Relevant and rich interactivity under uncertainty: Guest reviews, host responses, and guest purchase intention on Airbnb

• Published in: Telematics and informatics 2021-12, Vol.65, p.101708, Article 101708
• Main Authors: Kim, Dongyeon, Park, Sung-Pil, Yi, Sangyoon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Commerce; Consumer behavior; Data mining; Electronic commerce; Fraud; Information systems; Interactive systems; Interactivity; Online Commerce; Online reviews; Purchase intention; Text analysis; Uncertainty
• ISSN: 0736-5853; 1879-324X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tele.2021.101708

•Both quantity and quality aspects of interactivity influence purchase intention.•Guest purchase intention increases with relevance and richness of host responses.•Volume of host responses affects purchase intention only when it is large enough.•Sufficient volume of host responses complements their quality effects.•When volume of responses is small, their relative richness becomes more important.•Both the nonlinearity and complementarity effects have not been yet examined well. Online commerce, increasingly running on digital platforms, is subject to higher uncertainty and risk in transactions (e.g., fraud, opportunism) than offline commerce. To cope with this challenge, online commerce companies often use information systems to promote interactive communication between sellers and buyers. This study examines how such seller-buyer interactivity affects buyers’ purchase intention in an online commerce context of accommodation sharing. In particular, we use text mining techniques to analyze guest reviews and host responses on Airbnb. Our analysis suggests that not only the quantity but also the quality of the response messages matter: potential guests’ purchase intention increases with the relevance and richness of the host’s responses as well as their volume. Further, we find a notable nonlinearity in the quantity effect that the volume of host responses significantly affects guest purchase intention only when it is large enough. Making sufficient responses, the hosts could enjoy complementarity between the quantity and quality effects of their responses; otherwise, the relative richness of their responses becomes more important.