• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.43-55
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• 2014

More and more people are gravitating to reading products reviews prior to making purchasing decisions. As a number of reviews that vary in usefulness are posted every day, much attention is being paid to measuring their helpfulness. The goal of this paper is to investigate firstly various determinants of the helpfulness of reviews, and intends to examine the moderating effect of product type, i.e., search or experience goods on the product sales, helpfulness and helpfulness votes of online reviews. The determinants include product data, review characteristics, and textual characteristics of reviews. The results indicate that the direct effect exists for the determinants of product sales, helpfulness, and helpfulness votes. Further, the moderating effects of product type exist for these determinants on three dependent variables. The results of study will identify helpful online review and design review sites effectively.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.93-112
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• 2011

For the success of an online retail market, it is important to allow consumers to get more helpful reviews by figuring out the factors determining the helpfulness of online reviews. On the basis of elaboration likelihood model, this study analyzes which factors determine the helpfulness of reviews and how the factors affecting the helpfulness of an online consumer review differ for product price. For this study, 75,226 online consumer reviews were collected from Amazon.com. Furthermore, additional information on review messages was also gathered by carrying out a content analysis on the review messages. This study shows that both of peripheral cues such as review rating and reviewer's credibility and central cues such as word count of review message and the proportion of negative words influence the helpfulness of review. In addition, the result of this study reveals that each consumer focuses on different information sources of reviews depending on the product price.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.159-169
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• 2015

Customer reviews are one of the important sources for purchase decision makings in online stores. Online stores have tried to provide useful reviews in product pages to customers. To assess the usefulness of customer reviews before other users have voted enough on the reviews, diverse aspects of reviews were utilized in prevous studies. Style and semantic information were utilized in many studies. This study aims to test diverse alogrithms and datasets for identifying a proper classification method and threshold to classify useful reviews. In particular, most researches utilized ratio type helpfulness index as Amazon.com used. However, there is another type of usefulness index utilized in TripAdviser.com or Yelp.com, count type helpfulness index. There was no proper threshold to classify useful reviews yet for count type helpfulness index. This study used reivews and their usefulness votes on restaurnats from Yelp.com to devise diverse datasets and applied text mining approaches to classify useful reviews. Random Forest, SVM, and GLMNET showed the greater values of accuracy than other approaches.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.109-121
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• 2016

This study analyzed the effect of five sub-variables' attribute of HMR: features of information, diversity, promptness, price and convenience, on the consumer purchasing intention. In addition, the regulation effect of positive reviews and negative reviews of consumers' online reviews between HMR selection attribute and purchasing intention was also tested. Results are following. First, convenience feature (B=.577, p<.001) and diversity feature (B=.093, p<.01) among the effect of HMR selection attribute had a positive (+) effect on purchasing intention. On the other hand, promptness feature (B=.235, p<.001) and price feature (B=.161, p<.001), and information feature (B=.288, p<.001) were not significant effect on purchasing intention. Second, result of regulation effect of the positive reviews of consumer's online review between the selection attribute of the HMR product and consumers' purchasing intention, in the first-stage model in which the selection attribute of the HMR product is input as an independent variable, there was a significant positive (+) effect on all the features of convenience, diversity, promptness, price, and information. In addition, there was significant positive (+) main effect (B=.472, p<.001) in the second step model in which the consumers' positive reviews, that is a regulation variable. Furthermore, the feature of price (B=.068, p<.05) had a significant positive (+) effect in the third stage in which the selection attribute of the HMR product that is an independent variable and the interaction of the positive review. However, the feature of information (B=-.063, p<.05) showed negative (-) effect, and there was no effect on the features of convenience, diversity, and promptness. Third, as a result of testing the regulation effect of the negative reviews of consumers' online reviews between HMR product selection attribute and consumers' purchasing intention, in the first-stage model in which the selection attribute of the HMR product was a positive (+) effect on all the features of convenience, diversity, promptness, price, and information. In the second-stage model in which consumers' negative reviews (B=-.113, p<.001) had negative (-) effect. In the third-stage in which the selection attribute of the HMR product and the interactions of the negative reviews was a positive (+) effect with the feature of price (B=.113, p<.01). Last, there was no effect at all on the features of convenience, promptness, and information.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.133-150
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• 2023

