Differential Effects of Provider Recommendations and Consumer Reviews in E-Commerce Transactions. An Experimental Study - Benlian

Differential Effects of Provider
Recommendations and Consumer

Reviews in ECommerce Transactions:
An Experimental Study
Alexander Benlian, Ryad Titah, and Thomas Hess
Alexander Benlian is a chair professor of information systems, especially electronic
services, at TU Darmstadt, Germany. He holds a Ph.D. in business administration and
management information systems from the University of Munich. His research interests
include IT services, evaluation and selection of enterprise application systems, and recommender systems in online commerce. His work has been published in international
journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems, Information Systems
Journal, European Journal of Information Systems, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Information& Management, Decision Support Systems, Business&
Information Systems Engineering and presented at conferences such as International
Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), European Conference on Information
Systems (ECIS), and Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS).
Ryad Titah is an assistant professor of information systems at HEC Montreal. Prior
to joining HEC Montreal, he was an associate professor of information systems at
EMLYON Business School. His main research interests are in information technology acceptance, use, and impact in both public and private organizations. His work
has been published in journals such as Information Systems Research, Information
Technology and People, International Journal of Electronic Government Research,
and MIS Quarterly. His research has won several prestigious awards, including a
Best IS Publication of the Year Award granted by ICIS 2007 and its Senior Scholars,
a Highly Commended Paper Award, granted by Emerald Literati Network Awards of
Excellence, 2007, and the ACM SIGMIS Best Dissertation Award 2011.
Thomas Hess is a professor of management information systems at the University of
Munich, Germany, where he also serves as director of the Institute for Information
Systems and New Media and as coordinator of the Center for Internet Research and
Media Integration. He holds a Ph.D. in management from the University of St.Gallen,
Switzerland. His research interests include digitalization strategies, digital products,
media management, and economics of information systems. His work has appeared in
international journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, Information Systems Journal, International Journal of Electronic
Commerce, Electronic Markets, Information& Management, and Information Society.
He has also published in the proceedings of conferences such as International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), European Conference on Information Systems
(ECIS), and Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS).
Journal of Management Information Systems / Summer 2012, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 237272.
2012 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com
ISSN 0742-1222 (print)/ISSN 1557-928X (online)
DOI: 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290107
238
Benlian, Titah, and Hess
Abstract: Despite the importance of online product recommendations (OPRs)

in ecommerce transactions, there is still little understanding about how different
recommendation sources affect consumers beliefs and behavior, and whether these
effects are additive, complementary, or rivals for different types of products. This
study investigates the differential effects of provider recommendations (PRs) and
consumer reviews (CRs) on the instrumental, affective, and trusting dimensions of
consumer beliefs and shows how these beliefs ultimately influence continued OPR
usage and product purchase intentions. This study tests a conceptual model linking
PRs and CRs to four consumer beliefs (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use,
perceived affective quality, and trust) in two different product settings (search products versus experience products). Results of an experimental study show that users
of PRs express significantly higher perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
than users of CRs, while users of CRs express higher trusting beliefs and perceived
affective quality than users of PRs, resulting in different effect mechanisms toward
OPR reuse and purchase intentions in ecommerce transactions. Further, CRs were
found to elicit higher perceived usefulness, trusting beliefs, and perceived affective
quality for experience goods, while PRs were found to unfold higher effects on all of
these variables for search goods.
Key words and phrases: consumer reviews, ecommerce, online product recommendations, perceived affective quality, perceived usefulness, provider recommendations,
technology acceptance and usage, trusting beliefs.
As opposed to offline retail channels, ecommerce consumers cannot try out products before making purchases, which significantly increases their level of uncertainty
regarding the quality of the products, and thus hinders their purchasing decisions. To
compensate for the absence of quality inspections in online markets, many ecommerce
vendors provide system-filtered recommendations (hereafter called provider recommendations [PRs]) that recommend products to consumers based on their past buying
behavior or on the preferences of other like-minded consumers. However, product recommendations may also stem from reviews written by consumers about the quality of
products based on personal experiences with the products (hereafter called consumer
reviews [CRs]). Due to their high level of acceptance among consumers, different
types of information technology (IT)enabled PRs and CRsdefined in this paper as
different types of online product recommendations (OPRs)are becoming increasingly available on Web sites to provide customers with shopping assistance, improve
their decision quality, and help buyers and sellers reduce information overload[69].
It is noteworthy that the role of OPRs is important for both consumers and suppliers,
as they represent a critical encounter tool for value cocreation[109]. It is estimated
that at least 43percent of ecommerce Web sites already offer PRs and CRs[36].
However, and although the number of different forms of OPRs on ecommerce Web
sites has exploded in recent years, there is still confusion about PRs and CRs isolated
effectiveness and about their differential effects on users beliefs and behavior. OPRs
that allow customers to evaluate products and services are thought to significantly
Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions
239
affect customers decision making and behavior[16, 42]. As such, understanding the
decision process and particularly the effect of consumers perceptions and beliefs on
OPR usage intentions and product purchasing behavior becomes critical to the success
of ecommerce platforms. The present paper aims at answering the following questions:
Are consumers more responsive to recommendations generated by the ecommerce
provider through sophisticated agent technology or are they more inclined to follow
recommendations generated by other consumers (human agents)? More specifically,
how do the two sources of recommendations (i.e., PRs and CRs) compare in evoking consumers instrumental, affective, and trusting beliefs and ultimately affecting
their subsequent OPR usage continuance and product purchase intentions? Are they
complements or substitutes in their respective effect mechanisms? Although the study
of the effects of OPRs on individual product choice or other outcome criteria is not
a new field of research[26, 51, 55, 57, 76, 87, 104], there has been little emphasis
on unraveling the differential instrumental, affective, and trusting effects of PRs and
CRs on ecommerce Web sites for different product types and assessing how these effects translate into OPR reuse and product purchase intentions. Addressing this gap is
conceptually useful because it reexamines accepted relationships[102] between single
OPR effects on different sets of beliefs and behaviors and provides a finer-grained
knowledge about the different mechanisms affecting OPR reuse initiated by different
information sources. It also proposes a more holistic and integrative understanding
of the effect range of different OPRs, which has been overlooked in previous OPR
literature. However, it may also provide ecommerce vendors with actionable guidelines
regarding the positioning and salience of OPRs for different product types at different
stages of a consumers buying process.
By investigating the effects of two different recommendation sources in an extended
technology acceptance model (TAM), including instrumental, affective, and trusting
dimensions of consumer beliefs, the present study extends previous research literature
related to the effects of OPR on consumer beliefs and behavior in three important
ways. First, it exposes and dissects the distinct effects of PRs and CRs by examining
their influence on three core belief categories: (1)instrumental beliefs (i.e., perceived
usefulness and ease of use), (2)affective beliefs (i.e., perceived affective quality), and
(3)trusting beliefs. It also unravels the complementary effect of PRs and CRs on the
core user beliefs. Second, it examines how these three belief categories mediate the
effect of PRs and CRs on OPR reuse and product purchase intentions based on OPR use.
Third, it investigates the moderating role of product type (i.e., search versus experience
goods) on PRs and CRs, which has been neglected in previous OPR studies.
Recommendation Sources: Provider Recommendations Versus

Consumer Reviews
Information sources can generally be sorted into one of four groups[87]: (1)personal source providing personalized information (e.g., My sister says that this product
is best for me); (2) personal source providing nonpersonalized information (e.g.,
Other consumers report about their experiences with this product); (3)impersonal
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Table 1. Characteristics of Provider Recommendations and Consumer Reviews

