The investigation of online consumer reviews as intentional social actions
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Online reviews play an increasingly important role in consumers' purchase decisions. Such internet-enabled Word-of-Mouth communication offers society a tremendous potential to reduce information asymmetries and in this way, increase the efficiency of electronic and traditional markets (Dellarocas, 2005). Voluntary reporting, however, introduces the potential for reporting biases. In this dissertation, I argue that consumers' willingness to post a review on an online forum is conditioned on the social normative landscape of this public space. I conducted four exploratory investigations of the social dynamics involved in review posting behavior. Given the broadness of the research agenda, these studies focus on different aspects of the research question and, as a result, vary in their levels of analysis and methods. As evidence, I found that review posting behavior was motivated by social obligations and regulated by social norms. Furthermore, these social motives produced systematic biases in review valence distributions. The implications of these findings are clear: Biased distribution of online product reviews can lead to inefficiencies in consumer choice and erroneous conclusions about consumer product preferences.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2010 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Zak, Sophia Vladimir |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Graduate School of Business. |
| Primary advisor | Miller, Dale T |
| Thesis advisor | Miller, Dale T |
| Thesis advisor | Flynn, Francis J |
| Thesis advisor | Mullen, Elizabeth |
| Advisor | Flynn, Francis J |
| Advisor | Mullen, Elizabeth |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Sophia Zak. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the School of Business Administration. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph .D. Stanford University 2010. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2010 by Sophia Vladimir Zak
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