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Item Credibility of online reviews and its impact on brand image(Emerald Group Publishing Ltd. Howard House Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, 2018) Chakraborty, U.; Bhat, S.Purpose: Brand image is considered as a signaling phenomenon because high brand image ensures quality product that can reduce consumer’s uncertainty. A strong brand image induces consumers to pay higher prices, which in turn provides competitive advantage and market success to a company. Online reviews, blogs and texts on brand usage experiences are more effective than oral communication to build a strong brand image. Online reviews on products create distinct places for brands in the consumer’s mind, and thus ultimately affect images of the brands. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of online reviews on functional and hedonic brand images in the context of consumer electronic products in India. Design/methodology/approach: The present study adopts a novel approach to collect data. The data have been collected from select e-commerce sites’ brand pages on Facebook through Google form application. A number of respondents are 1,038. Structural equation modeling technique has been used to examine the effects of online reviews on functional and hedonic brand images. Findings: The data analysis reveals that source and review quality have more significant effect on credibility evaluation of online reviews as compared to the effects of review consistency and receiver. Moreover, credible online reviews have more impact on hedonic brand image rather than functional brand image in the context of consumer electronics product in India. Originality/value: The present study combines Yale attitude change model and attribution theory to examine the effects of online reviews on brand image. © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.Item Effect of Credible Reviews on Brand Image: A Mixed Method Approach(Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd, 2018) Chakraborty, U.; Bhat, S.Rapid growth of online social media reduces the marketer’s control over brand management. Consumers share their brand-related experiences (through online reviews) in various online social media platforms. It is a major challenge for the marketers to understand the effects of online reviews on a brand’s image. This study addresses the issue and attempts to understand the effects of online reviews on brand image. The concept of brand image is broken up into two parts, namely, functional and hedonic. The study follows a mixed method approach using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Quantitative techniques have been used to measure the objective experiences of the consumers, whereas qualitative techniques have been used to examine the subjective experiences of the consumers. For quantitative technique, structural equation modelling (SEM) has been adopted to determine the relationships between the variables. For qualitative technique, netnography has been followed. Quantitative data analysis reveals that online credible reviews have more significant effect on hedonic brand image. Qualitative study also shows evidences of functional and hedonic brand images in online community. Future directions for research are mentioned as well. © 2018 SAGE Publications.