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INTR
19,1
42
Received 15 March 2008
Revised 20 July 2008
Accepted 24 October 2008
Internet Research
Vol. 19 No. 1, 2009
pp. 42-59
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1066-2243
DOI 10.1108/10662240910927812
Social ties and online word of
mouth
Erin M. Steffes and Lawrence E. Burgee
Towson University, Maryland, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The power of word of mouth (WOM) communication and its influence on consumer
decision making is well established in academic literature. The recent adoption of online
communication by many consumers has facilitated a fundamental change to the structure of many
WOM interactions by exposing consumers to electronic WOM (eWOM) from virtual strangers. The
current study seeks to uncover whether traditional findings on social ties and WOM communication
hold for eWOM information.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 482 college students with varying
levels of expertise with eWOM forums, specifically RateMyProfessors.com in the USA. Participants
completed a 20-question survey related to university professor and class choice.
Findings – The study finds that students seeking information on which professor to take weight the
information they obtain from eWOM forums to be equally influential in their decision as their own
primary experience with the professor. Furthermore, the information gained from the eWOM forum is
more influential in their decision than speaking with friends in person (WOM). While existing research
suggests that strong tie referral sources are more influential than weak tie information sources on
decision making, this research finds that some weak tie information sources are rated as more
influential.
Research limitations/implications – A limitation of the study is the focus on one eWOM forum,
RateMyProfessors.com. Future research would benefit from expanding the number and type of eWOM
forums.
Originality/value – While the emergence of the Internet and social networking has spawned an
interest in the overall study of eWOM, this study is the first to evaluate eWOM in the context of tie
strength, homophily and decision making. The study also investigates whether existing theories of
interpersonal communication hold in an online context.
Keywords Interpersonal communications, Electronic commerce, Internet, Consumer behaviour
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Word of mouth (WOM) communication, which can be defined as “all informal
communications directed at other consumers about the ownership, usage or
characteristics of particular goods or their sellers” is well established in academic
literature (Westbrook, 1987). Over the years, numerous studies have shown that word
of mouth communication has a significant impact on consumer choice as well as
post-purchase perceptions (e.g. Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955; Engel et al., 1969; Herr et al.,
1991; Bone, 1995; Hennig-Thurau and Walsh, 2004). Additional studies have
demonstrated the power of WOM over other forms of advertising. In certain
circumstances, WOM has a greater influence over consumer behavior than personal
selling, print advertisements, and radio (e.g. Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955; Engel et al.,
1969; Goldsmith and Horowitz, 2006). Various forms of WOM include both offline
communication (traditional) WOM and Internet facilitated online WOM (eWOM).
Regardless of the form of WOM, the focus of the communication is the sharing of Social ties and
information regarding individuals’ experiences with various products and services. online WOM
WOM has been shown to be particularly influential in the services marketing arena.
Research indicates that consumers rely on WOM to reduce their perceived risk derived
from the uncertainty inherent in service purchase decisions (Murray, 1991).
Despite the fundamental similarities in purpose between traditional WOM and
eWOM, significant differences also exist. While WOM is an immediate intimate 43
conversation, eWOM, much like e-mail communication, is most frequently an
asynchronous process whereby sender and receiver of information are separated by
both space and time. Second, while WOM is generally a process of sharing information
between small groups of two or more interested parties, eWOM harnesses the
bidirectional communication properties and unlimited reach of the Internet to share
opinions and experiences on a one-to-world platform rather than a one-to-one platform
(Dellarocas, 2003). Third, traditional WOM emanates from a sender who is known by
the receiver of the information, thereby the credibility of the sender and the message
contents are known to the receiver. The electronic nature of eWOM in most
applications eliminates the receiver’s ability to judge the credibility of the sender and
his/her message. The sharing of traditional WOM relies heavily on the altruistic nature
of the sender to pass information on which the sender believes will be beneficial the
user. Much of the persuasive nature of WOM is attributed to the fact that many
consumers trust communications from other people they know more than
communications from marketers (Goldsmith and Horowitz, 2006). The very nature
of eWOM highlights the important theoretical issues of source credibility and user
trust. Furthermore, the traditional framework for WOM communication is without a
profit motivation. When the known source of information found in WOM is replaced by
the unknown anonymous source of information in eWOM, the possibility of
non-altruistic or profit-motivated communication exists. For example, authors of books
could write favorable reviews of their own manuscripts on Amazon.com.
The Internet and supporting information technology have the combined ability to
have a profound impact on the consumer information search process across many
levels, including the amount of information searched, the type of information sought,
and the relative importance of the information acquired (Kulviwat et al., 2004; Klein,
1998; Bakos and Brynjolfsson, 2000). The Internet and e-commerce have facilitated a
shift in power in the marketplace from producers to consumers (Goldsmith and
Horowitz, 2006; Baker and Green, 2005; Donation, 2003; Kiecker and Cowles, 2001).
Recent research on the value information to the user, which combines economic,
behavioral and social influences, supports a user-centered evaluation of the value of
information (Raban, 2007). The notion of user-centered evaluation of information is
particularly germane for eWOM given the volume of user-generated information
available in the online environment and the ever-growing burden on users to determine
its worth. However, there is very limited research on social effects on information
valuation with the noted exception of foundational research on social ties on WOM
behavior conducted by Brown and Reingen (1987). Social effects, such as how well you
know the source of the information, can have a profound influence on the value that
consumers place on various pieces of information gathered in their information search.
For example, Brown and Reingen’s research, conducted in the offline WOM arena,
finds that information obtained from strong tie connections are more influential in
INTR decision making than weak tie information. Our current research compares the
19,1 influence of various sources of information, including traditional WOM and eWOM on
consumer decision making in addition to testing whether the existing findings on the
influence of social ties and homophily on perceived information value hold in the online
environment.
While previous research has well established the importance of WOM on consumer
44 decision making, nearly all of the existing WOM research is grounded in off-line
research and experimentation. Our research is one of the first to compare the value of
offline WOM to eWOM in the consumer decision-making process. Furthermore, the
Internet has dramatically increased the amount of information available to consumers
prior to consumption of products or services, including the amount of eWOM at
consumer’s fingertips. As consumers become savvier using the Internet to gather
information on products and services, firms will have to determine the optimal strategy
for delivering information through both commercial and social pathways. In light of
the advances in online choice assistance techniques such as collaborative filtering and
recommendation agents, both of which harness the power of eWOM, it is important for
firms to understand the value of eWOM to the consumer. Finally, it is valuable to
understand if eWOM is a simple extension of WOM operating with identical social
impact, or if it is a distinct phenomenon with its own social implications.

