An empirical study of information contribution to online feedback systems: A motivation perspective

Online feedback systems (OFSs) are increasingly available on online shopping websites; they allow consumers to post their ratings and consumption reviews for products. We employed motivation theory and a goal attainment perspective to model a set of motivating and inhibiting factors that could influence a consumer's intention to contribute to an OFS. Our experiment, which involved 168 university students, showed that a consumer's intention to contribute product reviews is influenced by perceived satisfaction gained in helping other consumers, perceived satisfaction gained in influencing the merchant, perceived probability of enhancing self-image, and perceived executional costs. In addition, the presence of an economic rewarding mechanism was found to promote a contribution when a consumer's perceived probability of enhancing self-image was relatively high or when perceived cognitive cost was relatively low. Implications of our findings are discussed.