Positive Word-of-Mouth Intention Scale

What it measures

Three items measure a person's intention to tell others -- including friends and other persons -- about a focal object, capturing forward-looking recommendation behaviour. The items cover will-recommend, likelihood-of-telling, and will-tell-others formulations, providing a compact measure of positive word-of-mouth intent. A blank in each item should be filled with the name or description of the focal object.

Scale items

• I will recommend the __________ to my friends.
• It is likely that I will tell my friends about the __________.
• I will tell other persons about the __________.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Created by Hutter and Hoffmann (2014) drawing on measures by Boulding et al. (1993) and Derbaix and Vanhamme (2003). The phrase 'this store' was used by Hutter and Hoffmann (2014) in the blanks. The scale is general enough for use with a range of focal objects including brands, services, and websites. Composite reliability and Cronbach's alpha were both .93 -- unusually strong convergence indicating a tight, internally consistent scale. AVE of .81 is excellent. CFA confirmed discriminant validity. The scale appears to measure attention, which may be a transcription error in the original -- the construct clearly measures WOM intention, not attention.

Citation

Hutter, K., & Hoffmann, S. (2014). Surprise, surprise. Ambient media as promotion tool for retailers. Journal of Retailing, 90(1), 93-110.

Keywords