ابعاد کنترل روانشناختی والدین: ارتباطات با پرخاشگری فیزیکی و رابطه پیش دبستانی در روسیه

Online review, an important form of reputation systems, has been studied intensively because of its powerful impact on online retailers, intermediaries, and customers. However, to date, very little attention has been paid to factors that influence an individual’s intention to provide an online review. An extended theory of planned behavior and Big-Five personality framework are used in this study. We empirically examine our model by using a cross-sectional survey study, collecting data from a sample of 171 online shoppers. Results show that attitude, perceived pressure, neuroticism, and conscientiousness are significant predictors of an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Findings may help online retailers and/or intermediaries increase the number of online reviews provided, which will lead to more accurate rating information about transactions, products, or services and may serve as a stepping-stone to continuous improvements. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

Global competition and globalization are driving many firms toward greater adoption of e-commerce (Gibbs, Kraemer, & Dedrick, 2003). Although customers have concerns over e-commerce, such as security and trust issues, recent e-commerce improvements may have reduced these concerns. Better security protocols, for example, have been developed and are broadly used by online retailers to enhance potential customers’ willingness to shop online. Moreover, communications between online retailers and customers have become more effective. By using the Internet and intranet communication facilities and infrastructures, for example, information interchange between an online retailer and customer is more efficient, precise, and extensive (Valera, Vergara, Moreno, Villagraa, & Berrocal, 2001). Among various developments in e-commerce, online reputation systems have received increasing attention as existing customers are now gaining more influence on potential customers (Wang, 2005). Online reputation systems play crucial roles in determining business success since they help customers make decisions about whom to trust and provide an incentive for honest behavior (Resnick, Zeckhauser, Friedman, & Kuwabara, 2000). In Resnick et al.’s study, an online reputation system is defined as a platform that collects, distributes, and aggregates feedback and comments about participants’ past behavior. One form of online reputation systems is online customer rating or online customer review platform. From business’s perspective, online customer review provides firms with knowledge of customers’ needs and satisfactions or dissatisfactions. Heim and Field (2007), for example, found that customer ratings of the payment process are strongly associated with e-service process attributes that involve a credit card fraud protection program. On the other hand, from a customer’s perspective, online customer review provides prospective customers important information on whether to purchase a product and/or service. Thus, by leveraging online customer review, firms are able to enhance their existing online marketing merchandising, and brand building efforts (Barton, 2006). Because customer rating and review are a highly desirable and effective form of word-of-mouth communications, well-known online retailers such as Amazon.com and eBay have integrated online customer rating and review into their marketing processes. A case study conducted by Barton (2006) found that PETCO, a pet supplies company, uses aggregated online customer ratings to drive conversion and shopping conveniences. Thus, managing an effective online customer review program would be an important marketing priority. Previous studies have examined the impacts of online reviews on sales, price, reputation, customer expectation, trust, promotion, attracting new business, product differentiation, etc. (e.g., Clemons et al., 2006 and Dellarocas et al., 2007). However, to date, very little attention has been paid to factors that influence an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Thus, the first objective of this study is to provide a conceptual framework that partially explains factors that determine an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Specifically, we adopt and extend Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior (TPB) as our theoretical base. In our research model, an individual’s attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and perceived pressure determine his or her intention to provide an online review. In this study, attitude is defined as the degree to which an individual has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation or appraisal of providing an online review. Subjective norm is defined as the degree to which an individual perceives providing online reviews as a norm among people who are important to him or her. Perceived behavioral control is defined as the degree of ease or difficulty perceived by an individual with respect to providing an online review. Finally, perceived pressure is the degree of push (e.g., follow-up invitations or calls) perceived by an individual from sellers and/or intermediaries (e.g., eBay or Amazon.com) with respect to providing an online review after a purchase. Additionally, while individual behaviors can be explained by personality traits (e.g., Barrick and Mount, 1991, Hough et al., 1990, Ones et al., 1993 and Tett et al., 1991), the second objective of this study is to investigate the impact of personality on an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Although various personality-trait measures are available in the literature, there is an emerging consensus among personality researchers that personality measures can be described by the Big-Five framework of personality (Costa and McCrae, 1992, Digman, 1990 and Goldberg, 1993). Thus, the Big-Five personality traits are included in the proposed research model. In addition, previous research has shown that an individual’s past behavior has a positive impact on his or her intention to perform the behavior again (Cronan and Al-Rafee, 2008 and Sutton, 1998). To control this effect, we include an individual’s past behavior of providing an online review as a control variable. The proposed research model and the hypothesized relationships are summarized in Fig. 1. Full-size image (20 K) Fig. 1. The proposed research model and relations. Figure options The major contribution of this study is that it provides a partial understanding of the factors that determine an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Findings may help online retailers increase the number of online reviews provided, which will lead to more accurate rating information of transactions, products, or services. Such information not only tells online retailers and/or intermediaries how well they are rated but also serves as a stepping-stone to continuous improvements. The remainder of this study is organized as follows: We first review existing research regarding online reviews and the relevant information system research that has applied the theory of planned behavior. This is followed by the theoretical arguments for the proposed research model. Next, we present the procedures of testing the proposed research model empirically. Then the results of an empirical test of the model are presented. Finally, we provide a discussion of the findings, followed by limitations, and areas for future research.

This study has proposed and tested a model that examines factors that influence an individual’s intention to provide an online review, based upon concepts from TPB [1] and Big-Five personality framework (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Our results provide support for attitude (H1) and perceived pressure (H4) as statistically significant predictors of an individual’s intention to provide an online review. In addition, we also found that within the Big-Five personality traits, neuroticism (H5b) and conscientiousness (H5d) were significant predictors of an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Taken as a whole, our model explains nearly 50% of the proportion of variance in an individual’s intention to provide an online review. Findings of this study may be used by online retailers and/or intermediaries to elicit more online reviews. We expect future research to develop a more robust measure for subjective norm and to examine the impact of factors such as price, product, and/or service type on an individual’s intention to provide an online review. We also recommend future research to apply other personality frameworks. Finally, we believe that longitudinal studies are needed to provide a better understanding of our model.