• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.3-27
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• 2015

As hostile online reviews can have a negative impact on a company's reputation, it is not surprising that online reviewers and business owners often get involved in conflicts which sometimes evolve into legal disputes. This research examines the legal dispute case in which the business owner charges an online reviewer for a defamation. Further, this research compares the supreme court's decision with general public's view on this defamation case, using a survey method. From the legal point of view, an online reviewer's primary motive determines whether the online reviews are defamatory statements or not. Specifically, if an online reviewer's primary motive is to increase the overall benefits for the public society, the online review does not bear any legal liability. According to our survey, consumers' view aligns with the final decision of the supreme court. They believe that online reviews should bear a minimum level of legal liability as online reviews often contain useful and valuable information which can enhance overall public benefits.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.59-81
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• 2024

Online consumer reviews provide a variety of information from the customer perspective in terms of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Negative emotional expression is a potential antecedent of review usefulness, and can also influence potential consumers' attitudes and decisions. In addition, because national culture provides a perspective from which individuals view the world and act, it is highly likely that differences in negative emotional expression will occur depending on culture. This study explores the relationship between national culture and negative emotional expression based on impression management theory and ultimately analyzes the impact on review usefulness. For empirical analysis, 16,076 reviews of 140 hotels located in Seoul were collected and analyzed using the PLS-SEM method. As a result of the analysis, it was found that power distance and masculinity culture dimensions had a positive effect on reviewers' negative emotional expressions, while uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation had a negative effect. In addition, negative emotional expression was analyzed to have a positive effect on review usefulness even when review ratings were controlled.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.18-36
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• 2024

This study delved into the complex nature of medical services as experience goods and trust services, investigating the profound impact of online word-of-mouth on medical consumers' decisions to visit hospitals. Considering the restrictive legal framework for medical advertising, consumers are increasingly dependent on unrestricted sources of information like online reviews. This research aimed to provide empirical evidence for the significant role online word-of-mouth plays in hospital selection. Utilizing data from Naver reviews, hospital choice factors were classified based on the Kano model, revealing the subtle yet significant influence that word-of-mouth has on consumers' hospital visit intentions beyond merely positive or negative messages. In particular, the study provided insights into how the categorized positive and negative information, along with the presence or absence of emotional expression, affects the efficacy of word-of-mouth. The experiment targeted medical consumers aged over 20 and, through analysis using the SPSS statistical program, yielded important findings. The direction of online word-of-mouth, the presence of emotional expression, and the interaction of Kano attributes all created significant differences in hospital visit intentions. Notably, emotional expression included in negative word-of-mouth concerning one-dimensional attributes markedly decreased visit intentions, whereas the absence of emotional expression in attractive attributes actually enhanced reliability and increased visit intentions. These findings offer critical implications for redefining strategies in medical marketing and online review management. The discoveries of this study underscore the importance of active engagement and strategic management of online reviews by medical service providers, urging careful consideration of the various elements of online word-of-mouth that influence medical consumers' hospital visit intentions.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-26
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• 2023

Consumers tend to trust information provided by other consumers more than information provided by sellers. Therefore, while inducing consumers to write high-quality reviews is a very important task for companies, it is not easy to produce such high-quality reviews. Based on previous research on review writing and memory recall, we decided to develop a way to use digital nudge to help consumers naturally write high-quality reviews. Specifically, we designed an experiment to verify the effect of uploading a photo during the online review process on the quality of review of the review writer. We then recruited subjects and then divided them into groups that upload photos first and groups that do not. A task was assigned to each subject to write positive and negative reviews. As a result, it was confirmed that the behavior of uploading a photo first increases the review length. In addition, it was confirmed that when online users who upload photos first have extremely negative satisfaction with the product, the extent of two-sidedness of the review content increases.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.25-50
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• 2021

Though there have been a lot of studies about online product review, the effects of highlighted reviewhave not been examined enough. Highlighted review is a type of review that the platform designer changes its size or position in order to highlight without any sponsorship or incentive. The main subject of this study is about how highlighted review type affects consumer's perception and behavior in online information acquisition. We collected data from 171 subjects to test hypotheses. Using three different types of screen captures, we compared three groups - general review group, positive highlighted review only group, and both positive and negative highlighted review group. As a result, disclosing both of positiveand negative highlighted review was perceived more useful than disclosing only positive highlighted review. However, correlation between highlighted review type and review skepticism was not statistically significant. The impacts of review usefulness and skepticism on platform credibility were statistically significant, and the correlation between platform credibility and usage intention was also significant. All of results is almost similar across two product types, search goods and experiential goods. This research provides practical implications to online shopping platform designers when they design review systems to make people use their platforms.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.255-271
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• 2009