Characteristic
Author/creator of content
Originality of content
Source of recommendation
preferences
Number of data points
included in the
recommendation
Media richness of
recommendations
Level of e-commerce
providers control over
content layout
Provider recommendations
(PR)
Consumer reviews
(CR)
Provider
System-filtered content
extracted from statistical
analyses; complemented
with product item
descriptions and key
attributes
Attribute-based preferences
based on past consumer
behavior and profiles
Many (very large data sets)
Other consumers/users
Original, firsthand content
Text, pictures (multimedia)
(Predominantly) text based
High
Low
Preferences based on past

consumer experience or
opinions
Few
source providing personalized information (e.g., Based on my profile or the profile

of my affinity group, the ecommerce providers recommender system suggests this
product); and (4)impersonal source providing nonpersonalized information (e.g.,
According to consumer reports, this is the best product on the market). Although
many different recommendation types relying on these various information sources
exist on ecommerce Web sites, this study focuses on two specific recommendation
sources corresponding to information sources (2) (i.e., CRs) and (3) (i.e., PRs), which
are widely deployed on ecommerce Web sites. As shown in Table1, PRs and CRs
exhibit different characteristics that are argued in the present paper to have different
effects on individual beliefs and intentions in ecommerce transactions.
PRs are Internet-based software that carry out a set of operations on behalf of users
and provide shopping advice based on users needs, preferences, profiles, and previous shopping activities[59]. They have been proposed as support tools for consumers
at various stages of their decision-making process. Different types of PRs have been
developed and are currently used within ecommerce Web sites. Content-based and
collaborative-filtering-based recommendations are the most widely used classes of
PRs[101]. Content-based filtering recommendations are typically based on a set of
algorithms that derive recommendations for a particular user from that users profile
or from knowledge about that users past behavior[7]. A user profile is based on explicit interests and on past behavior of the user. For example, a content-based filtering
system would recommend a book to a user based on the users expressed interests
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about books in his or her profile or based on the users previous book purchase history. Alternatively, collaborative-filtering recommendations mimic word-of-mouth
recommendations and use the buying behavior of like-minded people to generate
recommendations [9]. Recommendations are commonly extracted from statistical
analysis of patterns and analogies of data drawn from evaluations of items (ratings)
given by other users or implicitly by monitoring the behavior of other users in the
system[62]. For example, a collaborative-filtering-based PR would recommend a book
to a consumer because other consumers within the same affinity group (i.e., a group
of consumers with similar preferences) purchased the book or rated it highly. PRs
usually include common product descriptions (e.g., brief description of the contents
of a book or album) and the provision of key product attributes (e.g., price, label, or
overall length of a music album).
Recommendations that are based on user-created digital content such as consumer
reviews are not based on system-filtered content but, rather, on original, first-hand
content, where a software system does not interfere with the recommendation generation process (see Table1). Thus, CRs are not generated by ITs; instead, they are
mediated by them[109]. Furthermore, CRs draw their data points from usage experiences and opinions that are directly reported by other consumers[21], whereas PRs
automatically and statistically process past buying behaviors or interest profiles in
addition to providing key product attributes and descriptions. Moreover, because CRs
cannot be presented in a standardized and consistent layout across consumers, Web
site providers have less control over the structure of presentation format of CRs than
they do over PRs. While consumer reviews are most often based on text and appear
with different text length and numbers of paragraphs, PRs are always presented in a
consistent layout as designed by the Web site provider, including text, pictures, and
sometimes multimedia files (i.e., audio or video). Finally, CRs are based on few data
points (e.g., experiences, opinions) from a low number of fellow consumers, whereas
PRs aggregate and evaluate many data points stemming from a multitude of fellow
consumers within a particular affinity group.
In general, PRs are perceived as the provision of more or less personalized product
items to consumers. They usually include the presentation of provider-generated
product descriptions and key product attributes. CRs are sometimes also used to
recommend different product items (e.g., a fellow consumer suggests better product alternatives in a review), but their main focus is to provide feedback on a given
product item (e.g., recommendations on use of presented product item). Both types
of recommendation sources are usually provided in conjunction with each other on
ecommerce platforms.
Although a few studies (e.g., [30, 57, 89]) have analyzed the effect of both recommendation types (i.e., PRs and CRs) on a set of dependent variables, they did not
specifically focus on how a comprehensive set of instrumental, affective, and trusting
beliefs elicited by PRs and CRs affected continued usage of OPRs and purchase intentions. Further, these studies did not examine how the effect mechanisms of different
recommendation sources play out in different product contexts, which is another
important focus of the present paper.
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Figure1. Research Model
Research Model and Hypotheses

This studys research model draws on cognitive psychology, affective psychology,
as well as on recommendation agent, acceptance, and trust literatures. As shown in
Figure1, our model is TAM-related and includes affective and trusting beliefs in addition to TAM instrumental beliefs to explain individual intentions. The instrumental,
affective, and trusting beliefs and their relationships with OPR types are based on the
classification of user evaluations of OPRs proposed by Xiao and Benbasat[104], which
models the influence of OPRs on trust (i.e., trusting beliefs), perceived usefulness,
perceived ease of use (i.e., instrumental beliefs), and satisfaction (i.e., affective beliefs).
These three dimensions could be linked to the concept of motivational affordance
proposed by Zhang[106], who argues that the different motivational sources of users
should be taken into account when designing information systems (IS). In effect, users
tend to use and continue to use IS to fulfill various psychological, cognitive, social,
and emotional needs. Hence, the properties of an object (or technology) that support
these motivational needs (i.e., the objects motivational affordance[106, p.45]) can
influence whether, how, and how much the object (or technology) will be used.
Perceived affective quality (i.e., affective belief) was included in the conceptual
model because it captures an individuals primitive and multifaceted affective reactions to OPRs. As opposed to perceived enjoyment or satisfaction, which are also
considered affective reactions to IT, but which are situated at a secondary or higher
level than perceived affective quality[108], we argue that perceived affective quality
allows capturing a more foundational dimension of affective consumer reactions.
Further, trusting beliefs were included in the model because past research has shown
that users had difficulty in determining whether human and software-based OPRs are
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capable of product screening and evaluation or whether such OPRs act in the interest
of the users or are manipulated by the ecommerce provider[104]. For example, in
a focus group experiment, Andersen et al.[6] found that trust in OPRs was the most
important expectation users had and that it represented a crucial aspect of a consumers
interaction with an OPR. As such, users trusting beliefs encompass important social
and interactional dimensions that ought to be considered when comparing different
kinds of user evaluations.
The Effects of PRs and CRs on Consumers Instrumental,

