Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 1737: The Influence of Internet Entrepreneur-Related Word-of-Mouth (WOM) on Corporate Image Association (Sustainability)

Both the consumer’s corporate social responsibility association and enterprise production capacity association are beneficial to business sustainable development. Based on Chinese traditional culture and from the perspective of Stereotype Content Model, this paper explores the relationship between two types of entrepreneur-related Word-of-mouth (WOM) and the two afore-mentioned types of consumer’s associations. On the one hand, the results show that the entrepreneur-related WOM labeled as “making yourself a person”, which emphasizes the personal qualities of the entrepreneur, may prompt consumers to form corporate social responsibility associations. On the other hand, the entrepreneur-related WOM labeled as “managing your own affairs”, which emphasizes the ability of the entrepreneur, may cause consumers to form associations regarding the enterprise’s production capacity. The mechanism underlying these effects is that the former type of entrepreneur-related WOM stimulates the consumer’s perception of the entrepreneur’s warmth, while the latter stimulates the consumer’s perception of the entrepreneur’s competence.