Gen-Z social electronic word of mouth communication and mediating role of contents quality and sources: PLS-SEM path modelling

The study examined elaboration likelihood model (ELM) information processing routes in the context of Gen-Z active social WOM seeking in the involvement of hospitality service buying. The ELM was employed and serial mediating routes of information processing were investigated. The samples (n = 430) were collected especially from the generation-Z group of individuals from different cities in India, such as Dehradun, Delhi, Nainital, Mussoorie, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Srinagar, Pune, Jaipur only. The partial least square-SEM was tested for the proposed relationship and bootstrapping used to verify potential mediation. The findings of the research indicate that active social media WOM information seeking to social WOM influence have a serial mediation effect of opinion leader, source of closeness and communication content quality and process investigated on two ELM routes (i.e., central and peripheral information processing route). The findings of this research may be an asset to the market communication leaders and corporate media administrators. However, it helps to understand the social media WOM communication active seeking pattern and being mediation factors of opinion leader, source of closeness and well as content quality indirectly effect into the further social media electronic word of mouth influence.