Affective, and Trusting Beliefs
In the context of ecommerce transactions, empirical research indicates that OPRs help
consumers manage the overwhelming amount of information and choices available in
electronic environments by guiding them to a set of more relevant products that are
likely to fit their needs[42, 87]. So, OPRs enable consumers to cope with information
overload by reducing their search costs, which also enhances their effectiveness in
making satisfying buying decisions[38, 55]. OPRs are also perceived as being more
than just technologies or tools. They represent virtual decision aids that help execute
more effective decisions. The theory of human information processing[88] argues that,
because of limitations in their cognitive capacity that include limited working memory
and limited computational capabilities, people tend to satisfice when processing
information and making decisions. This theory also posits that consumers reduce their
cognitive burden when making decisions by adopting a two-stage decision-making
process. In the first stage, the set of products (alternatives) is reduced to a manageable level, while in the second stage, the reduced set of products is evaluated in detail.
Both PRs and CRs were found to significantly affect perceived usefulness of the OPR
because of their ability to reduce the cognitive burden of sifting through multiple alternatives, which consequently helped better evaluate product items[42, 57]. However,
and although the impact of PRs and CRs on perceived usefulness has been examined
separately in previous research (e.g.,[52, 76, 97] for PRs; [103] for CRs), the distinct
effect mechanisms of both types of OPRs on perceived usefulness have not yet been
explicitly contrasted. In this study, we argue that PRs are more effective in reducing
search costs for consumers and have, as a consequence, a stronger impact on perceived
usefulness than CRs. This argument is based on cognitive fit theory (CFT)[95], which
was initially proposed to explain how matching problem representations (e.g., tables,
graphs, and matrices) to different tasks can improve problem solving. CFT suggests
that technology can be used to increase task performance if there is a good fit between
the task and the information or problem representation. Such fit is argued to result
in more efficiency and effectiveness, manifested as increased accuracy and speed in
problem solving. For example, when the information format matches the task, users
are able to search the information space more efficiently and have better information
recall[46, 48], thus lowering the cognitive costs and increasing the benefits of the
interface[50]. Therefore, in order to understand how the cognitive fit between the
information representation in PRs and CRs and the consumers task of evaluating dif-
244
ferent types of recommendations affects OPR reuse and product purchase intentions, it
is important to first understand how it directly affects users beliefs. Given the above,
we expect that an OPR type that presents limited but decision-relevant attributes will
be preferred by individuals in terms of perceived usefulness. Indeed, based on the
distinguishing features between PR and CR depicted in Table1, we believe that PR
users can immediately see and evaluate the products key attributes (e.g., short description, key features) and their values (e.g., price). In contrast, CR users must infer
both what the most important products attributes are as well as the different values
for each attribute, by scanning all information posted by other users. This process is
called intuitive regression[61] and is more cumbersome and inefficient than using
PRs. Following the same idea, Parboteeah et al.[68] found that task-relevant cues
(i.e., all cues that enhance the utilitarian value) of a Web site have a stronger impact on
perceived usefulness than mood-relevant cues (i.e., cues that create an atmosphere that
has the potential to make the shopping experience more pleasurable). In the context
of the present study, we argue that because they provide more task-relevant cues, PRs
facilitate and enable the consumers buying decision better than CRs and will therefore
be perceived by the consumer as being more useful [32]. As such,
Hypothesis 1: Consumers will perceive greater perceived usefulness of PRs than
of CRs.
Moreover, as opposed to PRs, CRs most often include only textual comments and do
not contain pictures that would make key product information more accessible[23].
Empirical studies in educational psychology (i.e., reading comprehension) found that
the cognitive effort for reading full-text sentences and passages is higher as compared
to screening pictures and small chunks of key product information[20]. Given that
CRs1 consist of wordy text comments that differ in length and writing style, consumers
have to first sift through this unstructured text to get to relevant product information
that helps them in their shopping task. Taken together, these arguments lead to the
proposition that PRs are perceived as easier to use in evaluating products and supporting the shopping task than CRs. Therefore, PRs should increase perceived ease
of use more than CRs:
Hypothesis 2: Consumers will perceive greater perceived ease of use of PRs
than of CRs.
IT artifacts (e.g., recommendation agents or email systems) have been found to
generate cognitive and affective arousal in IT users, thus showing both hedonic and
utilitarian value of IS[28]. Drawing on consumer research and retailing literature[45],
studies related to Internet shopping and ecommerce OPRs have constantly shown
that various Web site characteristics enhance users perceptions of hedonic value. Examples of such characteristics are socially rich text contents, personalized greetings,
and pictures of humans[40, 76]. More generally, the effects of hedonic beliefs have
also been identified as important determinants of online customer loyalty[56] and
have been found to play at least an equal role as instrumental beliefs[94]. Although
some studies have investigated the affective impact of OPRs in ecommerce focusing
245
on specific characteristics (e.g., anthropomorphic elements [76]), to the best of our

knowledge, no study has yet explored the differential effects of PRs and CRs on the
hedonic dimensions of OPRs.
In this study, perceived affective quality is used to capture the hedonic (i.e., affective) value of consumers interaction with OPRs. According to Zhang and Li[107],
this construct refers to an individuals perception of an objects ability to change his
or her core affect, and is a neurophysiological state that is consciously accessible as
the simplest raw (nonreflective) feeling evident in moods and emotions and underlies
simply feeling good or bad, drowsy or energized[83]. Core affect is defined as an integral blend of hedonic or valence value (pleasuredispleasure, i.e., the extent to which
one is generally feeling good or bad) and arousal or activation value (sleepyactivated,
i.e., the extent to which one is feeling engaged or energized). It is considered to be free
of any implied cognitive structures and at the heart of emotion, mood, and any other
emotionally charged events[82]. The concept of core affect is similar to what some
psychologists call primary emotions that precede higher-order emotional episodes
such as anger, fear, or enjoyment[19]. In the context of IS research, perceived affective
quality helps identify an individuals fundamental and primitive affective reactions
to an IT and has to be distinguished from secondary or higher-level reactions such as
computer anxiety, perceived enjoyment, or satisfaction that capture specific feelings
and emotional states[108].
In the context of this study, we argue that CRs are likely to produce higher perceived
affective quality than PRs. Indeed, the stories and narratives of personal experiences
including specific examples make up the bulk of what a reader will find in CRs[21].
As Deighton et al.[29] pointed out, stories have an ability to draw in and cause the
reader to empathize with the feelings of the writer, in effect creating vicarious experience. Moreover, communication research has shown that vivid, concrete examples
have strong impact on users beliefs and affections[78, 92]. In particular, some studies
in persuasion and reading research found that narrative messages are more concrete,
persuasive, and emotional than statistical information[67, 84]. Without examples, ideas
may often seem vague, impersonal, and unemotional. With examples, ideas become
specific, personal, and vivid, producing arousing feelings. While CRs convey firsthand experiences, evaluations, and opinions of single or few consumers, PRs present
more abstract and impersonal information, as such information is based on statistical
evaluations of a massive amount of preference data.
Based on these differing mood-relevant cues, it can be argued that CRs are more
likely to stimulate affective responses than PRs[21, 68]. Similarly, given that CRs
often comprise elements of stories (e.g., plot, characters, drama), CRs may have
a greater ability to generate empathy among users and thus affect consumers via
direct emotional contagion[22]. In this regard, enthusiasm expressed in CRs describing the joys of a particular product could, for example, directly generate some
similar feelings in the minds of the readers[18]. Due to the emotive text quality
of CRs, consumers can thus become emotionally immersed in the ecommerce
Web site[40]. In contrast, on most ecommerce Web sites, PRs deliver statistical
data (e.g., 51percent that viewed this item also bought it) in conjunction with
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key product attributes (e.g., price, key features) that are clearly arranged and easy
to perceive. Further, PRs do not use emotive text nor present product information
in a personal story format, which suggests that PRs evoke less perceived affective
quality for consumers than CRs. Therefore,
Hypothesis 3: Consumers will perceive greater perceived affective quality of
CRs than of PRs.
In a growing body of IS research, trust has been integrated as an important antecedent
to technology acceptance[14, 25, 60]. More specifically, empirical studies of trusting
beliefs in an ecommerce vendor and in OPRs reveal that trust plays an important
role in directly or indirectly (e.g., via perceived usefulness or perceived ease of use)
affecting consumers usage intentions[73, 76]. Trust in OPRs can be considered an
extension of interpersonal trust, because, according to the theory of social responses
to computers[77], people treat technological artifacts as social actors and build trust
and relationships with them[98]. When consumers form their initial trusting beliefs
in OPR, the perceived quality of the information provided in OPR contributes to the
cognitive evaluation of the OPRs trustworthiness. Users make inferences about the
OPRs trustworthiness by reflecting on issues such as the amount and scope of explanatory information it provides, or on how well the recommended products conform to
the preference structure users have specified. Users trusting beliefs in OPRs can be
enhanced when OPRs provide additional information in the form of explanations (e.g.,
how, why, and trade-off explanations) to reveal their underlying reasoning process
and cognitively justify their recommendations[98].
These findings can be extended to the differential effects of PRs and CRs on trusting beliefs. We argue that CRs are more likely to evoke higher trusting beliefs in
consumers than PRs. Indeed, CRs on ecommerce Web sites typically include firsthand experiences and explanations of other users that report on how and why they
have (or have not) bought the product, thereby unfolding their reasoning process.
Moreover, CRs let users learn about the reasoning process of other users from which
they can infer whether the product is suitable or not. Irrespective of the relevance or
irrelevance of the product recommendation for them, users can follow the argument
by which another user made his or her decision. This transparency of the reasoning
process is a key characteristic of CRs and may contribute to building users trust[1].
In contrast, the majority of PRs typically lack adequate explanation facilities[98].
They provide an explanation for suggesting a product only in the sense that they pre
sent concrete product alternatives based on a users or other users preferences or past
behavior. However, PRs typically lack information and concrete explanations on how
the product can be used or why a product might be suitable. This prevents PRs from
revealing the underlying reasoning process that governs their decision making and
thus prevents them from demonstrating the competence, benevolence, and integrity
of the OPR. Empirical studies in the ecommerce OPR literature has also found that
this kind of information asymmetry (i.e., that a PR has more information than the user
with respect to the underlying logic of the PRs recommendation) hampers consumer
trust toward the PR[98].
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In addition to product-related information and explanations, other sources are also

