When WOM communications relate to impersonal products or
services, i.e., when the situation involves objective/factual issues (e.g.,
choosing a VCR), the effect could be the reverse of what is described
above. Seasoned points of view and novelty of information and
experience outside the social circle can outweigh the “like-me”
benefit, allowing these demographically dissimilar links to play a
more important role as information brokers (Burt, 2005).
Notice that the latter effects may be reinforced or weakened by
social considerations. On the one hand, during the final stage of the
decision-making process, when recipients decide to purchase or
adopt, certain sources are likely to have greater influence due to their
higher perceived authority or superior social status, such as sources
who are older, more affluent, or more educated (e.g., a professor to her
students, a father to his son, a manager to his younger assistant). In
this case, not adopting a product or service recommended by such
sources may be perceived to have potential social costs, where such
costs are linked to the relationship with the sender, not the product or
service itself. Thus, the effects of demographic dissimilarity may not
be symmetrical (e.g., older sources may have more influence on
younger ones than vice versa), even though this asymmetry has not
been explicitly discussed in the WOM literature.