The Impact of eWOM, Trust Inclination, and Information on Reader's Intentions in an Evolving Digital Marketing : in Context of Pakistan with Moderating Role of ICO

This research focused on the online communication landscape, which has grown rapidly in Pakistan. Customers have been exposed to a huge amount of deception and true information because of social media networks. Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has been shown to increase the likelihood of retransmission. Employing structural equation modeling (SEM) and the eWOM reader’s adopted culture, this research predicts the moderating role of the eWOM reader’s adopted individualism-collectivism cultural orientation (ICO) between eWOM core antecedents and their trust inclination (Trt) perspective in an evolving digital marketing context in Pakistan. Followed by the mediation of trust inclination and information adoption (IA) between eWOM antecedents and eWOM readers purchase intentions (PI). The authenticity of this research was examined through a sample of 251 respondents who shopped online in Karachi using a close-ended Likert scale questionnaire. The reason for choosing only Karachi is that Karachi is essential to the rest of the nation, producing the highest 20% of the GDP, 50% of total income, and roughly 47% of direct tax revenue. The outcome suggests three important hypothetical contributions to the field of research: that individualism-collectivism cultural orientation significantly moderates the relationship between information quality (IQ) and trust inclination, information usefulness (InUse) and trust inclination, and argument quality (AQ) and trust inclination. These results support the need for and significance of considering eWOM readers’ adopted cultural norms in the context of eWOM