Reviews and self-selection bias with operational implications
File(s)Reviews_selection2020_R2final.pdf (505.71 KB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Chen, Ningyuan
Li, Anran
Talluri, Kalyan
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Reviews for products and services written by previous consumers have become an influential input to the purchase decision of customers. Many service businesses monitor the reviews closely for feedback as well as detecting service flaws, and they have become part of the performance review for service managers with rewards tied to improvement in the aggregate rating. Many empirical papers have documented a bias in the aggregate ratings, arising because of customers’ inherent self-selection in their choices and bounded rationality in evaluating previous reviews. Although there is a vast empirical literature analyzing reviews, theoretical models that try to isolate and explain the bias in ratings are relatively few. Assuming consumers simply substitute the average rating that they see as a proxy for quality, we give a precise characterization of the self-selection bias on ratings of an assortment of products when consumers confound ex ante innate preferences for a product or service with ex post experience and service quality and do not separate the two. We develop a parsimonious choice model for consumer purchase decisions and show that the mechanism leads to an upward bias, which is more pronounced for niche products. Based on our theoretical characterization, we study the effect on pricing and assortment decisions of the firm when potential customers purchase based on the biased ratings. Our results give insights into how quality, prices, and customer feedback are intricately tied together for service firms.
Date Issued
2021-12-01
Date Acceptance
2020-04-20
Citation
Management Science, 2021, 67 (12), pp.7472-7492
ISSN
0025-1909
Publisher
INFORMS
Start Page
7472
End Page
7492
Journal / Book Title
Management Science
Volume
67
Issue
12
Copyright Statement
© 2021, INFORMS
Subjects
Social Sciences
Science & Technology
Technology
Management
Operations Research & Management Science
Business & Economics
social learning
product reviews
consumer choice
assortment optimization and pricing
process variability
ONLINE PRODUCT REVIEWS
SOCIAL-INFLUENCE
CHOICE MODEL
OPTIMIZATION
DYNAMICS
MARKETS
RATINGS
08 Information and Computing Sciences
15 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Operations Research
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-05-24