Firms' green knowledge sharing and tourists' green electronic word-of-mouth intention: a two-wave time-lagged study of moderated mediation model

Abstract

To address sustainable development goals in the tourism sector, this study sheds light on the importance of novel green marketing strategies as critical tools for promoting environmental sustainability. Anchoring on the service-dominant logic theory, this study’s originality provides a framework that fundamentally reshapes our understanding of how value co-creation between companies and customers can occur in the green context. Specifically, the research indicates the novelty through the lens of service-dominant logic to clarify the impact of companies’ green knowledge sharing on social media as a novel catalyst for tourists’ green electronic word-of-mouth intention. Using a time-lagged study, data compiled from 799 tourists confirm that tourists’ warm glow and green customer engagement behavior in sharing knowledge online with firms function as parallel mediators, thereby explaining the indirect influence of green knowledge sharing on green electronic word-of-mouth intention. Additionally, social network proneness significantly moderates this mediation via green customer engagement behavior. This research marks a seminal contribution by integrating service-dominant logic into green marketing, thereby articulating a nuanced framework that explains how green knowledge sharing can be leveraged to amplify green electronic word-of-mouth intention. By doing so, this study provides practical implications to orienting sustainable tourism through firms’ green knowledge sharing, ultimately promoting tourists’ green behavior.