abstract
Information derived from consumer-to-consumer (C2C) communication in online
communities plays an important role in consumers’ purchase decision making. Based on
the information adoption model, the present study develops a research model to investigate
the influence of C2C communication on consumers’ purchase decision in online communities.
Based on 324 effective data, the Partial Least Squares technique is used to test the
proposed model. The results show that argument quality, source credibility, and tie
strength positively influence purchase decision through product usefulness evaluation. In
addition, tie strength exhibits difference effect on product usefulness evaluation between
the context of consumers communicating with real and virtual relationships. Theoretical
and managerial implications are discussed.