Online negative reviews and managerial responses have decisive impacts on the attitudes and behavior of the prospective customers, who read the information from reviews and responses and gain insights about products and seller services for making an online purchasing decision. This study, based on the category diagnosticity theory and the literature on managerial responses, develops a research framework to explain the relationships between online negative reviews, managerial responses, consumer attitudes, and their consequent purchase intention behavior. Using an experimental design and data from 246 respondents, it was found that negative reviews (i.e., review diagnosticity, review impression) have negative impacts on two types of consumer attitudes (i.e., attitude toward product, attitude toward seller) and purchase behavior. Managerial responses (i.e., response rate, response relevance) were found not only to have positive effects on potential consumers’ attitudes and behavior, but also were found to moderate the negative impacts of negative reviews. These findings provide managerial implications for the sellers in the shopping environment, where their interactions with past customers might consequently influence their sales in the future.

在线负面评论和管理回复对潜在客户的态度和行为具有决定性影响，他们从评论和回复中阅读信息并获得有关产品和卖家服务的见解，以做出在线购买决策。本研究基于类别诊断理论和管理响应文献，开发了一个研究框架来解释在线负面评论、管理响应、消费者态度及其随后的购买意向行为之间的关系。使用来自 246 名受访者的实验设计和数据，发现负面评论（即评论诊断性、评论印象）对两种类型的消费者态度（即对产品的态度、对卖家的态度）和购买行为产生负面影响。发现管理响应（即响应率、响应相关性）不仅对潜在消费者的态度和行为有积极影响，而且还可以缓和负面评论的负面影响。这些发现为购物环境中的卖家提供了管理意义，他们与过去客户的互动可能因此影响他们未来的销售。