Literature review
eWOM research
Perhaps because of the aforementioned differences between traditional WOM and
eWOM, there has been a renewed interest in researching WOM communication with a
specific focus on the motivations for participation, uses and impact of eWOM (e.g.
Dellarocas, 2003; Hennig-Thurau and Walsh, 2004; Hennis-Thurau et al., 2004;
Goldsmith and Horowitz, 2006; Fong and Burton, 2006). Historically, many of the
Internet applications of WOM focused on product ratings. Consumers appear to have a
high level of comfort using web sites like eBay, Amazon, CNET and Epinions to seek
product information from other consumers. Not surprisingly, most of the academic
research into eWOM has focused on online information research related to tangible
product purchase (e.g. Ratchford et al., 2003; Klein and Ford, 2003). While consumers
have little difficulty evaluating the quality of most search goods, determining
experience goods’ quality is more complicated. Therefore the availability of
trustworthy WOM information for experience goods, including nearly all services,
becomes critically important for consumers seeking to minimize risk in experience
good consumption. It should not be surprising that there is an emerging trend in
online information sharing via networks dedicated to the rating of services. Web sites
such as RateMyProfessors.com (RMP), LawyerRatingz.com, RateMDs.com and
myrateplan.com have begun to emerge as forums for rating the otherwise intangible
services. These information-sharing sites cover experience goods including professors,
teachers, lawyers, doctors, laptop service, cell phone and cable service. Our current
research focuses on perhaps the most developed and widely utilized eWOM forum for
experience goods, RMP, to gain a better understanding of how eWOM fits into the mix
of information students seek prior to consumption and how eWOM influences the
students’ ultimate choice of both course and professor in the university setting.
Social ties and eWOM Social ties and
While the power of WOM on consumer decision making has been well developed in online WOM
academic literature, a less-developed research stream in WOM research is the impact of
interpersonal relationship strength on WOM behavior. Applying a network analysis
framework to WOM referral behavior has provided some insight into how relational
properties such as tie strength and homophily impact WOM referral behavior (Brown
and Reingen, 1987). Brown and Reingen (1987) investigate the macro and micro level of 45
information exchange (flow of communication across groups and the flow within pairs
or small groups) while advancing the understanding of both tie strength’s and
homophily’s impact on WOM behavior. Tie strength, the level of intensity of the social
relationship between consumers or degree of overlap of two individuals’ friendship
varies greatly across a consumer’s social network. Consumers generally have a wide
range of relationship ties within their social network ranging from strong primary ties
such as those with close friends and family members to weak secondary ties such as
those with acquaintances rarely seen to nonexistent ties with complete strangers. The
few consumer behavior studies on communication flows focus primarily on the strong
tie relationships virtually overlooking the impact of weak tie relationships (e.g. Arndt,
1967; Leonard-Barton, 1985). Granovetter (1973) suggests that weak ties can play a
critical role in explaining a wide range of social network linking behaviors particularly
between micro and macro levels. As applied to WOM behavior, weak ties are often
critical to the dissemination of information between tightly woven strong tie clusters as
evidenced when weak tie acquaintances share restaurant opinions gathered from
consumption experiences with their family, their strong tie network. However, for
WOM consumer behavior the study of tie strength is very limited with the notable
exception of Brown and Reingen (1987).
A second construct worth consideration in the study of WOM behavior is the
concept of homophily. Rogers (1983) suggests that homophily is the level to which
pairs of individuals share similarities in attributes such as age, gender, education and
social status. While some may suggest that tie strength and homophily are
synonymous (e.g. Gatignon and Robertson, 1985; Rogers, 1983), we view tie strength
and homophily as related but separate constructs in line with Brown and Reingen
(1987). A difference between the concepts is that while homophily refers to the
similarities in characteristics of individuals in relationships, tie strength is a property
of the strength of the relationship itself. Stated alternately, an individual could have a
very high level of homophily with a stranger of the same socio-economic background,
yet their tie strength would be non-existent. The current research investigates both
constructs’ impact on eWOM-related behavior for an experience good facilitated
through RMP.

