评论效价、新产品类型与调节定向对在线评论有用性的影响

对于新产品推出的成功与否, 较早采用者的评论和建议的影响相当巨大, 本研究通过两个实验研究评论效价(正面评论/负面评论)、新产品类型(渐进性新产品/革新性新产品)和调节定向(促进定向/防御定向)对新产品在线评论有用性的影响。实验1设计为2(新产品类型：渐进性新产品/革新性新产品)×2(评论效价：正面/负面)的组间操控设计, 结果表明：相对于渐进性新产品, 负面评论对革新性新产品的有用性更高, 正面评论对渐进性新产品和革新性新产品的有用性差异不显著。实验2设计为2(新产品类型：渐进性新产品/革新性新产品)×2(评论效价：正面/负面)×2(调节定向：促进/防御)的组间操控设计, 结果表明：促进定向的个体认为正负面评论有用性差异不大, 而防御定向的个体认为负面评论有用性显著高于正面评论; 对于促进定向的个体来说, 新产品类型对于评论效价对评论有用性的影响有调节作用, 而对于防御定向的个体来说, 新产品类型的这种调节作用则不存在。

The Effect of Review Valence,New Product Types and Regulatory Focus on New Product Online Review Usefulness

If new products want to survive in the market, comments and recommendations from earlier adopters are significantly important. Past researchers have shown that people tend to weigh negative information more than positive information during the evaluation process. Product type moderates the effect of review valence on online review usefulness, and readers exhibit a negative bias for utilitarian product reviews only. In addition, regulatory focus theory distinguishes between a promotion focus and a prevention focus. Past researchers have shown that promotion-focused individuals view positive information more important while prevention-focused individuals view negative information more important, and promotion-focused individuals tend to buy more high-technology goods and newly launched purchased items. Thus, what kind of influence will regulatory focus put on review usefulness of incremental innovative products and radical innovative products? We investigate the research questions through two laboratory experiments. Experiment 1 is a 2 (new product type: radical vs. incremental) × 2 (review valence: positive vs. negative) between-subject design, which is to explore the influence of review valence and new product innovativeness on the effect of review usefulness. Experiment 2 is a 2 (new product type: radical vs. incremental) × 2 (review valence: positive vs. negative) × 2 (Regulatory focus: promotion vs. prevention) between-subject design, which is to explore the influence of review valence, new product innovativeness and regulatory focus on the effect of review usefulness. Data were collected from 360 graduate students (160 in Experiment 1 and 200 in Experiment 2). Results of the studies indicate that: The impact of new product type and review valence on review usefulness exists an interaction, and compared with the incremental new products, the usefulness of negative reviews on radical new products are higher, while there is no significant difference between the usefulness of positive reviews on different types of new products. Regulatory focus mediates the effect of review valence on review usefulness, and promotion-focused individuals process the usefulness of positive and negative reviews similar, while prevention-focused individuals consider negative reviews more useful than positive ones. The impact of new product type and review valence on review usefulness show different patterns between individuals with different types of regulatory focus. For promotion-focused individuals, new product type mediates the effect of review valence on review usefulness. However, for prevention-focused individuals, no such moderating effect exists. This paper brings new insight to the field of product review usefulness by incorporating a perspective of incremental new products and radical new products. Regulatory focus theory is introduced to this research, which also extend the externality of this theory. Also, some theoretical and practical contributions are made to the new product marketing strategy.