Thesis
A Critical Assessment of Traditional and Online Reviews
Southern Cross University
Masters by Thesis, Southern Cross University
2024
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25918/thesis.400
Metrics
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Abstract
With the rapid proliferation of Web 2.0 technologies together with the availability, accessibility and ubiquity of mobile technologies, online reviews have become an essential catalyst in consumer decision-making, shaping consumer choices. This research sheds light on the evolving landscape of consumer information consumption. This study explores the characteristics of online reviewers, the attributes of online reviews, and the scale and measurements used in online review systems. Specifically, the thesis research (i) develops a weighted-average index that furnishes valuable insights for consumers to make more informed purchase decisions, (ii) investigates the impact of incentivised online local guides (LGs) on review quality, and (iii) discerns the significant differences between traditional non-online reviews and online reviews. Multiple methods are used to achieve this thesis's research objectives.
Through web scraping techniques, an extensive dataset comprising 22,581 online reviews is collected and analysed across three diverse platforms: Google, Expedia.com, and Trip Advisor. The collected data underwent a thorough process, utilising various statistical tools to clean, transform, analyse, and visualise, provide a data-based inference in answering research questions, ensuring a robust and comprehensive examination. This rich dataset enables a nuanced exploration of critical issues surrounding the utilisation of online reviews in consumer purchase decision-making. The research also delves into the impact of incentivised online LGs on online review quality by investigating how external motivations may influence the reliability and authenticity of online reviews.
The thesis research contributes to our understanding of, and academic discourse on, contemporary themes in the information systems discipline, notably information quality, decision-making efficacy, online reviews and review behaviour patterns. A notable contribution is the development of a weighted-average online review usefulness index (ORUI), providing consumers with valuable insights to make more informed purchase decisions. This ORUI offers a quantitative measure of online review quality that amalgamates various aspects of online reviews. By identifying the issues associated with the quality of online reviews, we gain a deeper understanding of online reviews, which provides valuable perspectives for consumers and businesses alike. The thesis research offers businesses and platforms actionable recommendations to enhance their online review systems' quality, reliability, and trustworthiness. It serves as a valuable resource for both academia and industry, providing empirically grounded insights applicable in real-world settings.
The findings of this research have been acknowledged and accepted for presentation at international conferences.
Details
- Title
- A Critical Assessment of Traditional and Online Reviews
- Creators
- Nelini Jayathilake
- Contributors
- Darshana Sedera (Supervisor) - Southern Cross UniversityGolam Sorwar (Supervisor) - Southern Cross University
- Awarding Institution
- Southern Cross University; Masters by Thesis
- Theses
- Masters by Thesis, Southern Cross University
- Publisher
- Southern Cross University
- Number of pages
- xiv, 182
- Identifiers
- 991013217213702368
- Copyright
- © Nelini C Jayathilake 2024
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Business, Law and Arts
- Resource Type
- Thesis