The Role of Negative Online Reviews as Informants and Recommenders: An Abstract

Abstract

Negative information has been considered more diagnostic and informative than positive ones for product decision making purposes. Although researchers have studied the effect of negative online reviews, there exist unexplored gaps in the literature. One aspect relates to the role of online consumer reviews that provide product information and recommendations (Lee et al. 2007). Informant reviews provide information from the customer’s point of view as opposed to the available product information provided by vendors. In contrast, recommender online reviews make approvals or criticisms by providing a positive or a negative signal of product popularity.

This research contributes by understanding the role of informant and recommender reviews on source credibility: First, source credibility is higher for recommender rather than informative reviews. A review that provides a recommendation demonstrates the reviewer’s expertise and therefore, credible. Second, website type moderates the effect of informative vs. recommender negative online reviews. Specifically, the effect of informant reviews on source credibility will be higher for a knowledge-centric website than for a social media-centric website. In social media-centric websites, consumers tend to be among known friends or acquaintances, and therefore, the information provided may not be viewed with seriousness and credibility. However, in a knowledge-centric website, consumers providing information may be regarded as a peer and an expert. Besides, the discussions are considered to be serious in nature and therefore, more heeded. Thus, it is believed that the effect of informant reviews on source credibility will be higher for a knowledge-centric website than for a social media-centric websites.

Two experiments were undertaken. Study 1 consisted of three different types of negative online reviews—informative, recommendation only with no reasons and recommendations with reasons (diagnostic recommendation). Participants were shown an image of a smartphone with its features and were told to read the online reviews for the smartphone. The results showed that diagnostic recommender reviews had a greater impact on source credibility than information based reviews only.

In the second study, 2 (informant vs. recommender reviews) × 2 (social media centric vs. knowledge centric) between-subjects experiment was undertaken. The results demonstrated that informant reviews were regarded as having greater credibility when the context changed from a social media-centric website to a knowledge-centric website.