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International Conference on Serviceology

ICServ 2020: Serviceology for Services pp 20–33Cite as

Exploring the Impact of Managerial Responses to Online Reviews in the Sharing Economy: A Case of Accommodation Sharing Service

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1189))

Abstract

Strategies to respond to online reviews have been discussed in many previous studies. However, researchers rarely pay attention to the managerial response in the sharing economy context. With sampling from the accommodation sharing service, two studies are conducted to investigate the impact of responses to online reviews. The results show that B&B’s responses to online reviews positively affect its popularity ranking, volumes of online reviews and helpfulness votes. When addressing consumer complaints, response quality, which refers to response length and empathy, is significantly related to the helpfulness votes of a review. This research also explores the interaction between response and review qualities. Results indicate that response length synergistically contributes to the consumer’s perceived helpfulness with review length and consumer-provided photos whereas response empathy has no interactive effects with review length but works well with review photos. Several theoretical and practical implications are generated on the basis of the research findings.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Wenlong Liu & Xiucheng Fan

  2. Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 211106, China

    Wenlong Liu

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  1. Wenlong Liu
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  2. Xiucheng Fan
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Correspondence to Wenlong Liu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of AIST, Tokyo, Japan

    Takeshi Takenaka

  2. Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Spring Han

  3. Graduate School of Business Administration, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan

    Chieko Minami

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Liu, W., Fan, X. (2020). Exploring the Impact of Managerial Responses to Online Reviews in the Sharing Economy: A Case of Accommodation Sharing Service. In: Takenaka, T., Han, S., Minami, C. (eds) Serviceology for Services. ICServ 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1189. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3118-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3118-7_2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-3117-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-3118-7

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