Rumour outbreak: The impact of personal characteristics on consumer decision-making

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of brand commitment, personal values and consumer self-confidence on consumer decision-making during the outbreak of rumours in the marketplace. Word-of-mouth communication in the form of commercial rumours, have been of great concern to many marketing practitioners and consumer behaviour experts. This is because an outbreak of rumour tends to have a devastating effect not only on the target company’s sales, but also a long-term negative effect on the company’s reputation. In some cases, apart from negatively affecting the target products, it also affects other products manufactured by the target company through stimulus generalisation, thereby eroding the company’s sales in other products under the same umbrella brand name...