A Duo-Decade of Research on Electronic Word of Mouth to Identify Future Research Directions

In the digital era of today, when most products are being sold online or at least netizens are discussing what they have bought or intend to buy on the digital platform with other netizens, digital marketers must give due cognisance to the huge volume of user-generated content every day, especially the electronic word of mouth that may impact their business significantly. Researchers are studying eWOM from different perspectives. The objective of this study is to provide new researchers who desire to study this growing field with direction and future scope by identifying the gaps in studies conducted so far. This research is a systematic literature review on electronic word-of-mouth based on 207 articles from the Scopus database between 2010 and 2023. The PRISMA framework led to 68 studies after applying the inclusion/exclusion principle. It was used to draw up the structural model of interdependency. Studies in electronic word of mouth are highly skewed in favour of the hospitality and tourism industries, and other industries have been neglected. Elaboration likelihood Model is the most popular theory used and theories like SOR and Justice theory have been ignored. Most studies are based on convenience sampling or secondary data from different websites. This study examined 68 research works from Scopus.com over a duo-decade. More insights may be developed if more studies over a larger period of time consider other databases as well. This review paper examined the studies conducted from 2010 to 2023 to identify the gap in the research that has been conducted so far. This will help future researchers by providing a direction regarding what needs to be explored. This research study examines the studies on eWOM from two different perspectives, namely, what leads to eWOM intention and features of eWOM that influence the purchase intention of prospective customers. This makes this literature review on eWOM unique.