Executive Summary
Marketing managers and consumers who use the Web as a source of information often use input from strangers to make decisions or gain knowledge. The authors propose that in such contexts, the information provider’s current and past behaviors, relative to those of other information providers, influence who the information seeker thinks provides a valuable response and how valuable he or she judges the provider’s information to be. The authors track information queries, information provider responses, and objective valuation of these responses by information seekers in a Web forum, in which responses to information queries come from multiple information providers with whom the information seeker has not met face-to-face and has had no prior interaction.
Among other results, the authors show that a provider’s response speed, the extent to which the provider’s previous responses within the focal domain have been positively evaluated by others, and the breadth of the provider’s previous responses across different domains of knowledge affect objective judgments of information value. Importantly, these effects are moderated by the information seeker’s goal orientation—in particular, whether he or she wants to make a decision or learn something new. The information provider’s experience in responding to questions in different domains of knowledge increases judgments of information value for information seekers with a decision orientation, whereas the information provider’s reputation for providing valuable contributions within the focal domain increases judgments of information value for information seekers with a learning orientation.
The results suggest that marketers should first identify whether the information seeker’s goal orientation is learning or decision making before he or she deploys information providers. For example, large amounts of information are more important for people with a learning orientation than for those with a decision-making orientation. Similarly, although domain breadth is relevant for seekers with a decision-making orientation, it may have less influence among seekers with a learning orientation.
Importantly, these results suggest that information provider behavior should be viewed as an important component of an interactive communication strategy that involves decisions not only about information content and media but also about how to respond to individual customers.
Biography
Allen M. Weiss is Professor of Marketing in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He focuses his research on high-technology and Internet marketing. He has published in Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Management Science, Organization Science, and Journal of Financial Economics. He consults primarily with high-technology and Internet firms.
Nicholas H. Lurie is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Georgia Institute of Technology and is cofounder of BizLab, which brings together researchers from multiple business disciplines who study human behavior. He conducts research on how the information environment affects consumer and managerial decision making. His research has been published in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Service Research, and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. His article “Decision Making in Information Rich Environments: The Role of Information Structure” won the Ferber Award for the best article in Journal of Consumer Research based on a doctoral dissertation. He received his PhD from the Haas School at the University of California at Berkeley, his MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, and his AB from Vassar College.
Deborah J. MacInnis is the Charles L. and Ramona I. Hilliard Professor of Business Administration in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. She has served as an associate editor for Journal of Consumer Research and is currently an associate editor at Journal of Consumer Psychology. She has served on the editorial review boards of and has published articles in Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, and Journal of Market Focused Management, among others, on topics related to consumer behavior and branding. She is past president of the Association for Consumer Research and past vice president of Conferences and Research for the Academic Council of the American Marketing Association. She is the recipient of several teaching awards and several research awards, including the Alpha Kappa Psi and Maynard awards.
Journal of Marketing Research, Volume 45, Number 4, August 2008
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