Since consumers have difficulty in acquiring information related to products in online, they are apt to use WOM(word-of-mouth). It seems to be more popular and acceptable methods to acquire information about products sold in online. In other words, consumers who visit the Internet shopping-mall can not make a purchase-decision immediately because they have no sufficient knowledge about products. To solve this problem, consumers make use of the service called "online review". The objective of this study is to verify how these reviews can influence attitude toward the message, product and several buying behaviors in the online. In particular, this study focus on the message's sidedness(positive or negative) and objectivity(objective or subjective), because it is expected that consumers are likely to behave differently according to the characteristics of online reviews. Thus, to measure consumer's attitude and buying behavior, this study was examined by 4 types of messages. The results of this study are as follows: First, in the positive-objective message, the message attitude has a stronger effect on purchase intention than other outcomes. Second, in the positive-subjective message, the message attitude has a stronger effect on revisiting intention than others. Third, in the negative-objective message, the message attitude has a stronger effect on purchase intention than others. Hence, it is said that online shopping-mall managers need to understand the effects of multidimensional online review.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.127-158
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• 2021

Many online travel agencies (OTAs) provide average ratings and time-relevant information or the most recently posted reviews regarding hotels to satisfy customers. To identify these two factors' relative influence on behavioral decision-making processes, we conducted two studies: (1) an experimental research design to explore the relative influence of the two on online review consumption and (2) an empirical approach to examine their relative impact on online review generation. The results show that when review posters observe an inconsistency between average ratings and recent reviews, they tend to deviate from the recent reviews regardless of the overall direction (reactance behavior). Meanwhile, review consumers tend to conform to the opinions presented in recent reviews (herding behavior). Additionally, in both cases, the effects are amplified in case of a negative aberration. Based on the findings, this study provides theoretical and practical implications regarding the relative influences of average rating and recently posted reviews and their different impacts on online review consumption and generation.

• Journal of Multimedia Information System
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2022

The importance of online reviews is prevalent as more people access goods or places online and make decisions to visit or purchase. However, such reviews are generally provided by short sentences or mere star ratings; failing to provide a general overview of customer preferences and decision factors. This study explored and broke down restaurant reviews found on Google Maps. After collecting and analyzing 5,427 reviews, we vectorized the importance of words using the TF-IDF. We used a random forest machine learning algorithm to calculate the coefficient of positivity and negativity of words used in reviews. As the result, we were able to build a dictionary of words for positive and negative sentiment using each word's coefficient. We classified words into four major evaluation categories and derived insights into sentiment in each criterion. We believe the dictionary of review words and analyzing the major evaluation categories can help prospective restaurant visitors to read between the lines on restaurant reviews found on the Web.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.139-148
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• 2024

In the post-pandemic era, the demand for online education platforms has surged, leading to increased consumer reliance on online reviews for decision-making. This study investigates the impact of Chinese online customer reviews on consumer purchase behavior in online education. By examining the role of trust, review sentiment, and the quantity and timeliness of reviews, the research aims to understand how these factors influence consumer decisions. By using regression model, findings reveal that negative reviews, timely feedback, and a higher volume of reviews positively affect consumer purchase decisions, while course pricing demonstrates an inverse relationship. Furthermore, cognitive and affective trust mediate the relationship between reviews and purchase behavior, highlighting a reverse U-shaped effect on consumer decision inclination. These insights provide valuable implications for online education providers, emphasizing the need to manage and leverage online reviews to foster consumer trust and improve sales performance.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.61-70
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of a company's response strategies (response type, communication style, and response sincerity) on customer's brand attitude and purchase intentions. A fictional Facebook fan page containing 6 separate scenarios was developed based on actual customer reviews and company responses observed on Facebook restaurant fan pages. Participants were recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). A total of 202 responses were obtained; 185 responses were analyzed after deleting insufficient responses. The results of MANOVA found that an accommodative response leads customers to have a more favorable attitude towards a brand and have stronger purchasing intentions. In addition, customers who perceive the company's response to a negative review as sincere are more likely to have a positive brand attitude and purchasing intentions, as compared to those who perceive it as either insincere or neutral.