Sources and impacts of social influence from online anonymous user reviews

摘要

Highlights•Sources and impacts of online reviews’ informational influence are identified.•Sources and impacts of online reviews’ value-expressive influence are identified.•Prior product expertise does not affect the formation of social influence online.•Self-monitoring does not affect the formation of social influence online.AbstractConsumers increasingly rely on online reviews to make purchase decisions. However, the process through which consumers are influenced by online reviews is not well understood. To fill the gap, we apply the social influence theory to theoretically explain and analyze this opinion change process. Specifically, we identify antecedents and consequences of two types of social influence from online user reviews: informational and value-expressive influence. From a survey conducted in a controlled laboratory environment, we found that perceived review quality positively impacts informational influence, while perceived review quality, consistency, and social presence jointly impact value-expressive influence. Interestingly, informational influence impacts both perceived decision quality and perceived usefulness of the website, while value-expressive influence only impacts perceived usefulness of the website. Surprisingly, consumer characteristics, including prior product expertise and self-monitoring, do not have significant effects on the formation of social influence online.