PhD student in IS area Manisha Rathi wins runner-up prize at International Conference on Digital Organisations
11 JANUARY, 2023: Manisha Rathi, a PhD student in Information Systems at IIMB, was declared the runner-up in the ‘Best Doctoral Dissertation’ category at the International Conference on Digital Organizations. The conference was organized by the Centre for Digital Transformation, IIM Ahmedabad.
The paper spoke about how online reviews are effective information-sharing tools within the user communities. Literature suggests that the user perception of existing reviews is influenced by social factors and that the reviews, due to their word-of-mouth characteristics, impact various business aspects. But such studies implicitly consider the external environmental conditions as stable. However, the behavioural impacts in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments could be different. The study examines the impact of COVID-induced VUCA environment on people’s online reviewing behaviours in terms of pro-sumption (production + consumption) of reviews.
Drawing upon the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, it examines the change in review production through their content, length, and sentiments and review consumption through their discerned usefulness, funniness, and coolness during the COVID wave. The difference-in-differences (DID) methodology to the online reviews of restaurants in two US cities was applied. On the production side, an increment in the usage of COVID-related terms in review content, a reduction in review length, and an increment in review positivity was found. On the consumption side, an increment in usefulness whereas a reduction in funniness and coolness was noticed. These findings suggest the existence of sincerity and positivity in reviewing behaviour even in the presence of external uncertainty.
PhD student in IS area Manisha Rathi wins runner-up prize at International Conference on Digital Organisations
11 JANUARY, 2023: Manisha Rathi, a PhD student in Information Systems at IIMB, was declared the runner-up in the ‘Best Doctoral Dissertation’ category at the International Conference on Digital Organizations. The conference was organized by the Centre for Digital Transformation, IIM Ahmedabad.
The paper spoke about how online reviews are effective information-sharing tools within the user communities. Literature suggests that the user perception of existing reviews is influenced by social factors and that the reviews, due to their word-of-mouth characteristics, impact various business aspects. But such studies implicitly consider the external environmental conditions as stable. However, the behavioural impacts in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments could be different. The study examines the impact of COVID-induced VUCA environment on people’s online reviewing behaviours in terms of pro-sumption (production + consumption) of reviews.
Drawing upon the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, it examines the change in review production through their content, length, and sentiments and review consumption through their discerned usefulness, funniness, and coolness during the COVID wave. The difference-in-differences (DID) methodology to the online reviews of restaurants in two US cities was applied. On the production side, an increment in the usage of COVID-related terms in review content, a reduction in review length, and an increment in review positivity was found. On the consumption side, an increment in usefulness whereas a reduction in funniness and coolness was noticed. These findings suggest the existence of sincerity and positivity in reviewing behaviour even in the presence of external uncertainty.