ABSTRACT

Many online retailers and some manufacturers/service providers have recently been engaging in questionable practices, where product reviews are often fabricated and/or posted without sufficient clarity and objectivity. Across an exploratory study and two main studies, we empirically examine this phenomenon and observe a pattern of effects that suggests that review valence (i.e., the average number of rating-stars a product receives) influences product attitudes and intentions, but that these outcomes are significantly impacted by the extent to which consumers are aware of potentially deceptive online review practices. Awareness of deceptive practices was found to differentially influence attitudes and intentions, depending upon whether the star-ratings were perfect (5/5 stars), highly positive (4.9/5 stars), or generally positive (4.5/5 or 4.7/5 stars). Participants’ perceptions of the e-retailer’s manipulative intent were also shown to mediate these effects, with higher perceptions of perceived manipulative intent yielding less favorable product attitudes and reduced purchase intentions.

摘要

许多在线零售商和一些制造商/服务提供商最近一直在从事有问题的做法，其中产品评论通常是捏造和/或发布的，没有足够的清晰度和客观性。在一项探索性研究和两项主要研究中，我们对这一现象进行了实证检验，并观察到一种效应模式，表明评价效价（即产品获得的平均评分星级）会影响产品态度和意图，但这些结果是受消费者对潜在欺骗性在线评论行为的了解程度的显着影响。发现欺骗行为的意识对态度和意图产生不同的影响，这取决于星级评分是完美的（5/5 星）、高度积极的（4.9/5 星）还是总体积极的（4.5/5 或 4。7/5 星）。参与者对电子零售商操纵意图的感知也被证明可以调节这些影响，对感知操纵意图的感知越高，产品态度越差，购买意愿越低。