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Customer perception of the deceptiveness of online product reviews: A speech act theory perspective

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  • Ansari, Sana
  • Gupta, Sumeet

Abstract

With the presence of fake reviews on e-commerce platforms, the reliability of reviews becomes questionable. The extant literature demonstrates the impact of fake reviews on product sales and proposes several algorithms to prevent fake reviews from being displayed on the platform. However, what has largely remained uninvestigated is how customers perceive reviews present on the e-commerce platform. Based on the speech act theory, we develop a theoretical framework that explains how the linguistic style (both at the word and the structural level) acts as a cue for assessing a reviewer’s (in)sincere intentions. We evaluate the framework on a corpus of 120 online product reviews – each examined by at least 50 customers – using the fractional logit model. Results suggest that the communication style of a speaker reflects his/her intention. Reviews with less contextual embedding, argument structuring, and flattering through non-verbal cues trigger customers towards perceiving a review as deceptive.

Suggested Citation

  • Ansari, Sana & Gupta, Sumeet, 2021. "Customer perception of the deceptiveness of online product reviews: A speech act theory perspective," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ininma:v:57:y:2021:i:c:s0268401220314857
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102286
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Wen Zhang & Qiang Wang & Jian Li & Zhenzhong Ma & Gokul Bhandari & Rui Peng, 2023. "What makes deceptive online reviews? A linguistic analysis perspective," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Oo, Pyayt P. & Jiang, Lin & Sahaym, Arvin & Parhankangas, Annaleena & Chan, Richard, 2023. "Actions in words: How entrepreneurs use diversified and changing speech acts to achieve funding success," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(2).
    3. Gong Chen & Yi Li & Ya Sun, 2023. "How YouTubers Make Popular Marketing Videos? Speech Acts, Move Structure, and Audience Response in YouTube Influencer Marketing Videos," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, February.
    4. Tim Kollmer & Andreas Eckhardt & Victoria Reibenspiess, 2022. "Explaining consumer suspicion: insights of a vignette study on online product reviews," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 32(3), pages 1221-1238, September.
    5. Wang, Fei & Xu, Haifeng & Hou, Ronglin & Zhu, Zhen, 2023. "Designing marketing content for social commerce to drive consumer purchase behaviors: A perspective from speech act theory," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

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