How Review Sentiment and Readability Affect Online Peer Evaluation Votes? – An Examination Combining Reviewer’s Social Identity and Social network

To encourage users’ engagement and crowdsource quality control, many online communities provide users with peer evaluation votes. By using a total number of 17,178 online hotel reviews from Yelp, this study explored the factors influencing hotel review peer evaluations. The empirical results show that (1) multiple motivations exist for peer evaluations of online reviews; (2) except for reviews’ post date, length, and hotel popularity, readability of hotel review has positive influences on evaluation votes; (3) review sentiment has stronger influences on evaluation votes than other factors; (4) the effects of hotel review sentiment and readability on peer evaluation votes are positively moderated by reviewer’s social identity and social network

A knowledge-based view of managing dependence on a key customer: Survival and growth outcomes for young firms

Young firms in business-to-business markets often experience a high level of dependence on a key customer, but what are the firm-level effects of such dependence on survival and growth? And what can entrepreneurs do to manage such dependence? Many of the mechanisms suggested by resource dependence studies (such as safeguarding investments, symmetrical dependence, or acquisitions) are not available for young firms with limited resources. In this article, we develop a knowledge-based framework to examine how young firms can utilize congenital, experiential, and interorganizational learning to manage the effects of dependence on firm survival and growth. We test our hypotheses in a sample of young technology-based firms in the UK. First, we find a significant negative effect of key customer dependence on firm survival. Further, we find that experiential knowledge (accumulated as the firm ages) mitigates this negative effect, indicating that dependence is particularly hazardous for the youngest firms. Surprisingly, contrary to our hypothesis, we find that, for surviving firms, dependence has a positive effect on customer portfolio growth, and that this effect is stronger for less experienced, i.e., younger, firms. The effect is also amplified by congenital learning from the top management team's industry experience. Finally, interorganizational learning (facilitated by the relationship quality of the key customer relationship) has a negative moderating effect on the dependence-growth relationship. This indicates an impeding effect on the young firm's ability to acquire other customers. Taken together, our results contribute a more dynamic and nuanced view of young firms' customer relationships, shedding light on two distinct performance outcomes, firm survival and firm growth

Physicians' persistence and its implications for their response to promotion of prescription drugs

Motivated by the medical literature findings that physicians are inertial, we seek to understand (1) whether physicians exhibit structural persistence in drug choice (structural persistence occurs when the drug chosen for a patient depends structurally on the drug previously prescribed by the physician to other patients) and (2) whether persistence, if present, is a physician-specific characteristic or a physician state that can change over time. We further explore the role of promotional tools on persistence and drug choice, and we investigate whether physicians who exhibit persistence respond differently to three forms of sales promotion: one-to-one meetings (detailing), out-of-office meetings, and symposium meetings. Our results show significant levels of physician persistence in drug choice. We find that persistence is mostly a cross-sectional physician feature. Nonpersistent physicians appear to be responsive to detailing and symposium meetings, whereas persistent physicians seem to be responsive only to symposium meetings. Out-of-office meetings, such as golf or lunch, have no effect on physicians' drug choice. We also find that (1) older physicians and those who work in smaller practices are more likely to be persistent and (2) physicians who are more willing to receive sales force representatives have a lower likelihood of being persistent. Finally, we discuss implications for public policy from our rich set of results

The Growing Market for Energy and Sports Drinks in the United States: Can Chocolate Milk Remain a Contender?

U.S. consumption of chocolate milk is growing as an alternative to sports and energy drinks. Using household-level demographic characteristics and purchase data for chocolate milk, energy drinks, and sports drinks, we estimate three beverage demand models. Own-price elasticities of demand for all beverages are inelastic. Household size, age, education, race, region, the presence of children, and gender are determinants of demand for chocolate milk. Chocolate milk is a substitute for energy drinks and a complement for sports drinks. These results are supportive of repositioning of chocolate milk in the sports/energy drinks market

How Direct-to-Consumer Advertising for Prescription Drugs Affects Consumers' Welfare

In August 1997, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed brand-specific advertising on television. A simultaneous rise in direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) spending and prescription drug sales has resulted in a heated debate among pharmaceutical firms and medical practitioners, as well as in the U.S. Congress and the popular press. One side claims that DTCA creates demand and higher prices for the advertised brands; the other claims that DTCA increases consumer knowledge. The current study sheds light on the debate with a comparison of consumer welfare before and after the 1997 policy change, using a structural econometric model. The results suggest that DTCA seems to be increasing consumer welfare