RMP
An early application of eWOM, RMP, began in May 1999 and allows students to rate
their professors on a number of dimensions including helpfulness, clarity, easiness, and
overall quality. Students may also rate the professor as “hot” or “not hot” based on
physical attributes of the professor in addition to recording their overall comments on
the professor. RMP dominates the competition such as pickaprof.com, rateaprof.com,
campushopper.com, and studentdude.com. Rating sites of this genre are as sources of
eWOM as these sites facilitate “informal communications directed at other consumers
INTR about the ownership, usage or characteristics of particular goods or their sellers”
19,1 (Westbrook, 1987). The eWOM sites are rapidly growing in popularity. As stated on
their web site, “RateMyProfessors is the Internet’s largest listing of collegiate professor
ratings, with more than 6.8 million student-generated ratings of over 1 million
professors from 6,000 schools across the United States, Canada, England, and
Scotland”. Furthermore, RMP boasted more than 9 million student users (www.
46 ratemyprofessors.com). The emergence of eWOM as a viable source of information on
services has just begun to attract academic attention and research. Studies by Felton
et al. (2004, 2006), Kindred and Mohammed (2005), Davidson and Price (2006), Riniolo
et al. (2006), and Coladarci and Kornfield (2007) have studied the correlation among the
factors of helpfulness, clarity, easiness, overall quality and hotness in addition to the
relationship between RMP ratings and student evaluations of teaching (SET). Most all
of the existing body of research on RMP investigates correlations among the ratings
factors. That is, all of the existing research on RMP has investigated the correlations
between the various factors captured on the web site such as helpfulness, clarity,
easiness, overall quality, and hotness as opposed to the study of RMP as a source of
information in the consumer decision process as is the focus of the current work.
Despite its substantial size and apparent student popularity, there is a common
perception among faculty that RMP is simply a joke or a game played by students for
the sole purpose of entertainment rather than an important source of experience good
user information. There are numerous conversations on any given day occurring on the
Chronicle of Higher Education Forums related to the topic of RMP. The common
themes which emerge from the postings are as follows:
.
most students really do not use RMP ratings to choose their classes;
. students realize it is all fun and games;
.
students who rely on these rating systems are dumb;
.
if you (the professor) do not like your own rating on RMP, simply rate yourself a
number of times or get a colleague to do it and you will feel better about yourself.

These beliefs held by academics do not seem to be supported by the sheer number of
postings and users currently on RMP. Therefore, in the first stage of our study we seek
to provide evidence that RMP is perceived to be a credible source of eWOM by students
in contrast to the faculty perception that RateMyProfessors.com is purely
entertainment.
Research issues and hypotheses
RMP as an information source
The first stage of our investigation, we seek evidence to determine whether students
perceive RMP as a source of information or a source of entertainment. While the
volume of ratings, over 6 million, and number of professors rated, over 1 million,
provide some evidence that students are investing time on the web site and are
therefore likely finding value in the experience, the inclusion of the “hot/not hot” rating
provides some indication that RMP is primarily for entertainment. The college-aged
generation has grown up with access to the Internet and invests a significant part of
their free time in Internet-related activities. By 2006, teens spent more than 26 hours
online each week (Moskalyuk, 2006). In a survey of 4000 Internet users, researchers at
Stanford University found that virtually all Internet users engaged in some form of
information-seeking activity (Stanford University, n.d.). Due to the depth of the Social ties and
information found on RMP and the overall reliance of the target audience on the online WOM
Internet, we investigate students’ use RMP:
RI1. Students utilize RMP as an information resource.

