Is Neutral Really Neutral? The Effects of Neutral User-Generated Content on Product Sales
User-generated content (UGC) has received significant attention in the marketing literature.However,we still have limited understanding of the nature of neutral UGC,with an implicit assumption that it may have no effect on product sales as neutral UGC shows no clear inclination.We differentiate between two types of neutral UGC: mixed and indifferent neutral UGC.With multi-measurement (text and numerical UGC),multi-industry (automobile and movie),and multi-method (empirical and behavioral experiment) studies,we find that mixed neutral may increase product sales while indifferent neutral reduce those.More importantly,we find that mixed neutral affect users perceive the effects of positive and negative reviews.That is,mixed neutral UGC amplify the effects of positive and negative UGC through premium effect,whereas indifferent neutral UGC attenuate the effects of positive and negative UGC through discount effect.We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.
user-generated content mixed neutral indifferent neutral product sales
Tanya Tang Feng Wang Eric Fang
University of Massachusetts Amherst Wuhan University University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign
国内会议
北京
英文
1-44
2013-08-16（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）