PERCEPTIONS OF WARMTH & COMPETENCE IN ONLINE NETWORKING: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF A COMPANY LAUNCH

Our interdisciplinary research examines consumer perceptions and behavioral tendencies generated by these perceptions. The study is placed in the context of online networking and it uses marketing, branding and psychology literature, especially the theory of warmth and competence from social cognition and Aaker et al.'s research results about firm stereotyping: 'for-profits' as high in competence vs. 'non-profits' as high in warmth. We used an experimental approach to investigate ways to attain the 'golden quadrant of consumer perceptions' (high warmth and high competence) that would jointly drive sales and brand advocacy in social networking sites. Offering a ready-to-use hint for companies, our results suggest people's proneness to support new market-comers and start-ups combining for-profit with social entrepreneurship. The effects of corporate communications on online user's perceptions are discussed.