Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
消费者成熟度与不可信社会反馈下的企业策略
Consumer sophistication and firm strategy when social feedback is untrustworthy
摘要
This paper analyzes the effect of consumer sophistication on consumer assessment of social feedback (such as user reviews), and ultimately on a firm’s strategic decisions. Consumer sophistication is defined on a continuum of cognitive sophistication, with high levels corresponding to careful deliberation of available information and low levels corresponding to naive information processing. Consumers are aware that social feedback may be untrustworthy, and they tend to trust (distrust) positive (negative) feedback about a product for which they have a higher valuation. Optimal price, profit, and sales decrease (increase) with sophistication at low (high) levels of sophistication. Optimal sales, however, falls for a larger range of sophistication than price. At low levels of sophistication, the firm chooses to serve most consumers, and an increase in sophistication lowers the valuation of the marginal consumer, forcing the firm to cut prices. Marginal revenue also falls, lowering optimal sales. The dynamic reverses when sophistication is high, because an increase in sophistication increases the dispersion of consumer valuations. In an extension, we consider how the results change when consumers know that a firm aggressively suppresses negative feedback. Our results suggest that suppressing negative feedback harms the firm by nullifying the dispersion-enhancing effect of sophistication.
中文摘要
本文分析了消费者成熟度对消费者评估社会反馈（如用户评论）的影响，以及最终对企业战略决策的影响。消费者成熟度被定义在一个认知成熟度的连续统上，较高水平对应于对可获得信息的审慎思考，较低水平对应于幼稚的信息处理。消费者意识到社会反馈可能不可信，并且他们倾向于信任（不信任）关于其估值较高产品的正面（负面）反馈。在低（高）成熟度水平下，最优价格、利润和销量随成熟度下降（上升）。然而，最优销量下降所对应的成熟度范围大于价格。在低成熟度水平下，企业选择服务大多数消费者，而成熟度的提高会降低边际消费者的估值，迫使企业降价。边际收益也会下降，从而降低最优销量。当成熟度较高时，这一动态发生逆转，因为成熟度的提高会增加消费者估值的离散度。在一项扩展分析中，我们考察了当消费者知道企业积极压制负面反馈时，结果会如何变化。我们的结果表明，压制负面反馈会通过抵消成熟度的离散度增强效应而损害企业。