System Generated Recommendation Vs Consumer Generated Recommendation: A Differential Effect on Consumers Beliefs and Behavior in e-Commerce Transactions
Online product recommendation (OPR) has received much attention in industry and academics, but less attention has been paid in exploring and understanding how different sources of recommendation influences consumers’ evaluation beliefs and behavior, and whether these impacts are relatively different for different types of products in their OPR continuous usage and product purchase intentions. This study aims to examine the distinct effects of system generated recommendation (SGR) and consumer generated recommendation (CGR) on consumers’ decision, affective, and social-psychological beliefs of OPR evaluation and to assess how these OPR evaluation beliefs subsequently effect consumers’ OPR continuous usage and purchase intentions. Results of a cross-sectional survey with 453 Amazon customers show that users of CGR express significantly higher trusting beliefs and perceived decision quality than users of SGR, while users of SGR elicit higher perceived enjoyment and lower perceived decision effort than users of CGR, resulting in different effect mechanisms toward OPR continuous usage and purchase intentions. Additionally, results also showed that product type (search & experience) significantly moderate the effects of OPR use on consumers’ OPR evaluation beliefs, indicating the way different type of recommendation sources (SGR vs CGR) for different types of product are comprehended and assessed. The findings are potentially beneficial to e-retailers who want to design sales-efficient websites by effectively employing OPR which improve consumers’ experience of buying different types of products
