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Chinese Journal of Management Science ›› 2016, Vol. 24 ›› Issue (9): 106-114.doi: 10.16381/j.cnki.issn1003-207x.2016.09.013

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Consumer-Generated Reviews Based on Social Learning Theory: Implications for Purchase Decision

FENG Jiao, YAO Zhong   

  1. Department of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
  • Received:2014-11-26 Revised:2015-11-22 Online:2016-09-20 Published:2016-09-30

Abstract: Consumer-generated reviews play an important role in improving sales, and making purchase decisions, so it has become a hot topic of academic study. Based on social learning theory, Bayesian and Gaussian updated formula, mathematic models are established to analyze different influence of volume of consumer-generated reviews and rating of consumer-generated reviews on consumers' purchase decisions, and then the relationship between volume of consumer-generated reviews and rating of consumer-generated reviews is deeply discussed, and numerical experiments and practical data from Taobao.com and Amazon.com are also used to verify the effectiveness of the models and results. The results show that, the rating of consumer-generated reviews is decreasing as the growth of the volume of consumer-generated reviews, and the decline of the rating of consumer-generated reviews gradually slows down. But when the rating of consumer-generated reviews is (almost) converged into the real quality, the volume of consumer-generated reviews has little impact on the rating of consumer-generated reviews. When the volume of consumer-generated reviews is independent of the rating of consumer-generated reviews, the rating of consumer-generated reviews has a positive effect on purchase decision, and the volume of consumer-generated reviews has a positive effect on purchase decision of high-quality product, but not has a positive effect on purchase decision of low-quality product. The volume of consumer-generated reviews and the rating of consumer-generated reviews play different roles in purchase decisions of different products in different selling periods, and the research findings help online retailers adopt suitable marketing strategies.

Key words: electronic commerce, social learning, consumer-generated reviews, volume of consumer-generated reviews, rating of consumer-generated reviews

CLC Number: