Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/288759 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] Electronic Markets [ISSN:] 1422-8890 [Volume:] 30 [Issue:] 4 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Berlin, Heidelberg [Year:] 2020 [Pages:] 805-820
Publisher: 
Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
Acknowledging the impact on their sales, companies strive to increase the number of positive online reviews of their products. A recently popular practice for stimulating online reviews is offering monetary rewards to customers in return for writing an online review. However, it is unclear whether such practices succeed in fulfilling two main objectives, namely, increasing the number and the valence of online reviews. With one pilot and two experimental studies, this research shows that offering incentives indeed increases the likelihood of review writing. However, the effect on review valence is mixed, due to contradictory psychological effects: Incentive recipients intend to reciprocate by writing favorable reviews but also perceive a need to resist marketers’ influence, which negatively affects their review valence. Finally, recipients who are less satisfied with the product are particularly prone to psychological costs and decrease the positivity of their online reviews. Consequently, incentives should be applied carefully.
Subjects: 
Online review
Incentive
Reciprocity
Psychological costs
Experiments
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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