What\u27s New With You? On the Moderating Effect of Product Novelty on eWOM Effectiveness

With the growing importance of the Internet and its increasing impact on everyday behaviour and consumption practices, online recommendations by other consumers are of great importance. As a major source of web-accessible information, prior research provides support for the role online reviews play in consumers\u27 decision-making processes. Our research investigates the thus far, understudied effect of novelty on the effectiveness of e-recommendations via online reviews. We conduct a multi-categorical study integrating the moderating effect of product novelty on the recommendation receiver\u27s purchase intention after exposure to a positive or negative online review. We find that new products are indeed less appealing and more impacted by online reviews, but only for products that are purchased frequently enough to distinguish between new and old ones. On the other hand, products that are less familiar to the customer are all the same new to him whether they were launched on the market recently or a long time ago. Our study contributes to the growing field of online word-of-mouth behaviour research by investigating the role of novelty in several product categories

Determinants of individuals' objective and subjective financial fragility during the COVID-19 pandemic

We examine determinants of the objective and subjective financial fragility of 2100 individuals across Australia, France, Germany, and South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective financial fragility reflects individuals’ (in)ability to deal with unexpected expenses, while subjective financial fragility reflects their emotional response to financial demands. Controlling for an extensive set of socio-demographics, we find that negative personal experiences during the pandemic (i.e., reduced or lost employment; COVID-19 infection) are associated with higher objective and subjective financial fragility. However, individuals’ cognitive (i.e., financial literacy) as well as non-cognitive abilities (i.e., internal locus of control; psychological resilience) help to counteract this higher financial fragility. Finally, we examine the role of government financial support (i.e., income support; debt relief) and find that it is negatively related to financial fragility only for the economically weakest households. Our results have implications for public policymakers, providing levers for reducing individuals’ objective and subjective financial fragility

La communication trompeuse : le cas des faux avis en ligne

La thèse sur papiers analyse les impacts des faux avis en ligne sur les relations sur le marché. Une séquence structurée des études qualitatives et quantitatives explore les perceptions des consommateurs et leur comportement relativement aux faux avis et étudie les solutions possibles pour détecter la communication trompeuse. La recherche confirme l'importance du phénomène des faux avis en ligne pour le marché et la nécessité de mesures opportunes anti-tromperie; des solutions pratiques et un agenda de recherche sont suggérés.The paper-based thesis analyses the impacts of fake online reviews on marketplace relationships. A structured sequence of qualitative and quantitative studies explores customer perceptions and behavior with regard to fake reviews and investigates possible solutions to detect deceptive communication. The research supports the importance of the phenomenon of fake online reviews for the market and the necessity of timely anti-deception measures; both practical solutions and research agenda are suggested

Multi-Category Study on Effectiveness of Online Reviews Impact on Purchase Intention

MarketingWith the growing importance of the Internet and its increasing impact on everyday behaviour and consumption practices, accessible online information on companies and their products is of great consideration. As a major source of web-accessible information, prior research provides support for the role online reviews play in consumers’ decision-making processes. We conduct a multi-categorical study integrating the, thus far, understudied effect of novelty on the effectiveness of recommendations via online reviews. We also include the moderating effects of product type, review type, and consumer characteristics on the recommendation receiver’s purchase intention after exposure to a positive or negative online review. We were able to obtain interesting insights into product novelty and the impact of online reviews according to the type of review, on the purchase intention and point out managerial applications of the findings as well as perspective paths for future research. Our results show that product novelty is a subjective characteristic identified only for products that are purchased on a regular basis. In this case, new products are initially viewed as less appealing and are therefore more impacted by negative reviews and less impacted by positive ones. Additionally, we found that the valence of the review has a significantly differentiating impact on the direction of the reaction and the implied factors. Reviews generated by the consumers are less efficient than experts’ positive opinions, but more convincing when negative. Product type difference is especially bold and highlights the importance of a narrowly specialized or, on the contrary, a multi-categorical study for conclusions that merit generalization. Additionally, we conclude that, as consumer intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics are the main determinants in his/her reaction to the online review, it is important to have a good knowledge of the customer. We show that even the basic characteristics of the customers can provide a deep insight on their profile to predict the most probable reaction to the online reviews

La communication trompeuse : le cas des faux avis en ligne

La thèse sur papiers analyse les impacts des faux avis en ligne sur les relations sur le marché. Une séquence structurée des études qualitatives et quantitatives explore les perceptions des consommateurs et leur comportement relativement aux faux avis et étudie les solutions possibles pour détecter la communication trompeuse. La recherche confirme l'importance du phénomène des faux avis en ligne pour le marché et la nécessité de mesures opportunes anti-tromperie; des solutions pratiques et un agenda de recherche sont suggérés.The paper-based thesis analyses the impacts of fake online reviews on marketplace relationships. A structured sequence of qualitative and quantitative studies explores customer perceptions and behavior with regard to fake reviews and investigates possible solutions to detect deceptive communication. The research supports the importance of the phenomenon of fake online reviews for the market and the necessity of timely anti-deception measures; both practical solutions and research agenda are suggested

Delight the experts, but never dissatisfy your customers! A multi-category study on the effects of online review source on intention to buy a new product

International audienceOnline reviews are a pervasive form of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) that potentially accelerate—or slow down—the diffusion of recently launched services in the marketplace. While empirical research largely supports the effects of online reviews on attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, less is known about the impact the source of the review—i.e., if it comes from a peer consumer or an expert—has on the recipient. Two experiments that combine reviewer- (expert, consumer), service type- (mobile package, restaurant, car repair), consumer- (level of general innovativeness), and review-related (positive, negative) characteristics reveal a challenging interaction between the review’s source and its valence: while—compared to an established baseline—a positive expert review seems more effective in increasing the recipient's intention to purchase than a review by a peer consumer, a negative consumer review lowers the recipient's intentions to a larger extent than a negative expert review. We further find effects of the consumer's innovativeness and the service category across the experiments. Our research contributes to the topical and increasing body of empirical research on the effects of involved characteristics within online reviews across several product types

Show me the real world: reactions of American female consumers to more realistic and diverse human models in e-commerce

International audienc

Disabled people empowerment through Information and Communication Technologies: A valuable opportunity or a new "white elephant"?

International audienc

Illusions of truth - Experimental insights into human and algorithmic detections of fake online reviews

The issue of fake online reviews is increasingly relevant due to the growing importance of online reviews to consumers and the growing frequency of deceptive corporate practices. It is, therefore, necessary to be able to detect fake online reviews. An experiment with 1041 respondents allowed us to create two pools of reviews (fake and truthful) and compare them for psycholinguistic deception cues. The resulting automated tool accounted for review valence and incentive and detected deceptive reviews with 81% accuracy. A follow-up experiment with 407 consumers showed that humans have only a 57% accuracy of detection, even when a deception mindset is activated with information on cues of fake online reviews. Therefore, micro-linguistic automated detection can be used to filter the content of reviewing websites to protect online users. Our independent analysis of reviewing websites confirms the presence of dubious content and, therefore, the need to introduce more sophisticated filtering approaches