used by consumers to form their trusting beliefs in OPRs, especially by those who
have limited product knowledge and therefore cannot accurately appraise the completeness and integrity of the information provided by the OPR. As we compare PRs
and CRs on their differential effects on trusting beliefs, reflecting on the source credibility (i.e., the credibility an OPR conveys with the presented recommendation) may
have particular explanatory value. Research on source credibility and source effects
of communication has a long tradition in communication, consumer, and marketing
research. Hovland and Weiss [47], for example, showed that the communicators
credibility, attractiveness, physical appearance, familiarity, and power, all of which
are attributes of the information source, can have an impact on the credibility of the
message. Past studies also indicate that source credibility determines the effectiveness of a communication in the offline world and that audiences attributions of a
sources intentions are a key factor in the perception of trustworthiness[31]. People
tend to believe information from a highly credible source and more readily accept the
information; conversely, if the source has low credibility, the receiver is less likely to
accept that information[89].
The effect of source credibility is also believed to apply to the online environment.
Wathen and Burkell[99] found, for example, that Web information receivers consider
virtual source credibility as an important indicator of information credibility. The
recommendation source may especially be relevant when comparing PRs and CRs.
By definition, CRs include other users opinions and accounts of personal product
experiences and are likely to be judged to emanate from trustworthy sources because
their authors are fellow consumers who may share similar interests and may have used
the product in a real-world setting. Conversely, as PRs are produced by the ecommerce
vendor, they are more likely to be perceived to have a vested interest in promoting the
product to increase sales[21], which in turn may decrease consumers trusting beliefs
in the recommendation. Furthermore, PRs may be considered as manipulative in the
sense that only one-sided, and always positive, recommendations are presented. By
contrast, one or a collection of CRs may include multisided messages (e.g., positive,
neutral, negative) and thus present more complete information, which is likely to be
perceived as more credible[22]. As such,
Hypothesis 4: Consumers will have higher trusting beliefs in CRs than in PRs.
The Moderating Role of Product Type: Search Versus

Experience Goods
Given that usage behavior, task performance, and decision outcomes change as product
type changes[40, 63], this study examines the moderating effect of product type on
the relationships between OPR use and the different consumer beliefs. Product type
has been studied extensively in decision-making research, where it has frequently been
categorized into search and experience goods based on the possibility for consumers
to assess the key qualities of a product before purchasing and consuming it[17, 64,
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87]. According to Nelson[64], perceived quality of a search good involves attributes

of an objective nature, whereas perceived quality of an experience good depends
more on subjective attributes that are a matter of personal taste. Weathers et al.[100]
categorize goods according to whether it is necessary to go beyond simply reading
information to also use ones other senses (e.g., listen online to a 30second clip from
a music CD) to evaluate quality. The evaluation of search goods is primarily associated
with a fact-gathering, knowledge-seeking stance that is typically outcome oriented,
concentrated, impersonal, and objective[65]. But the evaluation of experience goods
is, rather, comparable to an engaging expedition that is process oriented, personal,
and subjective [86].
In light of these studies, search goods can be characterized as products that can
easily be evaluated and compared based on objective key attributes before making
a purchase decision. While the evaluation of search goods can be supported by experiential elements (e.g., photos or videos demonstrating the ease of use of a digital
video recorder),2 there is no strong need to use other than visual senses to evaluate
quality[63]. Further, it is rather difficult for consumers to assess experience goods
before the consumption of the product, as user preferences are formed during rather
than before product consumption[87]. Experience goods refer to products in which
it is relatively difficult and costly to obtain information on quality prior to interacting
with the product. In addition, key attributes of experience goods are rather subjective or
difficult to compare, and there is often the need to use ones senses to evaluate quality.
As a consequence, experience goods require sampling (e.g., movie trailers, software
trial versions) or purchase in order to evaluate product quality[63]. Typical examples
of search goods include furniture[65] and calculators[87]; examples of experience
goods include music[17] and wine[54]. Although all products involve a certain mix
of search and experience attributes, the categorization of search and experience goods
continues to be relevant and widely accepted[49].
The difference between search and experience products can inform our understanding
about the effectiveness of OPR types when considering different product types. When
evaluating OPRs, different instrumental, affective, and trusting beliefs are elicited
that influence consumers preferences. More specifically, there may be an interaction
between product type and OPR type, as different product types have differing information needs and thus trigger different instrumental, affective, and trusting processes[74]
that can be met more or less effectively by different OPR types.
PRs on ecommerce Web sites most often provide a lean and well-organized information design with objective key product attributes and statistical data about other
consumers evaluation and buying behavior (e.g., 80percent buy the item featured
on this page) being at the center of their recommendation. Thus, compared to CRs,
they are more effective at more rapidly providing an overview of key product attributes
without including much noise that is irrelevant to the objective product evaluation.
Given that search goods, as opposed to experience goods, require that objective attributes be evaluated in an outcome-oriented and impersonal fashion, we argue that
PRs may better match the information needs of search goods[3]. As such,
249
Hypothesis 5a: Product type moderates the effect of OPR use on users perceived
usefulness. Use of PRs will elicit greater perceived usefulness in the context of
search goods than in the context of experience goods.
As discussed above, taste, emotions, and subjective attributes play a larger role in
the evaluation of experience goods (e.g., movies or music) than in the evaluation of
search goods[49]. Because it is difficult or even impossible to evaluate experience
products before purchase, consumers are usually more inclined to trust and rely on
OPRs for such products[53]. Given that CRs include the experiences and opinions
of other consumers, we argue that they better match the information needs for experience goods in terms of providing a transparent reasoning process underlying product
acquisition. Similarly, we believe that CRs can better fit the information needs of
experience goods in terms of eliciting consumers affective reactions. As previously
discussed, CRs most often contain emotive text (e.g., in a story or recounting), leading
consumers to become emotionally immersed and engaged in the process of product
evaluation. Because experience goods, as opposed to search goods, usually require
representations that facilitate more in-depth and personal product evaluations, we argue that CRs may be more effective in stimulating affective responses for experience
goods rather than for search goods. As such,
Hypothesis 5b: Product type moderates the effect of OPR use on users trusting
beliefs. Use of CRs will elicit greater trusting beliefs in the context of experience
goods than in the context of search goods.
Hypothesis 5c: Product type moderates the effect of OPR use on users perceived
affective quality. Use of CRs will elicit greater perceived affective quality in the
context of experience goods than in the context of search goods.
Antecedents of Consumers OPR Reuse and

Purchase Intentions Based on OPR Use
While much OPR research has focused on the direct effects of OPR use on decision
outcome variables[41, 42, 91], recent studies introduced the mediating effects of the
decision process between OPR use and decision outcomes[52]. This is consistent with
the theory of planned behavior and the TAM, which both state that the effect of IT (in
its various forms and derivatives) on behavioral intention is mediated by behavioral
beliefs (i.e., perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) toward the behavior[4,
27]. We expect the same to hold for the effect of PRs and CRs on behavioral beliefs
in the context of ecommerce platforms.
Several IS acceptance studies have shown that the set of factors (i.e., the different
consumer beliefs) representing the decision-making process in this study has a direct
effect on behavioral intentions (for perceived usefulness, see [2, 27, 94]; for trusting
beliefs, see[35, 73, 97]; for perceived affective quality, see[85, 107]). We use intention
to reuse the OPR and intention to purchase a product based on the OPR as measures
250
of the impact of OPR use on the decision outcomes. Both outcome factors have been
extensively used in business-to-consumer ecommerce research [37, 56]. Further,
the theory of planned behavior suggests that behavioral beliefs such as the decision
process variables examined in this paper mediate the effect of external variables on
intentions. Thus, we expect that the impact of OPR evaluation on reuse and purchase
intentions will be mediated by this set of decision process variables. More specifically, we argue that stronger instrumental, affective, and trusting beliefs in OPRs will
increase the likelihood that consumers reuse (i.e., continue paying attention to and
leverage) OPRs in subsequent product search and evaluation activities. Likewise, we
argue that higher perceived usefulness, perceived affective quality, and trusting beliefs
in OPR will translate into increased intentions to purchase products recommended by
the OPR due to positive evaluations spilling over from instrumental, affective, and
trusting cues of OPR[11, 52, 58, 73, 93]. As such,
Hypothesis 6a: The effect of OPR use on intention to reuse OPR is mediated by
the consumers perceived usefulness of OPR.
Hypothesis 6b: The effect of OPR use on intention to purchase is mediated by the
consumers perceived usefulness of OPR.
the consumers perceived affective quality of OPR.
consumers perceived affective quality of OPR.
the consumers trusting beliefs of OPR.
consumers trusting beliefs of OPR.
For replication purposes, we also reexamine the relationships between perceived ease
of use and perceived usefulness[27, 97], trusting beliefs and perceived usefulness[35,
73, 97], and perceived affective quality and perceived usefulness[85, 107].
Research Method
Study Design and Context
The research model depicted in Figure 1 was tested via a laboratory experiment in a
22 between-subjects factorial design. Two types of online product recommendations
(PR, CR) in conjunction with two different product types (search product: calculators; and experience product: music CDs) were manipulated between subjects[39].
A total of 396 subjects were recruited via email from a German panel of online users
(called Socio-Scientific Panel) maintained by oFb, an open, research-based online
survey institution. We chose calculators and music CDs as our products for three
main reasons: (1)calculators have been used as typical search products, and music
251
CDs as typical experience products in previous research studies[17, 57, 87]; (2)both
products have comparable price ranges, are nonessential, and similarly appeal to both
female and male users; and (3)both products have a relatively high number of product
attributes and a large number of alternatives available on the market, which requires
a certain level of know-how from consumers, making the use of OPR more relevant
on ecommerce Web sites[76].
Amazon.com was chosen as the study context because it is recognized as one of
the leading ecommerce retailers and is a positive example for other online stores in
terms of the way it supports the provision of PRs and CRs[8, 33]. Similar to previous online recommendation studies[57], we developed a Java-based software agent
(called AmaFilter) for the Amazon.com Web services environment that intercepted
the Web pages sent by Amazon.com and filtered the content to randomly generate PRs
and CRs in order to make the different treatments as realistic as possible. An online
survey platform was used to present the instructions, the filtered Amazon.com Web
pages with PRs and CRs, as well as the pre- and postexperimental questionnaires that
had been pretested with a sample of 24 Amazon.com users.
Experimental Procedures, Manipulations, and Incentives

