.
Evolved techniques such as artificial intelligence and machine
learning can provide automated analysis for rich consumer
insights (Ravi & Ravi 2015). A combined approach with
machine learning and ontological orientation can open new
research avenues in the future (Ravi & Ravi 2015). In the
future, opinion mining of cross-linguistic populations can
further strengthen the eWOM research field.
This study makes a significant theoretical contribution to the
eWOM research field. It extended the existing knowledge by
offering performance analysis and science mapping (conceptual
and intellectual structures) of the research field. This study
went beyond a mere systematic literature review and offered an
indepth content analysis of emergent themes for identification
of future research directions. This study also offers insights for
practitioners to leverage the vast potential of eWOM for brand
building. The systematic presentation of existing literature will
help practitioners link different antecedents and consequences
of eWOM. The understanding of emerging themes and topics
will help practitioners devise future strategies accordingly.
Interwoven technology intervention in realtime analysis of big
data is expected to create a new paradigm for both
academicians and practitioners.
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