Informational influence of online customer feedback: An empirical study

Abstract

is an associate professor of marketing at the College of Management, University of Massachusetts Boston. His research interests include customer value, complaint behavior and relationship management, country image, cross-cultural consumer behavior, organizational learning and knowledge management. After his undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Masters degree in Econometrics from Dalian University of Technology, China, he got his PhD in Marketing from the University of Oregon. Wei Zhangis an associate professor of management information systems in the College of Management, University of Massachusetts Boston. His research interests include knowledge management, computer-mediated communications and online communities. He earned his Bachelor ' s degree from the University of Science and Technology of China, his Masters from Renmin University of China, and his doctorate in Management Information Systems from Boston University.ABSTRACT Increasingly online retailers are allowing their customers to leave online feedback on the products or services they offer. There have been limited efforts in understanding the mechanism through which such online feedback affect consumers ' purchase decisions. In this article, we report an empirical study on the informational infl uence of online customer feedback (OCF), that is, how consumers decide to integrate the information content of the feedback into their purchase decisions. We argue that the perceived usefulness of OCF plays a central role in this process, as the effects of prior experience with OCF, consumer trust toward OCF, and perceived importance of OCF work through perceived usefulness. Hypotheses derived from our research model were supported with survey data, and results suggest new ways to improve the design of OCF systems.

Deindividuation effects on normative and informational social influence within computer-mediated-communication

“…As aforementioned, a visible example of informational influence in online environments is represented by users making choices on the basis of reviews or ratings provided by other unknown users while using platforms such as Tripadvisor, Uber or Airbnb (Liu & Zhang, 2010), but other examples show that it can take place easily also in other ways.…”

“…While many studies on online consumers behavior focused on factors such as the perceived importance of feedback (Liu & Zhang, 2010) on informational influence, or on the conjunct effect of informational and normative influence on behavior when subjects interact without personal contact (LaTour & Manrai, 1989), no study tried to isolate it, and point out the environmental factors that could be able to enhance or diminish the compliance of users in this case. Furthermore, no study tested the effects of deindividuation on informational influence.…”

Do consumers always follow “useful” reviews? The interaction effect of review valence and review usefulness on consumers' purchase decisions

“…The perceived usefulness of a review has been found to be a significant predictor of a consumer's intent to comply with it (Cheung & Thadani, 2012; Liu & Zhang, ; Luo, Luo, Xu, Warkentin, & Sia, ). Consistent with this line of research, Purnawirawan et al () have documented the gatekeeping role of perceived usefulness.…”

Ethical Environment in the Online Communities by Information Credibility: A Social Media Perspective

“…This also provides benefits to the members for their participation. Perceived usefulness of information provided in online forums and communities will increase information adoption (Liu and Zhang 2010;Sussman and Siegal 2003). Research shows that information usefulness has a strong impact on the decision of users to adopt WOM provided in the online communities (Cheung et al 2008).…”