Purpose This study aims to develop classification models using a decision tree algorithm to identify core keywords and rules influencing online consumer review evaluations for the robot vacuum cleaner on Amazon.com. The difference from previous studies is that we analyze core keywords that affect the evaluation results by dividing the subjects that evaluate online consumer reviews into self-evaluation (star ratings) and peer evaluation (helpfulness votes). We investigate whether the core keywords influencing star ratings and helpfulness votes vary across different products and whether there is a similarity in the core keywords related to star ratings or helpfulness votes across all products. Design/methodology/approach We used random under-sampling to balance the dataset. We progressively removed independent variables based on decreasing importance through backwards elimination to evaluate the classification model's performance. As a result, we identified classification models that best predict star ratings and helpfulness votes for each product's online consumer reviews. Findings We have identified that the core keywords influencing self-evaluation and peer evaluation vary across different products, and even for the same model or features, the core keywords are not consistent. Therefore, companies' producers and marketing managers need to analyze the core keywords of each product to highlight the advantages and prepare customized strategies that compensate for the shortcomings.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.131-154
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• 2013

New internet technologies have created a revolutionary new platform which allows consumers to make decision about product price and quality quickly and provides information about themselves through the transcript of online reviews. By expressing their feelings toward products or services on virtual opinion platforms, users extend their influence into cyberspace as electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). Existing research indicates that an impact of eWOM on the consumer decision process is influential. For both academic researchers and practitioners, investigating this phenomenon of information sharing in online website is essential given the increasing number of consumers using them as sources of purchase decisions. It is worthwhile to examine the extent to which opinion seekers are willing to accept and adopt online reviews and which factors encourage adoption. Discerning the most motivating aspects of information adoption in particular, could help electronic marketers better promote their brand and presence on the internet. The objectives of this study are to investigate how online WOM influences a persons' purchase decision by discovering which factors encourage information adoption. Especially focused on the self-efficacy, this research investigates how self-efficacy affects on information usefulness and adoption of online information. Although people are exposed to same review or comment about product or service, some accept the reviews while others do not. We notice that accepting online reviews mainly depends on the person's preference or personal characteristics. This study empirically examines this issue by using cognitive dissonance theory. Specifically, in the movie industry, we address few questions-is always positive WOM generating positive effect? What if the movie isn't the person's favorite genre? What if the person who is very self-assertive so doesn't take other's opinion easily? In these cases of cognitive dissonance, is always WOM generating same result? While many studies have focused on one direct of WOM which indicates positive (or negative) informative reviews or comments generate positive (or negative) results and more (or less) profits, this study investigates not only directional properties of WOM but also how people change their opinion towards product or service positive to negative, negative to positive through the online WOM. An experiment was conducted quantitatively by using a sample of 168 users who have experience within the online movie review site, 'Naver Movie'. Users were required to complete a survey regarding reviews and comments taken from the real movie page. The data reflected user's perceptions of online WOM information that determined users' adoption level. Analysis results provide empirical support for the proposed theoretical perspective. When user can't agree with the opinion of online WOM information, in other words, when cognitive dissonance between online WOM information and users' preference occurs, perceived self-efficacy significantly decreases customers' perception of usefulness. And this perception of usefulness plays an important role in determining users' intention to adopt online WOM information. Most of researches have been concentrated on characteristics of online WOM itself such as quality or vividness of information, credibility of source and direction of online WOM, etc. for describing effect of online WOM, but our results suggest that users' personal character (e.g., self-efficacy) plays decisive role for acceptance of online WOM information. Higher self-efficacy means lower possibility to accept the information that represents counter opinion because of cognitive dissonance, whereas the people that have lower self-efficacy are willing to accept the online WOM information as true and refer to purchase decision. This study suggests a model for understanding role of direction of online WOM information. Also, our result implicates the importance of online review supervision and personalized information service by confirming switching opinion negative to positive is more difficult than positive to negative through the online WOM information. This implication would help marketers to manage online reviews of their products or services.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.81-94
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• 2010

