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Incentives Can Reduce Bias in Online Reviews

Author

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  • Ioana Marinescu
  • Nadav Klein
  • Andrew Chamberlain
  • Morgan Smart

Abstract

Online reviews are a powerful means of propagating the reputations of products, services, and even employers. However, existing research suggests that online reviews often suffer from selection bias—people with extreme opinions are more motivated to share them than people with moderate opinions, resulting in biased distributions of reviews. Providing incentives for reviewing has the potential to reduce this selection bias, because incentives can mitigate the motivational deficit of people who hold moderate opinions. Using data from one of the leading employer review companies, Glassdoor, the paper shows that voluntary reviews have a different distribution from incentivized reviews. The likely bias in the distribution of voluntary reviews can affect workers’ choice of employers, because it changes the ranking of industries by average employee satisfaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Ioana Marinescu & Nadav Klein & Andrew Chamberlain & Morgan Smart, 2018. "Incentives Can Reduce Bias in Online Reviews," Working Papers id:12575, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:12575
    Note: Institutional Papers
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    Cited by:

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    2. Alan Benson & Aaron Sojourner & Akhmed Umyarov, 2020. "Can Reputation Discipline the Gig Economy? Experimental Evidence from an Online Labor Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(5), pages 1802-1825, May.
    3. Darryl B. Rice & Regina M. Taylor & Yiding Wang & Sijing Wei & Valentina Ge, 2023. "My Company Cares About My Success…I Think: Clarifying Why and When a Firm’s Ethical Reputation Impacts Employees’ Subjective Career Success," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 186(1), pages 159-177, August.
    4. Chinonso E. Etumnu & Kenneth Foster & Nicole O. Widmar & Jayson L. Lusk & David L. Ortega, 2020. "Does the distribution of ratings affect online grocery sales? Evidence from Amazon," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(4), pages 501-521, October.
    5. Arianna Marchetti & Phanish Puranam, 2022. "Organizational cultural strength as the negative cross-entropy of mindshare: a measure based on descriptive text," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, December.
    6. Laura Neumeyer & Anna Gründler & Anna-Luisa Stöber, 2023. "Don’t Worry, Be Happy—Does the CEO’s Personality Mitigate the Negative Effect of Financial Constraints on Employee Satisfaction?," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 75(1), pages 71-98, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    eSS; online reviews; reputations; products; services; employers; selection bias; opinions; incentives; motivational deficit; moderate opinions; employer review companies; Glassdoor; voluntary reviews; incentivized reviews; workers’ choice; ranking of industries; employee satisfaction.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

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