@article {783, title = {Electronic Word-of-Mouth Communication for Local Service Providers}, journal = {Technology Innovation Management Review}, volume = {4}, year = {2014}, month = {04/2014}, pages = {35-42}, publisher = {Talent First Network}, address = {Ottawa}, abstract = {Word-of-mouth communication is a valuable means of marketing for small, local service providers. Face-to-face transmission is most prevalent, but electronic word-of-mouth is on the rise. Through the results of an agent-based simulation, this article shows that the penetration of word-of-mouth for a small service provider, who is locally restricted due to the inseparability of production and consumption, could benefit less from a growth in word-of-mouth connections than a larger service provider. Only if the added electronic connections are mainly local, small and larger service providers have similar effects on the penetration of word-of-mouth. The article includes a discussion of how small service providers could react to this threat.}, keywords = {agent-based simulation, electronic word-of-mouth, local service provider, threshold model}, issn = {1927-0321}, doi = {http://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/783}, url = {http://timreview.ca/article/783}, author = {Nora Sch{\"u}tze} }