The experiment proceeded as follows. An introduction to the studys context was presented on the online survey platform. Participants were generally told that Amazon.com
was planning to overhaul some features on its Web site (including design, structure,
content, and functionality of the Web site) and that the study was designed to evaluate
customers experiences with these features and their overall usage behavior during a
shopping task (i.e., choosing a product item for a good friend). Participants were further
instructed to assume that they had happened to come across several Web pages on
Amazon.com that provide specific Web site features and that the following information
would be all the information available for further evaluations on Amazon.com. There
was no time limit for the tasks. After completing an online preexperimental questionnaire containing questions on the subjects demographic information (i.e., age, gender,
education, household income, familiarity with and usage of Amazon.com, Internet
usage, and online shopping experience), participants were redirected to a simple default Amazon.com home page provided by AmaFilter. Given that we expected some
variability in the level and context of participants online shopping experiences, we
created a simple default Amazon.com home page showing a list of New and Future
Releases of different product items (calculators and music CDs) and instructed all
the subjects to evaluate3 several recommendation pages (including Web sites with both
PR and CR) that could be accessed from the default home page[57]. This was done to
allow participants to establish a common frame of reference and start with a baseline
experience, and is consistent with Helsons argument associated with adaptation-level
theory[43]. Further, we used this baseline task to collect individual preference data of
subjects (i.e., preference profiles) for later use during the experimental tasks in order
to generate appropriate PRs[15]. This step took 816 minutes based on the log files
we analyzed after the experiment. Once they finished the baseline task, the subjects
252
Table 2. Group Assignment

Product type
Type of online product
recommendation
Provider recommendation
(PR)
Consumer review (CR)
Search good
(SG)
Experience good
(EG)
(1)
PR SG
(n=103)
(3)
CR SG
(n = 99)
(2)
PR EG
(n = 98)
(4)
CR EG
(n = 96)
were randomly assigned4 to one of the four groups pertaining to our 22 betweensubjects factorial design5 (see Table2).
In their respective experimental conditions, the subjects were then instructed6 to
browse the Web site and to locate information on the presented products to become
familiar with the Web site layout and its recommendation features. After having
inspected several product pages, the participants were instructed to make a purchase
decision for a specific product item (among the available products) that should be sent
as a gift to a friend.7 Finally, each subject was asked to complete a postexperimental
online questionnaire that recorded his or her evaluations of the OPR features (i.e.,
perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived affective quality, and trusting
beliefs) and behavioral intentions. The postexperimental questionnaire also included
questions for several manipulation checks.
The provision of PR on the experimental Web sites included a set of recommendations (usually a list of four or five similar product items) that were generated based
on a user-based collaborative-filtering method.8 Following this method, the subjects
preference data collected during the baseline experience task was used to automatically calculate similarities between the subjects profile and the preference profiles of
other users. Based on these data similarities (i.e., preference proximity), other product
items of like-minded consumers were suggested to the subjects[15]. The PRs on the
experimental Web sites were prefaced by phrases such as Customers who bought this
title also bought... and What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?
By selecting a specific product item, subjects could access the provider-generated
product descriptions and attributes on this recommended item to evaluate the product
features. As in Kumar and Benbasat[57], support for CRs on the experimental Web
sites was provided by displaying a randomly created sequence of consumer reviews
pertaining to a specific product item when the user clicked or moved the mouse over
the product item (which he or she could access via searching or browsing the product
Web sites). To control for review valence and consistent with previous studies[70],
the reviews included a random mix of positive, negative, and neutral feedback across
all subjects in the CR conditions. See Figure2 for samples of our experimental Web
sites with PRs and CRs.
253
Figure 2. Examples for Experimental Web Sites Including PRs for Calculators (top) and CRs
for Music CDs (bottom)
254
To provide an incentive for the subjects to evaluate the products, the subjects were
told that they would be entered into a raffle where they could win the music CD or
the calculator they had selected for their friends. As in other experimental studies
(e.g., [76]), providing extra incentives is very helpful in motivating participants
to view the experiment as a serious online shopping session and to increase their
involvement.
Survey Instrument and Measurement Models

The survey instrument, which had been translated into German and back-translated
into English by a professional translation services firm, used validated scales for all
the constructs, with minor wording changes (see Table3).9 Measures for perceived
affective quality were adapted from Zhang and Li[107] and measures for trusting
beliefs in OPR were adapted from Wang and Benbasat[97]. Consistent with previous empirical studies (e.g., [76]), we used trusting beliefs as an integrated construct
comprising all three subdimensions identified in the literature (i.e., competence, benevolence, and integrity). Because the study focused on the differential effects of PRs
and CRs on trusting beliefs as a whole, we did not further specify the relationships to
trusting beliefs subdimensions. Measures for perceived usefulness were adapted from
Davis[27]. Measures for intentions to reuse and intentions to purchase were adapted
from prior literature[52, 56]. All the questionnaire items were measured on Likerttype scales, anchored at 1=strongly disagree, 4=neutral, and 7=strongly agree.
As in Kamis et al.[52], two binary variables were constructed (i.e., OPR use=1 for
PRs, OPR use=0 for CRs; Product type=1 for search products, Product type=0 for
experience products) to capture the four experimental group conditions.
Data Analysis
Sample Descriptives
As shown in Table4, our sample can be considered as representative of the entire
online customer population in Germany [96]. Almost two-thirds of our subjects were
between the ages of 20 and 40, 58 percent are female, 68 percent have at least some
college/university education, and 64 percent have a household income of over 30,000
per year. In the preexperiment questionnaire, participants were also asked about their
experience and familiarity with Amazon.com, whether they would regularly visit the
Amazon.com Web site, and about their Internet usage and online shopping habits. On
average, participants spent 18.3 hours per week using the Internet and had shopped
online 10.4 times on average in the preceding 6 months.
Nonresponse bias was assessed by verifying that early and late respondents were
not significantly different[10]. We compared both samples based on their sociodemographics. ttests between the means of the early (first 50) and late (last 50) respondents
showed no significant differences (p>0.05), indicating that nonresponse bias was
unlikely to have affected the results.
PU
PU1
PU2
PU3
PU4
PEOU
PEOU1
PEOU2
PEOU3
PEOU4
I2R1
I2R2
I2R3
I2R4
I2P
I2P
I2R
Intention to reuse (Cronbachs = 0.847, CR = 0.897, AVE = 0.685)