Social ties and eWOM 47

Consumers have wide social networks available to them in their search for information,
which include both strong tie members such as immediate family members or close
friends and weak tie members such as mere acquaintances. However, it is unlikely that
consumers would seek information from the sources with equal frequency. Strong tie
relationships are typically more readily available as sources of information since
consumers interact with their strong tie members more frequently than weak or
nonexistent tie members. The existing literature on social ties and WOM
communication finds that active information seeking is more likely to occur from
strong tie than from weak tie sources (Brown and Reingen, 1987). Given the availability
of strong tie relationships and the recent findings on active information seeking from
strong tie versus weak tie information sources, we hypothesize:
H1a. Given a choice between strong tie and weak or non-existent tie sources of
information, strong tie sources are more likely to be use as a preferred or
primary information source.
In line with existing WOM theory, it is presumed that consumer pairs in strong tie
relationships are likely to know much more about each other than consumer pairs in
weak tie relationships. Underlying the power and influence of WOM over other sources
of information, consumers in strong tie relationships are likely to have an
understanding about how likely a product offering would be to satisfy the other
strong tie person’s needs given the level of intimacy of the strong tie relationship.
Therefore, strong tie relationships should more frequently result in WOM referrals of
information that is well-aligned with the recipient’s wants and needs. The WOM
information which is passed between strong tie links is therefore likely to be more
influential over the recipient’s choice as compared to information passed through weak
tie links where the level of interpersonal knowledge is far lower. Existing research only
moderately addresses the issue of the relative influence of information from varying
social tie sources as perceived by users. Research does suggest that strong tie sources
may be perceived as more credible than weak tie sources (Rogers, 1983). In line with the
findings of Rogers (1983) and Weimann (1983), Brown and Reingen (1987) find that
information from strong tie referral sources are perceived to be more influential in
receiver’s decision making than the information obtained from weak tie referral
sources. To that end, we hypothesize:
H1b. Information from strong tie referral sources are perceived as more influential
in the consumer’s decision-making process than information obtained from
weak tie or non-existent tie information sources.

Homophily and eWOM

The second construct related to eWOM we investigate is the degree to which pairs of
individuals are similar in age, gender, education and social status commonly referred
INTR to as homophily (Rogers, 1983). It is a well-accepted nature of human interaction that
19,1 people like to interact with those who are similar to themselves, often termed the
“like-me” principle (Laumann, 1966). In their investigation of the impact of homophily
on offline WOM communication, Brown and Reingen (1987) find that there is no
significant difference in the homophilous nature of weak versus strong ties. That is,
weak ties activated for information flows were not more heterophilous than strong ties
48 activated. This finding gives credibility to our position that strong ties and
homophilous ties are not necessarily one in the same, nor are weak ties and
heterophilous one in the same. Brown and Reingen (1987) do find that the more
homophilic a tie is, the more likely it is to be utilized as a source of information,
however this information is not perceived as more influential over the decision making
than heterophilic ties. Stated alternately, homophilic sources are more likely to be used
as information sources, but the information gathered from these sources is not seen as
more credible. Our research endeavors to provide insight into the consumer’s level of
reliance on and influence of homophilous and heterophilous information sources in the
eWOM context. We therefore have H2a and H2b:
H2a. Information from homophilous sources information sources is more likely to
be used as a preferred or primary information sources as compared to
heterophilous information sources.
H2b. Information from homophilous sources is more influential in the consumer’s
decision making process than information obtained from heterophilous
information sources.
Table I provides a summary of the relevant research issues and hypotheses.

Method
In spring 2007, we administered a survey to the target audience of RMP, 482 US college
students enrolled in either Principles of Marketing or Principles of e-Business at a
four-year university. The survey contained 24 questions related to RMP usage, course
selection, professor selection, and demographic information. A summary of
demographic information can be found in Table II. As seen in the table, the
“average” respondent was a junior, 21.5 years old, declared business major, 56.4
percent male, with a 3.13 grade point average and approximately ten friends. We felt
that capturing the number of close friends could give us an indication of whether the
respondent was a particularly solitary or social individual, which may prove useful
when investigating information-seeking behavior. Additionally, we captured overall
Internet usage behavior, found in Table III. The majority of our sample, 75.4 percent,
classifies themselves as heavy users, another 23 percent moderate users and only 2
percent light users of the Internet. This distribution is not surprising, given the
sample’s age distribution and student status.

Results
RI1
The first goal of our investigation was to determine to what extent our sample was
aware of and/or using eWOM and to determine whether the users perceived that RMP
was a source of information or primarily a source of entertainment. To determine
 Social ties and
Utility of an experience good Issue: students report using the web site as an important
eWOM web site – informational resource in the selection of professors. Professors report online WOM
RateMyProfessors.com that the web site is a joke and useful for entertainment only
Comparison: informational web site vs entertainment web site
RI1. Students utilize RateMyProfessors.com as an information
resource
Tie strength Definition: the level of intensity of a social relationship between two 49
individuals
Comparison: strong tie vs weak or non-existent tie
H1a. Given a choice between strong tie and weak or non-existent tie
sources of information, strong tie sources are more likely to be used as
a preferred or primary information source
H1b. Information from strong tie referral sources are perceived as
more influential in the consumer’s decision making process than
information obtained from weak tie or non-existent tie information
sources
Homophily Definition: The degree to which pairs of individuals are similar in age,
gender, education, and social status
Comparison: homophilous information sources vs heterophilous
information sources
H2a. Information from homophilous sources information sources are
more likely to be used as a preferred or primary information sources as
compared to heterophilous information sources
H2b. Information from homophilous sources is more influential in the
consumer’s decision-making process than information obtained from Table I.
heterophilous information sources Research issues

Label Mean Std dev.

