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Despite the tremendous role of online consumer reviews (OCRs) in facilitating consumer purchase decision making, the potential inconsistency between product ratings and review content could cause the uncertainty and confusions of prospect consumers toward a product. This research is aimed to investigate such inconsistency so as to better assist potential consumers with making purchase decisions. First, this study extracted a reviewer’s sentiments from review text via sentiment analysis. Then, it examined the correlation and inconsistency between product ratings and review sentiments via Pearson correlation coefficients (PCC) and box plots. Next, we compared such inconsistency patterns between fake and authentic reviews. Based on an analysis of 24,539 Yelp reviews, we find that although the ratings and sentiments are highly correlated, the inconsistency between the two is more salient in fake reviews than in authentic reviews. The comparison also reveals different inconsistency patterns between the two types of reviews.
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Valuation and Collaboration among Craft Brewers: Early Insights from an Analysis of Consumer Ratings
In pursuing the problem of (e)valuation in sociology, this paper is concerned with the collaborative dynamics that create value. Based on a unique dataset of 225 collaborations among craft brewers, we analyze which combinations of organizations increase consumer ratings of the beers produced. Craft brewing provides a fascinating laboratory for the study of how consumers rate the products of collaborative formations. Collaborations between craft brewers result in one-off products, beers that exist for a limited period of time, rarely to be produced again. Such collaborations occur frequently and exist over the course of several weeks or months, until the product is brewed, packaged, and distributed. At that point, collaborators return to their daily brewing operations. With the help of several research assistants, we created a dataset of craft brewer all collaborations in which at least one brewer was located in Illinois. The data are compiled from websites on which consumers rate beers: RateBeer and Untappd. Initial analyses shows that brewers that follow certain strategies are likely to collaborate with others pursuing certain strategies. For example, we find that brewers that engage in serial hook-ups are likely to do so with brewers that are outside of their core networks while monogamists are likely to seek out those who engage in serial hook-ups. These strategies have consequences for the valuation of their efforts. The products of craft brewers who collaborate with those outside of their core networks consistently receive higher consumer ratings than other forms of collaboration. We suspect that certain collaborative arrangements facilitate authenticity or novelty in the marketplace, which consumers reward with higher ratings. We plan to test hypotheses related to whether authenticity or novelty are driving changes in consumer valuations of products.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1734503
- PAR ID:
- 10293766
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Sociological Association Annual Meeting
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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