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云南财经大学名家讲坛暨商学院龙泉学术讲坛（第 31 期）

题目：When Do Consumers Value Positive versus Negative Reviews?

An Empirical Investigation of Confirmation Bias in Online Word of Mouth

摘要：In the online word-of-mouth literature, research has consistently shown that negative reviews have a greater impact on product sales than positive reviews. While this negativity effect is well documented at the product level, there is less consensus on whether negative or positive reviews are perceived to be more helpful by consumers. A limited number of studies document a higher perceived helpfulness for negative reviews under certain conditions, but accumulating empirical evidence suggest the opposite. To reconcile these contradictory findings, we propose that consumers’ pre-existing beliefs about products based on product-level information available online (such as the average product rating and the dispersion of ratings), play a vital role in their evaluation of individual reviews about the product. Specifically, using a panel data set collected from Apple’s App Store, we hypothesize and empirically demonstrate that consumers tend to perceive reviews that confirm (vs. dis-confirm) their existing beliefs as more helpful, and that this tendency is moderated by the confidence in their existing beliefs. Further, we show that confirmation bias can lead to greater perceived helpfulness for positive reviews when the average product rating is high, and for negative reviews when the average product rating is low, and it can therefore reconcile the mixed evidence in the literature. This paper is among the first to incorporate the role of prior beliefs in the evaluation of online reviews by consumers, and our findings have important implications for researchers, online retailers and review websites.

主讲人：张晗       美国佐治亚理工学院教授

美国佐治亚理工学院商学院EMBA项目学术总监

                   管理学国际顶尖学术期刊MIS Quarterly副主编

主持人：叶琼伟     云南财经大学商学院教授

                   国家教育部高等学校电子商务学科教指委委员

                   中国信息经济学会常务理事

时间：2015年4月2日（周四）晚19:30-21:30

地点：云南财经大学南院逸夫楼410

主办单位：科研处  商学院  研究生部