Indirect negatively valenced influencing behavior of digital wallet: interplay of intensity and valence on Facebook reviews

Purpose Negative online reviews are significantly increasing with the increasing popularity of digital payment. Strategies for managing negative reviews are limited to encouraging positive reviews from service providers. However, the role of an appropriate number of positive reviews to manage negative reviews is inadequate. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating role of the number of positive reviews in the relationship between negatively valenced influencing behaviors and attitude, behavior, and intention of digital wallet users. Design/methodology/approach This paper applied a 3*2 factorial design with a sample of 140 digital wallet users. Confirmatory factor analysis and one-way multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) were used to test the proposed model. Findings This paper found that indirect negatively valenced influencing behaviors have a significant influence on the behavioral intention of digital wallet usage, in which discrediting reviews yield a more adverse outcome compared to regretting and deriding reviews. Likewise, the number of positive reviews significantly moderates the relationship between different forms of negatively valenced influencing behaviors, namely discrediting, deriding, regretting, on attitude and behavior intention. Originality/value This paper is one of the earliest studies exploring the impact of indirectly valenced negative behaviors on the behavioral intentions of digital wallet users. The findings would enrich the literature by understanding the reviews of digital wallets in Facebook reviews.