When the Stars Shine Too Bright: The Influence of Multidimensional Ratings on Online Consumer Ratings

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Schneider, Christoph; Weinmann, Markus; Mohr, Peter N. C.; vom Brocke, Jan
• 署名单位: University of Navarra; IESE Business School; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Free University of Berlin; University of Liechtenstein
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2020.3654
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 3871-3898
• 关键词: Online ratings; biases; accessibility-diagnosticity framework; experiments

摘要

Scholars generally assume that consumer ratings reflect consumer satisfaction, but ratings can be influenced by the design of the rating system. We examine two rating designs-single-dimensional rating systems, which elicit overall ratings only, and multidimensional (MD) rating systems, which elicit both dimensional and overall ratings-and how they impact overall ratings. Drawing on the accessibility-diagnosticity framework, we argue that dimensional ratings in MD systems influence overall ratings based on how the dimensions have been rated. We support this explanation with seven experiments. Our results suggest that across various experimental settings, rating objects, dimensions, and numbers of dimensions, overall ratings are systematically influenced by the design of the rating system.