When cuisine becomes less haute: The impact of expert ratings on consumers' legitimacy judgments

Amélie Clauzel (), Hélène Delacour () and Sébastien Liarte ()
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Amélie Clauzel: ISC Paris - Institut Supérieur du Commerce de Paris, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, PRISM Sorbonne - Pôle de recherche interdisciplinaire en sciences du management - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Hélène Delacour: CEREFIGE - Centre Européen de Recherche en Economie Financière et Gestion des Entreprises - UL - Université de Lorraine
Sébastien Liarte: BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: What happens when expert ratings downgrade an organization? How does this downgrading influence the consumers legitimacy's judgments? To answer this issue, we study the ‘Relais Bernard Loiseau' that was downgraded from a three-star to a two-star restaurant by the widely recognized expert, the Michelin Guide. Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the 665 online reviews on the TripAdvisor website from 2004 to June 2017, our findings reveal a null effect on the rating (quantitative component of the evaluation) and a non-linear influence on their online comments (qualitative component). Our findings thus underline the great role of negative emotions in their judgment process, as the emergence of three positions towards the Michelin Guide that evolve: disapproval, approval and impartial. Those findings contribute to nourish the nascent bridge between neoinstitutional theory and consumer-behavior field.

Keywords: Legitimacy Neoinstitutional theory; Online review consumers' judgment; Expert ratings; Gastronomy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-12
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/hal-02513471v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Journal of Business Research, 2019, 105, pp.395-404. ⟨10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.03.038⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02513471

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.03.038

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