If you needed to purchase a similar product in the future, how likely is it that . . .
. . . you would intend to continue using this type of OPR in the future?
. . . you would predict your use of this type of OPR to continue in the future?
. . . you plan to continue using this type of OPR in the future?
. . . you would continue to pay attention to this type of OPR?
Intention to purchase (N/A)
If you actually had the money, how likely is it that you would buy the selected product recommended on the
previous Web sites?
Perceived usefulness (Cronbachs = 0.804, CR = 0.872, AVE = 0.630)
Using this type of OPR enables me to find products I want more quickly.
Using this type of OPR enhances my effectiveness in finding suitable products.
If I use this type of OPR, I will increase the quality of my judgments.
Using this type of OPR allows me to accomplish more analysis than would otherwise be possible.
Perceived ease of use (Cronbachs = 0.868, CR = 0.910, AVE = 0.716)
Learning to use this type of OPR would be easy for me.
My interaction with this type of OPR is clear and understandable.
It would be easy for me to become skillful at using this type of OPR.
I find this type of OPR easy to use.
Construct and indicators

(scale reliability and AVE)
Table 3. Survey Instrument and Descriptive Statistics
Mean = 4.53, SD = 0.81

0.796
0.817
0.771
0.791
Mean = 5.01, SD = 0.90
0.837
0.844
0.850
0.853
(continues)
0.827
0.842
0.792
0.848
Mean = 5.44, SD = 0.84
N/A
Mean = 5.18, SD = 0.83
Descriptives and
standardized factor
loadings

255
TB
TB1
TB2
TB3
TB4
TB5
TB6
TB7
TB8
TB9
PAQ
Construct and indicators

(scale reliability and AVE)
Trusting beliefs (Cronbachs = 0.926, CR = 0.938, AVE = 0.627)

This type of OPR was competent in recommending <product type>.
This type of OPR performed its role of recommending <product type> very effectively.
Overall, this type of OPR supported me to find suitable <product type>.
I believe that this type of OPRs dealings with me were in my best interest.
This type of OPRs dealings with me felt like it would do its best to help me.
I believe this type of OPR was truthful to me.
I would characterize this type of OPRs dealings with me as honest.
This type of OPR appeared to be unbiased.
This type of OPR is sincere and genuine.
Perceived affective quality (Cronbachs = 0.976, CR = 0.978, AVE = 0.685)
Please rate how accurately each word describes the OPR you used.
Arousal quality (PAQA)
PAQA1 intense (0.859)
PAQA2 arousing (0.842)
PAQA3 active (0.859)
PAQA4 alive (0.866)
PAQA5 forceful (0.895)
Table 3. Continued
PAQA: = 0.915
CR = 0.937
AVE = 0.747
Mean (SD) = 4.57 (1.05)
Mean = 4.68, SD = 0.90

0.829
0.804
0.791
0.778
0.784
0.793
0.782
0.771
0.792
Mean = 4.55, SD = 1.05
Descriptives and
standardized factor
loadings
256
PAQU: = 0.922
CR = 0.942
AVE = 0.764
Mean (SD) = 4.54 (1.06)
PAQP: = 0.909
CR = 0.932
AVE = 0.733
Mean (SD) = 4.55 (1.06)
PAQS: = 0.920
CR = 0.940
AVE = 0.757
Mean (SD) = 4.53 (1.05)
Notes: CR = composite reliability; AVE = average variance extracted; SD = standard deviation; NA = not applicable. For PAQ, standardized factor loadings are
depicted in parentheses right behind the indicators of the five subdimensions.
Sleepy quality (PAQS, reversed)

PAQS1 inactive (0.880)
PAQS2 drowsy (0.853)
PAQS3 idle (0.873)
PAQS4 lazy (0.855)
PAQS5 slow (0.888)
Pleasant quality (PAQP)
PAQP1 pleasant (0.861)
PAQP2 nice (0.862)
PAQP3 pleasing (0.860)
PAQP4 pretty (0.850)
PAQP5 beautiful (0.847)
Unpleasant quality (PAQU, reversed)
PAQU1 dissatisfying (0.834)
PAQU2 displeasing (0.831)
PAQU3 repulsive (0.851)
PAQU4 unpleasant (0.925)
PAQU5 uncomfortable (0.923)

257
258
Table 4. Descriptives
Variable
Age (years)
Under 20
20-29
30-39
40-49
Over 49
Gender
Male
Female
Education
Grammar/elementary school
High school or equivalent
Some college/university
Bachelors degree
Diploma/masters degree
Doctoral degree
Other
Prefer not to say
Familiarity with Amazon.com (five-point
Likert scale)*
Visit Amazon regularly
Familiar with Amazon
Internet usage and online shopping
habits
Internet usage hours per week
Online shopping frequency in last 6
months
Household Income
Less than e10.000
e10.000e19.999
e20.000e29.999
e30.000e39.999
e40.000e49.999
e50.000e74.999
e75.000e99.999
More than e100.000
Rather not say
Frequency
(percent)
35
122
132
77
30
(8.8)
(30.8)
(33.3)
(19.4)
(7.6)
166
230
(41.9)
(58.1)
8
77
68
79
95
25
32
12
(2.0)
(19.4)
(17.2)
(19.9)
(24.0)
(6.4)
(8.1)
(3.0)
Mean
(standard
deviation)
3.33
4.03
15.3
10.4
12
49
49
65
73
86
20
8
34
(3.0)
(12.4)
(12.4)
(16.4)
(18.4)
(21.7)
(5.1)
(2.0)
(8.6)
* Anchored at 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.
(0.41)
(0.93)
(4.5)
(2.3)
259
Controls and Manipulation Checks

