Are Online Reviewers Leaving? Heterogeneity in Reviewing Behavior

摘要

Online consumption communities evolve over time and go through different stages in their life cycle. The key factor of the sustainability of the community is members' ongoing contribution. This study examines the factors affecting the ongoing contribution of online reviewers for different types of users. Drawing from theory on communities of consumption and popularity effect; we propose a conceptual model of drivers of ongoing contribution. We observed that Social ties, sidedness, and consumption activity could explain the heterogeneity of ongoing contribution level for different users. We studied a community of book reviews. We showed that the effect of sidedness on contribution prediction is stronger for reviewers with extreme behavior. We also concluded that consumption activity has more predictive information about the contribution compare to the social tie and sidedness.