Average age (years) 21.5 2.9

Freshmen (%) 0.21
Sophomore (%) 14.1
Junior (%) 58.2
Senior (%) 28.4
Male (%) 56.4
Business major (%) 70.8
Non-business major (%) 29.2
Average GPA 3.1 0.4 Table II.
Average no. of friends 9.9 9 Demographics

Heavy user 75.4

Moderate user 23.0 Table III.
Light user 2.1 Internet usage
INTR overall familiarity level, we asked students whether they were aware of RMP, whether
19,1 they had ever visited RMP, whether they had ever used RMP to aid their selection of
professor for a class, and finally whether they had ever personally rated a professor on
RMP and if so, how many. The results are summarized in Table IV. In line with our
expectations for the audience, more than 96 percent of our sample was aware of RMP;
of those nearly 94 percent had visited RMP and of those 94 percent had used RMP to
50 select a professor for a class. If students were primarily using RMP for entertainment
purposes, we would expect to find large percentages of students reporting an
awareness of the site and visiting of the site, but low percentages of students utilizing
the site to actually aid them in their decision-making process.
What was perhaps more astonishing was the fact that only 36 percent of the
students had ever themselves rated a professor, and of those who had rated,
approximately half of the students had rated two or fewer professors. This result is
unexpected due to the fact that students have such a high vested interest in choosing
the optimal professor; therefore one would expect that students would be more
forthcoming with sharing their opinions. However, this result is in line with studies of
online behavior that show that most participants in online communities are passive
observers in that they do not themselves contribute content to eWOM web sites. The
most frequently observed ratio of non-contributors to contributors is 90-10, 90 percent
are passive readers of content, 10 percent are actual contributors of content (Nielsen,
2006). When we compare the RMP ratio of active versus passive participants, we find
that the RMP audience is actually above average in terms of active content generation.
However, when we account for the fact that by spring of junior year most students
have had 25-30 professors, it is clear that students are only rating a minority of their
professors, between 3 percent and 8 percent of their total professors. Thus, the majority
of students report active information seeking behavior through eWOM sources rather
than active information generating behavior through eWOM sources. However, we do
find sufficient evidence from the level of awareness and use of the site that the
overwhelming majority of our sample is both aware of and currently visiting RMP.
Furthermore, 409 of the 480 or 85 percent of students sampled report that they have
used RMP to aid them in the selection of a professor, therefore we find support for our
supposition in RI1 such that students are using RMP as a sources of information to aid
in their decision-making process.
To more closely mirror the actual decision process faced by students, we divided the
process of registering for classes into two discrete decisions. First, we asked the
students about their information gathering process for choosing which course to take
and second, we asked the students about the information gathering process for
choosing which professor to take. We separate the course selection decision from
choice of professor in line with the actual decision process as conveyed by students
through focus group discussions. The majority of students first determine which

Aware of RMP (%) 96.7

Visited RMP (%) 93.7
Table IV. Used RMP to select professor (%) 93.9
RateMyProfessors.com Rated a professor on RMP (%) 35.8
usage Number of professors rated 1.5
classes are necessary to take in the next semester and then students choose a specific Social ties and
section of their targeted courses for registration. We pay attention to the decision of online WOM
which course to take to determine whether students consider availability of professors
to be an influential factor over choice of course. We asked the students to rate on a
five-point scale with 5 ¼ Very important, 4 ¼ Somewhat important, 3 ¼ Neutral, 2 ¼
Somewhat unimportant, and 1 ¼ Very unimportant the following factors related to
course selection: 51
.
necessity of course for degree plan;
.
day of week configuration;
.
time of class meeting;
.
availability of preferred professor; and
. academic advisor recommendation.

We also allowed the students to write in another factor if necessary. Table V

summarizes the results, which indicate that necessity for degree plan was the most
influential factor, followed by time and day of class meeting, and then availability of
preferred professor and advisor recommendation. We find an F value of 36.32 and
Pr . F of , 0.0001 in our ANOVA analysis. We then used the Student-Newman-Keuls
Test for equality of means to confirm at an a ¼ 0:05, the factors are significantly
different. In a separate question, we asked students to report which factor was the most
influential factor over their selection of courses, 50 percent of students indicated that
necessity of course for degree plan was the single most important factor, followed by
availability of preferred professor at 23 percent, time of day at 13 percent and day of
week at 11 percent. While it seems logical to find that necessity of course for degree
plan was reported to be the single most influential factor, we were amazed that more
students reported that professor availability was more important in their decision than
was time of day or day of week. This suggests that students would be willing to
sacrifice a desirable course time for a more desirable professor and highlights the
importance of professor selection in the decision of which course to take at a university.

