Paper Info
Title
Engaging voluntary contributions in online review platforms: The effects of a hierarchical badges system
Abstract
Employing a hierarchical badges system to sustain users' participation and content contribution has been a common practice in online review platforms. However, it is still unclear whether this incentive mechanism is effective in inducing users to provide more substantial and useful reviews. In this paper, we draw on the goalsetting theory and status hierarchies theory to study how the hierarchical badges system impacts users' behavior such as their effort levels and expressed opinions, using the data of 234,220 reviews from a large online review platform. Our results show that users significantly increase their efforts as their status are promoted, manifesting as review frequency, length, and readability. In terms of expressed opinions, users with higher badges are less likely to post extremely negative ratings and use negative emotional words. Our results have important implications for business modes that rely on user-generated content, such as online review platforms, social question and answer sites, social media, and crowdsourcing systems.
Year
DOI
Venue
2022
10.1016/j.chb.2021.107042
COMPUTERS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Hierarchical badges system, Online review, Incentive mechanism, User effort, Opinion
Journal
127
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0747-5632
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Dandan Ma100.34
Shuqing Li200.34
Jia Tina Du301.35
Zhan Bu400.34
Jie Cao500.34
Jianjun Sun6193.07