Promoting consumption information contribution to online feedback systems: An analysis from the cognition enhancement perspective

Abstract

Online feedback systems (OFSs), which acquire, store, and publish feedbacks from consumers after their actual consumptions, are an effective mechanism to overcome information asymmetry. While past research has examined the wordof- mouth effect of OFS, little analytical effort has been invested in understanding factors that influence consumers' information provision to OFS, which is crucial to the development and function of OFS. Based on the argument that the actual usage of an information system is motivated and governed by the cognitive processing of the system, this paper proposes that the mental representation of OFS will determine the consumer's information contribution to OFS. The study recognizes that the mental representation would be underdeveloped due to a poverty of social and informational cues in OFS context and suggests two cognitive enhancement mechanisms to overcome the limitation. Propositions derived from the above conceptualization are provided. Implications for future research are also discussed.