To confirm the random assignment of subjects to the different experimental conditions, we performed a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). There were no
significant differences in gender (F=1.573, p=0.195), age (F=0.498, p=0.684),
education (F=0.183, p=0.908), household income (F=0.577, p=0.631), familiarity
with Amazon.com (F=0.145, p=0.933), usage of Amazon.com (F=0.153, p=0.928),
Internet experience (F = 0.996, p = 0.349), online shopping behavior (F = 0.782,
p=0.505), and personal relevance of product types (F=1.345, p=0.271) among the
four experimental conditions. These results indicate that participants characteristics
were not the cause of the differences in consumers beliefs and intentions.
Several further manipulation checks were performed. All of the 396 subjects clicked
on at least 8 hyperlinks to access the online recommendations on the product Web
sites, indicating that all the subjects were exposed to the OPR treatments.10 In addition, the subjects were asked in the postexperimental questionnaire to what extent
they had perceived changes (i.e., in design, structure, content, or functionality) to the
Web sites they had visited during the experiment (sevenpoint Likert scale anchored
at 1 = low and 7 = high). All four treatment groups recognized these general
changes to the Web sites, and there were no significant differences between the four
groups (the means ranged between 5.42 and 5.62; F=1.44, p=0.233). In addition,
drawing on items11 from Kumar and Benbasat [57], we checked participants perceived support for PRs and CRs in the respective conditions of the experiment. ttest
results indicated that our experimental manipulations regarding the provision of the
different OPRs were successful.12 Finally, 100 percent of the participants assigned
to the four treatments also recalled the combinations of recommendation source and
product type correctly in the postexperimental questionnaire. Taken together, these
results indicate that the treatments were successfully executed. Given that all of our
items were measured with the same method, we tested for common method variance
using Harmans one-factor test[75]. We performed an exploratory factor analysis on
all the variables, but no single factor was observed and no single factor accounted for
a majority of the covariance in the variables. Further, a correlational marker technique
was used, in which the highest variable from the factor analysis was entered as an
additional independent variable[79]. This variable did not create a significant change
in the variance explained in the dependent variables. Both tests suggest that common
method bias is unlikely to have significantly affected our results.
Measurement Characteristics
The reflective first-order measurement models and second-order measurement model
(i.e., perceived affective quality) were validated using recommended validation procedures[24]. The items of scales in a related domain were pooled and factor analyzed
to assess their convergent and discriminant validity. While convergent validity was
determined both at the individual indicator level and at the specified construct level,
discriminant validity was assessed by analyzing the average variance extracted (AVE)
260
and interconstruct correlations [24, 34]. All the standardized factor loadings were
significant (p<0.05), thus providing evidence of convergent validity. Construct reliability was assessed by computing the composite reliability for each construct. All the
constructs had a composite reliability above the cutoff value of 0.70[12]. Further, all
of the reflective constructs met the threshold value for the AVE(>0.50). Discriminant
validity was assessed by verifying that the square roots of AVEs exceeded interconstruct correlations (see Table5). The same validation procedures were applied to the
measurement models of PR and CR subsamples in both studies. All of the constructs in
these measurement models also satisfied the reliability and validity criteria mentioned
above (presentation of these measurement models is omitted here for brevity). The
factor loadings, values for composite reliability and AVE, and descriptive statistics of
all constructs can be seen in Table3.
Test of Hypotheses
The model was tested via partial least squares (PLS) analysis using SmartPLS2.0
with the bootstrapping resampling procedure[81]. As shown in Figure3, consumers
were found to perceive significantly greater perceived usefulness and perceived ease
of use of OPRs with PRs than with CRs as indicated by the positive and significant
beta coefficients, thus supporting H1 andH2. Conversely, consumers were found to
perceive significantly greater perceived affective quality and trusting beliefs of OPRs
with CRs than with PRs as shown by the negative and significant beta coefficients,
thus supporting H3 andH4.
The moderating effects of product type were assessed by examining the beta coefficients between product type and the three belief categories. First, while the beta
coefficient between product type and perceived usefulness is positive and significant
(=0.083, p<0.05), it is not significant for the relationship between product type
and perceived ease of use (=0.012, p>0.05). Further, the beta coefficients between
product type and trusting beliefs (=0.132, p<0.001) and between product type and
perceived affective quality (=0.194, p<0.05) are both negative and significant.
Second, the beta coefficients between the interaction term (OPR useProduct type)
and the three belief categories are all positive and significant (=0.471, p<0.001;
=0.379, p<0.001; =0.491, p<0.001), indicating that product type significantly
moderates the relationships between OPR use and the three belief categories. More
specifically, PRs effects on perceived usefulness are reinforced in the context of
search products (as compared to experience products), while CRs effects on trusting
beliefs and perceived affective quality are strengthened in the context of experience
products (as compared to search products), hence supporting H5a, H5b, and H5c.
As shown in Figure4, the estimated means of perceived usefulness, perceived ease
of use, trusting beliefs, and perceived affective quality were plotted for each of the
two product types. The results show that PRs are perceived as more useful for search
goods than for experience goods. Likewise, trusting beliefs and perceived affective
quality toward PRs increase when moving from an experience good to a search good.
2
1.000
0.434
0.195
0.086
0.431
0.029
0.080
0.828
0.461
0.587
0.219
0.016
0.571
0.075
0.134
0.557
0.135
0.792
0.161
0.420
0.478
0.590
0.040
0.794
0.689
0.235
0.742
0.082
0.846
0.531
0.675
0.197
0.828
1.000
0.005
1.000
Note: Diagonal elements in boldface are the square root of average variance extracted (AVE). These values should exceed interconstruct correlations (off-diagonal
elements) for adequate discriminant validity.
Intention to reuse
Intention to purchase
Trusting beliefs
Perceived usefulness
Perceived ease of use
Perceived affective
quality
OPR use
Product type
Latent construct
Table 5. Latent Variable Correlation Matrix

261
262
Figure3. Results
* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.
Conversely, CRs elicit higher trusting beliefs and perceived affective quality in an
experience good than in a search good.
The mediating role of user evaluation variables (i.e., different consumer beliefs)
between OPR use and the two behavioral intention variables was assessed by performing a Sobels test[90]. We ran two independent PLS models to generate the
required path coefficients and standard errors[66]. The first model included paths
from OPR use to the three mediator variables. The second model included paths
from the mediator variables to the two behavioral intention variables, as well as paths
from OPR use to the behavioral intentions variables. Results show that the effects of
OPR use on intentions to reuse the OPR and intentions to purchase were significantly
mediated by trusting beliefs (SobelI2R=2.177, p<0.05; SobelI2P=1.970, p<0.05)
and perceived affective quality (SobelI2R = 2.844, p < 0.01; SobelI2P = 2.476,
p<0.05), while they were not significantly mediated by perceived usefulness (SobelI2R=1.008, p>0.05; SobelI2P=1.017, p>0.05). Given the significant direct path
from OPR use to intentions to reuse the OPR (=0.198, p<0.01) and intentions
to purchase (=0.171, p<0.001), it appears that trusting beliefs and perceived
affective quality partially mediate the effects of OPR use on intentions to reuse the
OPR and intentions to purchase. In sum, H7a, H7b, H8a, and H8b are supported,
while H6a andH6b are rejected.
As shown in Figure 5, the effect of the three individual beliefs categories on behavioral intentions was assessed for each OPR type subsample. In the CR subsample,
trusting beliefs and perceived affective quality were found to be the most prevalent
consumer beliefs affecting intentions to reuse and intentions to purchase as indicated
by their significant beta coefficients and effect sizes. By contrast, perceived useful-
263
Figure4. Means of Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Trusting Beliefs, and
Perceived Affective Quality
ness was found to be the dominant belief influencing intentions to reuse in the PR
subsample, while intentions to purchase were equally affected by perceived usefulness
and perceived affective quality.
Discussion
The main objective of this paper was to unravel the distinct effects of PRs and CRs
in ecommerce transactions and to compare the relative impact of two sources of
ecommerce OPRs in two different product contexts (i.e., search products versus
experience products). Theoretically, our findings provide a holistic understanding
of the mechanisms by which different OPR types affect instrumental, affective, and
trusting beliefs. Practically, the findings are potentially useful to managers who wish
to design sales-efficient ecommerce Web sites that enhance online consumers overall
shopping experience.
Specifically, this study provides a finer-grained understanding of the impact of PR
and CR on consumers perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, trusting beliefs,
and perceived affective quality of OPR and how these different types of consumer
264
Figure 5. Subsample Analyses for PR (top) and CR (bottom)