The online shopping environment has radically changed consumer shopping behavior. Without the actual physical shopping experience in a brick-and-mortar store, consumers make purchasing decisions over the Internet. They make an effort to obtain product information not only from online merchants, but also from previous purchasers in order to make an informed decision. Accordingly, customer comments are expected to have a significant impact on decisions to purchase goods and services online. This paper focuses on one type of electronic word-of-mouth, the online consumer review. It derives several motivations why customers post product reviews on shopping mall sites. Customer motives were identified through an in depth one-on-one interview with twenty female respondents conducted twice from June $17^{th}$ to September $11^{th}$, 2009. The interviews lasted between 40 and 60 minutes. The results showed that consumers write product reviews based on six motivations: to receive a reward or remuneration for writing a product review, to share information with other customers, to improve the quality of goods and services, to reduce customer dissatisfaction, to recommend products and services, and to derive pleasure.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.784-804
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• 2015

This study investigates the effects of a two-sided message on product attitude and purchase intention by using a message structure variable, such as attribute importance in the context of online consumer reviews (OCRs). Study 1 explains the previous inconsistent results of a two-side message by comparing a one-side message and a two-side message by using the attribute importance in negative reviews. Study 2 determines the reasons for the inconsistent results of a refutational two-sided message research by using the attribute importance in negative reviews and website trust. Two experiments are designed to test our hypotheses. The first experiment is a $2{\times}2$ factorial design with 84 participants. The second experiment uses a $2{\times}2{\times}2$ factorial design with 196 participants. In study 1, two-sided OCRs are more credible than one-sided OCRs, and two-sided OCRs that use low important attributes are more effective in making favorable product attitude/purchase intention. In study 2, refutational two-sided OCRs that use high attribute importance render positive effects on product attitudes in trustworthy websites. However, the refutation could negatively affect product attitude/purchase intention in low trustworthy websites.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.177-190
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• 2016

On-line consumer reviews are good references for consumers to evaluate and buy apparel products. The objective of this study is to facilitate communication about performance textiles between consumers and merchandisers who buy and sell apparel products on online. The survey was based on standardizing words used in consumer reviews written after purchase of summer knit t-shirts at internet shopping mall and evaluating the performance textiles including cellulose fibers. We collected reviews of five sorts of the clothing products including cotton/modal, tencel/polyurethane, polyester/rayon, linen, cotton and selected 1000 reviews related to textiles. For classifying each word used in the reviews by the performance textiles, they were quantified applying same standards. The results were as follow: First, the standard for consumer to consider importantly was tactile sensation, appearance, pilling, thickness, dimensional stability in washing. Second, the important category of performance textiles was healthy-comfort and psychological-comfort. Third, there were difference performance textiles for consumer to recognize, e.g. cotton/modal was important to air-permeability, tencel/polyurethane was noticed about tactile sensation, polyester/rayon was perceived about pilling unlike other things, linen had a problem of clothing care-convenience, then cotton was familiar fiber to important for appearance. The last, consumers usually focused on writing the most positive or negative online reviews. Although not familiar with professional terminologies, consumers are sensitive to physical properties of textiles. Therefore, standardizing and evaluating performance textiles are expected to improve satisfaction as providing objective information to consumers considering in buying apparel products at online shopping mall and increase in revenue to manufacturer.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.115-134
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• 2021

Recently, the amount of money that foreigners buy from online shopping sites in Korea has been increasing, especially by Chinese consumers. In this study, we researched the effects of Chinese consumers' reviews, inquiries, and bargains on loyalty, and how these effects differ by gender so that Korean online sellers can take advantage of these opportunities. In order to verify the research model, a survey was conducted on Chinese consumers with online purchasing experience and 231 valid samples were collected and analyzed. As results, reviews, inquiries, and bargaining had the positive impacts on the loyalty of Chinese consumers. The impact of reviews on loyalty was higher in women, and the impact of inquiries and bargains on loyalty was higher in men. This study can help Korean online sellers effectively respond to Chinese consumers' reviews, inquiries, and bargains needs. This study, also, can help they understand and deal with the difference between the effect on reviews to women and the effect of inquiries and bargaining to men.