DO&IT Seminar Series
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/doit/events/seminars.aspx
Speaker:
Professor Paulo Goes, Eller College, University of Arizona
Date:
Friday, April 12, 2013
Time:
2-3:30 pm
Location:
Room 1333
Title:
“Popularity Effect” in User-Generated Contents: Evidence from Online
Product Reviews
Abstract:
Online product reviews are increasingly important for consumer decisions, yet we still know little
about how reviews are generated in the first place. In an effort to gather more reviews, many websites
encourage user interactions such as allowing one user to subscribe to another. Do these interactions
actually facilitate the generation of product reviews, and more important, what kind of reviews do
such interactions induce? We study these questions using data from epinions.com, one of the largest
product review websites where users can subscribe to one another. By applying both panel data and
flexible matching methods, we find that as users become more popular, they produce more reviews
and more objective reviews; however, their numeric ratings systematically change, and become more
negative and more varied. Such tradeoff has not been previously documented, and has important
implications for not just product review websites, but user-generated content sites as well.
Bio:
Paulo Goes is the Nancy and Peter Salter Distinguished Professor of Management and Technology
and the head of the Management Information Systems Department at the Eller College, University of
Arizona. He has BS in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and a
MS in Production Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He received his PhD
from the University of Rochester.
Dr. Goes’ research interests are in the areas of design and evaluation of IT-enabled business models,
business intelligence and analytics, innovation exploration, ecommerce and online auctions, database
technology and systems, and technology infrastructure. His research has appeared in several journals
Van Munching Hall ▫ Room 4306 ▫ Telephone 301-405-8654
College Park, MD ▫ University of Maryland
including Management Science, Management Information Systems Quarterly, Information Systems
Research, Journal of MIS, Operations Research, INFORMS Journal on Computing, IEEE
Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Computers, Decision Sciences Journal,
Decision Support Systems. Dr. Goes is the Editor-in-Chief of Management Information Systems
Quarterly. He has been Senior Editor of Information Systems Research and Decision Sciences
Journal. He is or has recently been Associate Editor of Management Science, Information Systems
Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Production and Operations Management
and the INFORMS Journal on Computing, among others.
Van Munching Hall ▫ Room 4306 ▫ Telephone 301-405-8654
College Park, MD ▫ University of Maryland