At the 21st Eawop Congress, Gerald Kolar from the Competence Center for Leadership & Social Skills presented his collaborative study on the influence of locus of control on word-of-mouth.
“The Future is Now: the changing world of work” was the motto of the 21st Eawop Congress (European Association for Work & Organizational Psychology), which was held from May 24 to 27, 2023 in Katowice, Poland. More than 1,500 participants attended this renowned congress.
FHWien der WKW’s Department of Communication was also involved with a cooperation study on the topic: “Sustainability-oriented target groups and the effect of the locus of control on their word-of-mouth communication” (session “Communication and relationships, engagement and motivation”) by Gerald Kolar, Head of Competence Center for Leadership & Social Skills, and Martin Pittner, course director at FH Wiener Neustadt.
More Word-of-Mouth with high internal locus of control
Locus of control is the extent to which persons believe that events occur as a consequence of their own behavior. With internal locus of control, individuals assume that events are a consequence of their own behavior. With external locus of control, events occur independently of one’s behavior.
The presented study examined the effect of locus of control on word-of-mouth of brands from 709 subjects. The results show that with increasing internal locus of control of a sustainability-oriented consumer, word-of-mouth communication about “green” brands increases with close friends and family (“in-groups”) as well as with people with weaker relationships (“out-groups”).
Conclusion for practice
The study thus proves: People with a high conviction that events are under their own control engage significantly more word-of-mouth about sustainable brands!