Notes: N = 201 (top panel); n = 195 (bottom panel). Effect size f2 is shown in parentheses.
*p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001; ns = nonsignificant.
beliefs translate into intentions to reuse the OPR and to purchase based on the OPR.
Other studies have either examined the effects of different OPR types on single evaluation criteria (e.g., sales [71, 72] or social presence [44, 76]) or the effects of one OPR
type on many evaluation criteria (e.g., different components of trusting beliefs [98]).
Although such findings are important, the ecommerce OPR literature had not yet
theorized about how PRs and CRs differ on their impact on instrumental, affective,
and trusting consumer beliefs. By drawing upon various research disciplines, this study
provides new theoretical perspectives that expand our understanding regarding the effect of PRs and CRs on continued usage of online recommendations and on individual
shopping behavior. Notably, our results demonstrate that not all OPR types are equally
conducive in influencing trusting beliefs, perceived affective quality, and perceived
usefulness, suggesting the existence of superior effect mechanisms for different OPR
types. More specifically, CRs were found to be superior to PRs in influencing consumers trusting and affective beliefs, while PRs were found to have stronger effects
on instrumental consumer beliefs. Our results also show that perceived usefulness is
265
the stronger driver of intentions to reuse OPRs in a PR setting, while trusting beliefs
and perceived affective quality were found to be stronger than perceived usefulness
in affecting both intentions to reuse and to purchase in a CR context. In sum, PRs
and CRs focus on two distinct relationship-building orientations. While PRs appear
to be more effective for transactional relationships, CRs appear to be more efficient
for enhancing consumer experiences that build on trust and affections.
In addition, our study shows that product type exhibits a moderating effect on the
relationship between OPR use and consumer beliefs. Specifically, our results show that
trusting beliefs and perceived affective quality are enhanced in the context of experience products as compared to search products when users base their evaluations on
CRs, and that perceived usefulness is more strongly affected in the context of search
products as compared to experience products when users base their evaluations on
PRs. Further, our study found that the effects of OPR use on intentions to reuse and
to purchase are mediated by trusting beliefs and perceived affective quality, but not
by perceived usefulness.
Another important contribution of this study is related to its investigation of two
key antecedents of users beliefs at the same time: OPR type and product type. While
past studies focused on the impact of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
on user behavior, less attention has been devoted to the study of perceived usefulness
and perceived ease of uses antecedents[13]. Also, and although much research has
shown that affective and trusting beliefs are important antecedents of user behavior,
little research has investigated the characteristics of different OPR types (including
different interface designs and content structures) affecting such beliefs. In this regard,
our studys results add to the existing ecommerce OPR literature by providing a better
understanding of how and why OPR use affects decision making.13
From a practical perspective, our results provide guidance to online retailers who wish
to design effective OPRs that provide users with a comprehensive shopping experience
taking into account instrumental effects together with trust and emotions. Ecommerce
Web site providers may benefit from this study by proposing or emphasizing different
OPRs along the purchasing funnel[80], which describes the consumerproduct interaction process as broken into four successive steps: awareness, consideration, purchase,
and loyalty. Depending on their strategic orientation concerning product categories
(e.g., experience versus information goods), channels (e.g., Internet versus mobile),
and customer segments (e.g., younger versus older consumers), online retailers should
assess which types of consumer reactions or combinations of these are most beneficial
to increase sales, and also increase customer stickiness and satisfaction. Accordingly,
retailers could adjust the provision of PRs and CRs on their ecommerce platform.
Alternative site designs could be tested using the present studys insights to better
determine at which stage of the purchasing process PRs and CRs should be more or
less emphasized on a Web site. Our results thus indicate that providing appropriate
OPRs on a Web site can allow customers to enjoy their shopping experience more
and perceive the system as improving their decision-making process and shopping
efficiency. Consequently, customers might increase their online purchases based on the
recommendations of OPRs and ultimately the reuse of OPRs for future purchases.
266
Some limitations to the present study also need to be acknowledged. First, although
the studys results strongly support the papers main argument that instrumental, affective, and trusting beliefs need to be considered together in order to reach a deeper
understanding of individual intentions in the context of ecommerce transactions, we
believe that longitudinal research will help better understand the temporal and causal
relationships between the studys constructs. Second, given the fact that our research
model was tested in the context of one ecommerce Web site (i.e., Amazon.com) and
involved just two artifacts for search and experience products (i.e., calculators and
music CDs), we believe that additional tests that include a variety of both search (e.g.,
furniture, footwear) and experience (e.g., fragrances, wine) products on less wellknown ecommerce Web sites would be useful to assess the generalizabilty of the
studys results. Moreover, using additional conceptualizations of product type (e.g.,
high- versus low-involvement products, physical versus digital products) and other,
more personalized instantiations of recommendation sources (e.g., content-filteringbased provider recommendations and consumer reviews including multimedia) would
yield complementary insights to those of this study. In addition, and although we
controlled for several important variables (i.e., personal relevance of product types,
familiarity with and usage of Amazon.com and online shopping behavior), we believe
that controlling for initial informational needs of users as regards product attributes
or product usage experiences would be useful to validate the effect of the different
individual perceptions (i.e., perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived affective quality, and trusting beliefs) toward PR and CR found in this paper.14 Further,
and while the studys constructs exhibit good psychometric properties, we believe
that additional work on the scales items would be useful to more systematically
ensure that their wording is not biased toward either type of OPR. Finally, and since
combining narrative and statistical forms of communication is believed to enhance the
persuasiveness of a message[5], an interesting avenue for future research would be to
examine what right mix of OPR types would achieve the optimal results at different
stages of a consumers buying process.
Conclusion
Online product recommendations have become critical tools for customer online
experience enhancement. As hypothesized, the present study found that PR and CR
exhibit different effect pathways through which they affect OPR reuse and purchase
intentions in the context of search and experience products. Theoretically, the study
unravels the differential effects of PR and CR on three distinct core and critical individual beliefs (instrumental, affective, and trusting) influencing individual online
transactions. Practically, the study provides interesting insights about how PR and CR
can be used to foster either transactional or loyalty-building relationships. It is hoped
that the present studys results will be useful to future research aiming at improving
or developing OPRs capable of increasing the efficiency of ecommerce transactions
and value cocreation encounters.
267
Notes
1. Note that CRs usually contain structured and easily distinguishable attributes such as star
ratings. Nevertheless, we argue that consumers will still need to go through CRs unstructured
text to reach the information that would enable them to confirm or disconfirm the ratings appropriateness. Such process is then believed to reduce the effect of CRs on perceived ease of
use as compared to perceived usefulness. We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing up
this point.
2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing up this point.
3. The evaluation of recommendation pages in the baseline task included one item of
perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, trusting beliefs, and perceived affective quality
respectively. No significant differences were found between subjects that were later assigned
to the four study treatments.
4. Random assignment was made using randomized integer numbers generated via Random
.orgs Application Programming Interface.
5. Three main reasons explain why we did not combine PR and CR in one of our treatments.
First, the focus of our study was to unravel the distinct effects of PR and CR on different core
and critical consumer beliefs. Second, our objective was to investigate how different product
types modified the effect of PR and CR on those beliefs. Finally, our aim was to extend the study
by Kumar and Benbasat[57] by conceptualizing and testing the effect of PR and CR on a larger
set of instrumental, affective, and trusting beliefs in the context of two product types.
6. All instructions were depicted on the experimental Web sites.
7. Given that similar tasks were successfully used in previous experimental settings[57, 98]
and that evaluation of PR and CR before product purchases to reduce behavioral uncertainty is
a common user behavior in digital environments[104, 109], we believe that the realism of the
task used in our experiment is acceptable.
8. User-based collaborative-filtering techniques collect a consumers preferences and
compare them to (affinity) groups of people with similar preferences to suggest new product
items (e.g.,[105]). The recommendations given are personalized in the sense that user-based
collaborative-filtering methods take into account the consumers and like-minded users preferences to suggest other product items.
9. The German version of the survey is available from the authors upon request.
10. A program routine was developed to record the number of clicks of the hyperlinks and
to check whether participants were exposed to specific product items.
11. The reliability estimates for perceived support for PR was = 0.92 and for CR was
=0.96.
12. For conditions with actual support for PR (n = 201): Mean difference between perceived support for PR versus CR, t=101.483, p<0.000: for conditions with actual support
for CR (n=195): Mean difference between perceived support for PR versus CR, t=78.173,
p<0.000.
13. See, for example, propositions on recommendation output characteristics and productrelated factors suggested by Xiao and Benbasat[104].
14. We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing up this point.
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Differential Effects of Provider Recommendations and Consumer Reviews in E-Commerce Transactions. An Experimental Study - Benlian

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Differential Effects of Provider Recommendations and Consumer Reviews in E-Commerce Transactions. An Experimental Study - Benlian

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Differential Effects of Provider

Recommendations and Consumer

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Abstract: Despite the importance of online product recommendations (OPRs)

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Recommendation Sources: Provider Recommendations Versus

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Table 1. Characteristics of Provider Recommendations and Consumer Reviews

Text, pictures (multimedia)

(Predominantly) text based

Preferences based on past

source providing personalized information (e.g., Based on my profile or the profile

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Figure1. Research Model

Research Model and Hypotheses

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

The Effects of PRs and CRs on Consumers Instrumental,

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

on specific characteristics (e.g., anthropomorphic elements [76]), to the best of our

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

In addition to product-related information and explanations, other sources are also

The Moderating Role of Product Type: Search Versus

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

87]. According to Nelson[64], perceived quality of a search good involves attributes

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Antecedents of Consumers OPR Reuse and

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Experimental Procedures, Manipulations, and Incentives

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Table 2. Group Assignment

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Survey Instrument and Measurement Models

Intention to reuse (Cronbachs = 0.847, CR = 0.897, AVE = 0.685)

Construct and indicators

Table 3. Survey Instrument and Descriptive Statistics

Mean = 4.53, SD = 0.81

Mean = 5.18, SD = 0.83

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Construct and indicators

Trusting beliefs (Cronbachs = 0.926, CR = 0.938, AVE = 0.627)

Mean = 4.68, SD = 0.90

Sleepy quality (PAQS, reversed)

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

* Anchored at 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Controls and Manipulation Checks

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Table 5. Latent Variable Correlation Matrix

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Figure 5. Subsample Analyses for PR (top) and CR (bottom)

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Benlian, Titah, and Hess

Recommendations versus Reviews in ECommerce Transactions

Benlian, Titah, and Hess