Social ties and eWOM

While the choice of which course to take is largely governed by degree requirements, the
selection of professors provides the student with more choice flexibility. For example, in
spring 2007 the students had a choice of six professors for the Principles of e-Business
course and ten professors for the Principles of Marketing course. Students perceive the
choice of professor to be a high risk and therefore high involvement decision since there

Factor Mean value Rank

Necessity to degree plan 4.66 1

Time of day 4.28 2a
Day of week 4.17 2a
Preferred professor teaches course 4.03 3a
Advisor recommendation 3.32 3a Table V.
Factors of importance:
Note: a ¼ tie course selection
INTR is both GPA risk and hedonic risk involved. Therefore, as with other high involvement
decisions, students are likely to perform an extended information search consulting
19,1 various information sources which makes this stage of the decision ideal for
investigating the impact of social ties and WOM behavior in an online context.
From a practical standpoint, we again asked students to rate with 5 ¼ Very
important, 4 ¼ Somewhat important, 3 ¼ Neutral, 2 ¼ Somewhat unimportant, and
52 1 ¼ Very unimportant, the following factors which were identified in earlier student
focus groups as common sources of information for choice of professor:
.
talking with friends in person, telephone or e-mail;
.
professor teaches in preferred time slot;
.
academic advisor recommendation;
.
RMP;
.
taken the professor for a previous class; and
.
no choice of professor for given course.
Again, we also allowed the students to write in another factor if necessary.
H1a. As mentioned earlier, the six factors represent both practical (time slot and no
choice of professor) as well as informational influences (talking with friends, academic
advisor, RMP, and personal experience) over the professor choice. H2a suggests that
given a choice between strong tie and weak tie sources of information, strong ties are
more likely to be perceived as a more important source of information. Therefore, we
must first classify our information sources as strong tie, weak tie, or non-existent tie.
Keeping in mind that tie strength is the level of intensity of the social relationship, and
given our four informational influencers, it is clear that the strongest tie would be that
with self, followed by the ties with friends, academic advisor (faculty members serve as
advisors at the university of study), and then anonymous users of RMP. Stated
alternately, we have the strongest social interactions with oneself and friends, followed
by faculty academic advisor, and finally anonymous users of the RMP web site.
Following, we classify strong tie relationships as those with self and friends, weak tie
relationships as those with academic advisors, and non-existent tie relationships with
RMP users. In line with the existing literature and findings on the likelihood of using
strong tie and weak tie sources of information, we hypothesize that personal experience
with a professor and taking with friends will be more important factors than academic
advisor recommendation. Furthermore, we hypothesize that academic advisor
recommendation will be more important than RMP. Based on tie strength, the
ordering of importance should be:
Personal Experience ¼ Talking with Friends . Academic Advisor . RMP:
Table VI summarizes the results for the choice of professor decision. Contrary to
existing social tie theory, RMP was tied for most important factor with primary
experience with the professor and was more important than speaking to friends.
Furthermore, the weak tie information source, academic advisor recommendation was
rated as least important, behind the non-existent tie information source and practical
influences. The ordering of the information sources by importance is:
Personal Experience ¼ RMP . Talking with Friends . Academic Advisor:
Our ANOVA analysis yields an F value of 96.96 and a Pr . F of , 0.0001, suggesting Social ties and
that the factors are significantly different. Once again, we used the online WOM
Student-Newman-Keuls Test for equality of means to confirm at an a ¼ 0:05, the
factors are significantly different. Students report that personal experience (strong tie)
and RMP (non-existent tie) are more important than talking with friends (strong tie)
and academic advisor (weak tie) when selecting which professor to take for a course.
We find interesting results in the importance of strong tie, weak tie and non-existent tie 53
sources when eWOM is included among the information sources which run counter to
the findings in the offline studies of tie strength and importance of information. Thus,
H1a is not supported when online WOM forums are included in the information mix
and H1a is rejected. The use of a non-existent tie source as a preferred source of
information suggests to firms that eWOM sites can be powerful marketing agents for
products and services. While much of the existing WOM literature highlights the fact
that WOM is effective due to the strong social relationship between sender and
receiver, we find that eWOM passed from virtual strangers can be equally or more
preferred than some strong tie information sources.
H1b. A second measure of the effect of social ties on WOM behavior relates to
the influence of the information over the decision rather presence of the information
in the information-gathering process. H1b suggests that information from strong tie
referral sources will be perceived as more influential in the decision making process
than information from weak tie or non-existing tie sources. This expected influence
is attributed to the fact that students personally know their strong tie friends and
presumably are able to assign a level of source credibility to these conversations,
but do not know with whose opinions they are exposed to in an eWOM forum such
as RMP and therefore do not know the source credibility. The issues of trust and
credibility become important in the level of influence information have over decision
making.
To investigate the influence of various social tie sources in decision making, we first
provided students with the same list of six potential influencers as used in H1a over
professor choice including both practical constraints and information sources. To
obtain the relative level of influence over their decision, we then asked students to
indicate which source was the single most important factor as related to choosing a
professor. Similar to H1a, the strong tie sources were identified as those with self and
friends, weak tie sources as those with academic advisors, and non-existent tie sources
as those with RMP users. Given the existing findings on tie strength and perceived
importance, we would expect to find that strong tie sources would be rated as more

