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Examining Customer Responses to Fake Online Reviews: The Role of Suspicion and Product Knowledge

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Internetworked World (WEB 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 296))

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Abstract

Online reviews constitute a central element in modern word-of-mouth communication and can strongly influence customer purchase intention. However, customers may be also aware of that these tools can be manipulated or counterfeited, and suspicion upon the review authenticity may affect its influence. The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of suspicion about fake reviews on the effectiveness of reviews in influencing customers’ purchase intentions. The results of our empirical study show that customers who are suspicious of review authenticity find the reviews less convincing and reverse their likelihood to acquire the product. Furthermore, it holds true regardless of prior knowledge of the product.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fordham University, New York City, USA

    Jie Ren

  2. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA

    Pinar Ozturk

  3. City University of New York, New York City, USA

    Shoufu Luo

Authors
  1. Jie Ren
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  2. Pinar Ozturk
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  3. Shoufu Luo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jie Ren .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Ming Fan

  2. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Jukka Heikkilä

  3. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Hongxiu Li

  4. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA

    Michael J. Shaw

  5. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Han Zhang

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Ren, J., Ozturk, P., Luo, S. (2017). Examining Customer Responses to Fake Online Reviews: The Role of Suspicion and Product Knowledge. In: Fan, M., Heikkilä, J., Li, H., Shaw, M., Zhang, H. (eds) Internetworked World. WEB 2016. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 296. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69644-7_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69644-7_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69643-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69644-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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