How Consumer Involvement Reweights WOM and eWOM in a Hybrid Market

Abstract

This study examines how interpersonal word-of-mouth (WOM) and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) jointly shape Brand Trust and Purchase Intention in a hybrid consumer-information environment, with particular attention to the moderating role of consumer involvement. Survey data from 341 young consumers in Guinea were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) in SEMinR, complemented by measurement-robustness analyses across four alternative specifications and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results show that both interpersonal WOM and eWOM consistently contribute positively to Brand Trust and Purchase Intention across alternative measurement specifications. In contrast, the Brand Trust → Purchase Intention relationship and the corresponding indirect effects of WOM and eWOM through Brand Trust are sensitive to measurement purification and therefore do not support a robust mediation claim. The most stable finding concerns consumer involvement: across all specifications, involvement weakens the behavioural effect of interpersonal WOM on Purchase Intention while strengthening the effect of eWOM. The moderation effects on Brand Trust are not supported. The fsQCA results complement these net-effect findings by revealing multiple configurations associated with high and low Purchase Intention, thereby indicating equifinality and causal asymmetry. The study contributes to social-influence and involvement research by conceptualising interpersonal WOM and eWOM as coexisting relational and distributed social-information architectures and by proposing involvement-driven channel reweighting. Rather than uniformly amplifying social influence, consumer involvement appears to change the relative behavioural weight assigned to interpersonal and electronic information channels. The findings also distinguish Brand Trust formation from behavioural conversion and highlight the importance of measurement robustness when evaluating mediation claims.

Keywords: interpersonal word-of-mouth; electronic word-ofmouth; consumer involvement; Brand Trust; Purchase Intention; channel reweighting; PLS-SEM; fsQCA

Received Date: September 17, 2026

Accepted Date: October 09, 2026

Published Date: November 01, 2026

Available Online at: https://www.ijsrisjournal.com/index.php/ojsfiles/article/view/1061