Stimulating positive reviews by combining financial and compassionate incentives

PurposeThe objective of this study is to investigate the interaction effect between incentive type (financial and compassionate incentives) and the ethicality of merchant strategy on consumer willingness to post positive reviews, while also examining potential variations in consumer responses based on consumption experience, shopping frequency and social class.Design/methodology/approachBuilding upon construal level theory, we hypothesized the moderating influence of the ethicality of merchant strategy and examined the three-way interaction among consumers’ demographic characteristics (i.e. consumption experience, shopping frequency and social class), incentive type and the ethicality of merchant strategy. To empirically test our hypotheses, we conducted four experiments and employed ANOVA for data analysis.FindingsThe ethicality of merchant strategies moderates the association between incentive type and consumer willingness to post positive reviews, with compassionate incentives eliciting more pronounced moral judgments toward merchant strategies compared to financial incentives. The moderating effect of the ethicality of merchant strategy on the relationship between incentive type and consumer willingness to post positive reviews is particularly strong among consumers who have favorable consumption experiences, engage in frequent shopping and belong to lower social classes.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the existing literature on online reviews by examining the impact of compassionate incentives on consumer review behaviors, analyzing the ethicality of merchant strategies within the realm of online reviews and investigating variations in consumer responses to merchant strategies regarding consumption experience, shopping frequency and social class.