Factor Mean value Rank

Taken for a previous course 4.3 1a

RateMyProfessors.com 4.24 1/2a
Time of class 4.13 2a
Talk with friends 3.86 3
No choice of professor 3.55 4
Advisor recommendation 3.28 5 Table VI.
Factors of importance:
Note: a ¼ tie professor selection
INTR influential than weak or non-existent tie sources, thus we expect to find the following
19,1 ordering:

Personal Experience ¼ RMP . Talking with Friends . Academic Advisor:

As shown in Table VII, 41 percent of students indicated that RMP was the single most
54 important factor as related to choosing a professor. The practical influence, preferred
time slot was the second most important factor at 21 percent, while talking with friends
at 17 percent and having taken the professor previously at 15 percent were third and
fourth. The weak tie advisor recommendation at 3 percent was a distant fifth.
Therefore, the actual ordering of influence of factors is as follows:

RMP . Talking with Friends . Personal Experience . Academic Advisor:

One may suggest that it is nonsensical to find that talking with friends should be a
more influential factor than personal experience with the professor. We explain this by
the fact that while most students do have access to their collegiate friends on a regular
basis and can easily obtain information from them, they do not have primary
experience with most of their professors prior to course selection. Therefore, by nature
of the availability of the information, talking with friends is reported to be more
influential over their decision than personal experience. Given the result that the
non-existent tie source is rated as most influential, we do not find support for H1b.
Once again, we find evidence of the power of eWOM in consumer decision making. We
have demonstrated that consumers are actively seeking information from various
sources (strong, weak and non-existent tie alike) and are placing a great deal of weight
(relative to influence over decision marking) to information sources one would not
expect to be particularly powerful influencers (non-existent or weak tie sources).
H2a/H2b. The final social construct we investigate is homophily. Therefore, we
must first evaluate our sources of information on the basis of homophilic levels. We
look at the degree to which the pairs of individuals are similar in terms of age, gender
or social status to determine homophily. Given the fact that homophily requires a
paired evaluation; we drop primary experience with the professor from the analysis.
Referring back to Table II, and then evaluating the levels of homophily among the
three remaining sources of information, we find that both RMP and talking with
friends exemplify high levels of homophily while advisor recommendation exhibits a
low level of homophily. Within our student sample which is likely to mirror the friend
network and the RMP network, we find that students are close in age, nearly evenly
split between genders, more than 50 percent juniors, and are 70 percent business

Factor % most Frequency

RateMyProfessors.com 41 179
Time of day 21 92
Talk with friends 17 75
Table VII. Personal experience 15 64
Most influential factor, Advisor recommendation 3 13
professor choice No choice of professor 2 9
majors. This demonstrates a high level of homophily between the respondent and Social ties and
friend and respondent and RMP pairings. However the academic advisors, who are online WOM
faculty members at the institution, share far fewer characteristics with the students
(age, income, education) and therefore have a much lower level of homophily. In line
with H2a, we expect that information from homophilous sources such as friends and
RMP will be utilized more frequently than information from heterogeneous sources.
Referring to Table VI, we find that RMP and taking with friends were both rated as 55
more important than advisor recommendation. Therefore, we do find support for H2a.
This finding falls in line a well-established stream of social interaction literature that
shows that people like to interact with other people who are more like themselves
(Laumann, 1966). Therefore, it follows that people are utilizing homophilic sources of
information to aid them in their decision-making processes more frequently than
heterophilic sources.
Finally, we investigate whether homophilic sources of information are more
influential over consumer’s decisions than heterophilic sources. Referring back to
Table VII, we find that the homophilic sources of information (RMP at 41 percent and
Talking with friends at 17 percent) are more likely to be reported as the single most
influential factor in the choice of professor as compared to the heterophilic source
(Advisor recommendation at 3 percent). Not only are students more likely to engage
homophilic sources during their information search as we see from the H2a results, but
students also report that homophilic information has a greater influence over their
decision making (is more important in their decision-making process) than heterophilic
information sources, thus supporting H2b. A summary of all four hypotheses and
findings is presented in Table VIII. It is interesting that the strong tie/weak tie
hypotheses are not supported while the homophily hypotheses are. Perhaps this is an
indication of the importance consumers place in their demographic or sociographic
similarity to the information provider (homophily) rather than the depth of their
interpersonal relationship (tie strength) as related to eWOM. Stated alternately, as long
as you are similar to me in terms of age, income, education, etc., I value and believe

Hypotheses Results

H1a Given a choice between strong tie and weak or Not supported
non-existent tie sources of information, strong tie
sources are more likely to be use as a preferred or
primary information source
H1b Information from strong tie referral sources are Not supported
perceived as more influential in the consumer’s
decision-making process than information obtained
from weak tie or non-existent tie information sources
H2a Information from homophilous sources information Supported
sources are more likely to be used as a preferred or
primary information sources as compared to
heterophilous information sources
H2b Information from homophilous sources is more Supported
influential in the consumer’s decision making
process than information obtained from Table VIII.
heterophilous information sources. Summary of results
INTR your input or opinion. However, I do not need to know you on a personal level to believe
19,1 your input or value your opinion.

