ESSAYS ON THE IMPACT OF ELECTRONIC WORD-OF-MOUTH DYNAMICS ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorTrusov, Michaelen_US
dc.contributor.authorZhao, Xindien_US
dc.contributor.departmentBusiness and Management: Marketingen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2023-02-01T06:44:37Z
dc.date.available2023-02-01T06:44:37Z
dc.date.issued2022en_US
dc.description.abstractRecognizing the importance of product reviews for product sales in online retail platforms, this dissertation studies the effect of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) dynamics on consumer behavior, including information processing, review-reading behavior, product evaluation, purchase decision, and reviewing behavior. In the first essay, I focus on incentivized reviews, which are posted by reviewers who received economic incentives (e.g., free product) from the firm, and explore how their emergence in a reviewing system influences subsequent organic (i.e., nonincentivized) review contributions for the focal product. I find that the ratings of subsequent organic reviews decrease after the appearance of incentivized reviews and that the magnitude of this negative impact decreases over time and the ratings recover in the long run. This is because subsequent reviewers adjust their product evaluations downwards when faced with priorincentivized reviews. In the second essay, I study the effect of a prevalence phenomenon— repetition in e-WOM—on consumer behavior. I demonstrate that high repetition in e-WOM could have a negative effect on persuasion and that this negative effect could be eliminated by modifying consumers’ inferences about the cause of repetition. Furthermore, consumers’ information-seeking behaviors are also affected by the share and type of repetition. Both essays provide an understanding of the impact of e-WOM on consumers’ judgments and decisions and offer implications for firms and platforms on how to gather, manage, and display e-WOM effectively; they also provide interesting avenues for future research.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/egqf-0xrn
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/29627
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledMarketingen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledconsumer behavioren_US
dc.subject.pquncontrollede-WOMen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledproduct reviewsen_US
dc.titleESSAYS ON THE IMPACT OF ELECTRONIC WORD-OF-MOUTH DYNAMICS ON CONSUMER BEHAVIORen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
Zhao_umd_0117E_23019.pdf
Size:
12.27 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
(RESTRICTED ACCESS)

Collections

UMD Theses and Dissertations
Marketing Theses and Dissertations