默认评论对消费者评论数量与评论长度的影响

doi:10.16381/j.cnki.issn1003-207x.2020.1065

摘要/Abstract

摘要： 揭示电商网站默认评论对后续消费者评论数量与评论长度的影响，提供电商平台评论系统管理思路。本研究通过爬取阿里巴巴消费者评论形成面板数据，构建固定效应模型对默认评论如何影响消费者评论数量和评论长度进行分析。结果表明，随着默认评论数量的增加，消费者评论数量减少，评论长度减短。此外，使用实验法对默认评论影响消费者评价意愿的心理机制进行中介效应分析，结果发现，默认评论数量的增加会降低消费者评论意愿，原因在于默认评论增强了消费者从众心理，导致消费者不提供用户评论。

关键词: 默认评论；从众心理；评论意愿；评论数量；评论长度

Abstract: Online reviews have an important influence on consumer purchasing decisions. However, the number of online reviews provided by consumers is far from sufficient, and most of the reviews are short, lack of sufficient information, or of poor quality. Many e-commerce platforms have begun to increase review volume through automatically filling in reviews (i.e., default review) if the customer did not write a review, but the impact of default reviews on the generation of consumer reviews has not yet been explored. In this context, the following research questions are raised: What is the impact of default reviews on the volume and length of subsequent consumer reviews? What is its underlying mechanism? These questions are explored by combining second-hand data analysis and experimental method. In study 1, consumer reviews and sales data are crawled from Alibaba to form a panel dataset. The dataset containes 462 products and 120,864 reviews, ranging from September 6th, 2017 to December 6th, 2017. A two-way fixed effects model is constructed to analyze the impacts of default reviews on consumer review volume and review length. The results show that with the increasing of default reviews, subsequent consumer review volume and review length decrease. In Study 2, experimental method is adopted and 165 participants are recruited to examine the psychological process of how default reviews impacted consumer review intentions. The results show that the underlying mechanism is conformity. Specifically, the increase in the volume of default reviews can enhance consumers’ conformity, therefore consumers are less likely to write reviews. This research sheds light on the literature of the generation of consumer reviews by identifying the social influence of silent consumers. Moreover, this research contributes to research on online communities by expanding the scope of subjects that interact with each other in content generation behavior. In addition, the current research provides managerial implications for both online shopping platforms and merchants in designing review systems and stimulating online reviews.

Key words: default reviews; conformity; review volume; review length

中图分类号:

王欣, 朱虹, 赵英男, 陈晓威. 默认评论对消费者评论数量与评论长度的影响[J]. 中国管理科学, 2023, 31(2): 278-286.

WANG Xin, ZHU Hong, ZHAO Ying-nan, CHEN Xiao-wei. The Impact of Default Reviews on Consumer Review Volume and Review Length[J]. Chinese Journal of Management Science, 2023, 31(2): 278-286.

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