Future research directions

As the adoption of the Internet increases, more consumers will be relying on online
sources of information in their decision-making process. While we provide an early
56 indication of the importance of eWOM sources in decision making, it is by no means an
exhaustive finding. Future research would benefit greatly from the investigation of
multiple eWOM forums across many search and experience good platforms. There are
numerous examples found on the Internet of forums dedicated to product and services
ratings such as Amazon.com which allow consumers to interact with non-existent tie
sources. Additionally, many online communities and forums allow online consumers to
form relationships between users over time, fundamentally strengthening the
previously non-existent tie and allowing for personally identifiable recommendations.
The effect of online communities on eWOM provides interesting opportunities for
future research since the anonymous, non-existent tie source of information can
become a weak or perhaps eventually strong tie relationship over time. One would
expect that eWOM from strong tie sources would be particularly influential in
consumer decision making, therefore presenting an opportunity and justification for
marketers to become involved in community or social network marketing. The theories
underlying social ties and WOM referral behavior tied with the underlying value of
information provide rich areas for future research directions.
Additionally, opinion leadership theory offers us interesting opportunities for future
research directions. Opinion leaders in eWOM forums are those who post their views
rather than simply reading other’s views. While historical definitions of opinion leaders
suggest that opinion leaders’ influence is limited to their immediate family and
acquaintances, the Internet greatly extents their potential scope of influence (Lyons
and Henderson, 2005). Studies characterizing opinion leaders’ characteristics online are
rather limited, giving much space for additional research.
As eWOM web sites evolve, another area for a future related study would be to
examine the concept of lurking and participation inequality. Lurkers, also known as
non-contributors, visit eWOM sites to gather information yet rarely or (more
commonly) never submit ratings or comments. This has led to substantial participation
inequality in which a small percentage of active contributors supply the majority of the
ratings on eWOM sites (Nielsen, 2006). Related issues deal with critical mass levels for
eWOM sites and whether enough users continue to contribute once an eWOM site
reaches a certain quantity-level of ratings. Do eWOM sites become “stale” and thus
offer less utility over time?

Conclusion
In conclusion, our research shows that students are relying heavily on eWOM through
RMP in their decision process. We provide evidence that students use RMP as an
important source of information rather than as a source of entertainment. When we
include eWOM as a source of information for decision making, we find that the
strength of strong ties does not hold. On the contrary, we provide evidence that when
eWOM is included as a source of information, users rate the information they gather
from the anonymous non-existent tie online forum sources as more important than the
strong tie or weak tie sources. However, we do find support for the existing social Social ties and
theory of homophily, that is users utilize information from homophilic sources more online WOM
frequently than information from heterophilic sources. Nonetheless, there remains a
great deal of research to be done in both the traditional WOM and emerging eWOM
fields. Our study provides an early investigation of whether existing theories of
interpersonal communication hold in an online context.
This study provides numerous significant contributions to theory and practice that 57
should be emphasized. Our research is one of the first to compare the value of offline
WOM to eWOM in the consumer decision-making process, particularly as it applies to
experience good user information. It underlines the importance for firms to understand
the value of eWOM to the consumer. It accentuates how eWOM is a distinct
phenomenon with its own social implications. In this era of online social networking,
eWOM web sites are rapidly growing in popularity and should be the focus of more
studies.
We have shown the power of RMP as an important source of experience good user
information, and provide evidence that RMP is perceived to be a credible source of
eWOM. Students are using RMP to aid in their decision-making process and certainly
value the web site as more than just entertainment. We show that students are willing
to sacrifice a desirable course time for a more desirable professor.
This study examines the impact of weak tie relationships not attended to in other tie
studies, and combines a look at tie strength and homophily. Our study posits that
students’ personal experience (strong tie) and RMP (non-existent tie) are more
important than talking with friends (strong tie) and academic advisor (weak tie) when
selecting which professor to take for a course. Additionally, we have shown that
consumers are actively seeking information from various sources (strong, weak and
non-existent tie alike) and are placing a great deal of weight (relative to influence over
decision marking) to information sources one would not expect to be particularly
powerful influencers (non-existent or weak tie sources).
There are limitations of this study that are important to mention. The study was
conducted in an academic setting using one web site, RMP, and relates to students and
professors. It does not examine commercial business transactions such as ratings sites
that report on lawyers, plumbers, doctors, realtors, etc. As a WOM vehicle, the
anonymity of ratings on RMP could skew the value of the information sourced by the
students. However, this could be a limitation of any study of this type in which the tie is
non-existent.

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