The effect of product distance on the eWOM in recommendation network

Xue Pan (), Lei Hou () and Kecheng Liu ()
Additional contact information
Xue Pan: Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology
Lei Hou: Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology
Kecheng Liu: University of Reading

Electronic Commerce Research, 2022, vol. 22, issue 3, No 8, 924 pages

Abstract: Abstract The online product recommendation networks (PRNs), connecting similar products with hyperlinks, have been widely implemented in user-generated content websites and ecommerce systems. With the PRNs as the virtual shelves, this paper explores the impact of the distance between products on the formation of product electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM). Employing an empirical book recommendation network of Amazon, the study one explores the effect of a focal product’s neighborhood (nearby others) on its eWOM, and study two explores the eWOM similarity between product pairs that are at one, two and three clicks away from each other. The results reveal the significant role played by the product distance on the association of their eWOM. On one hand, a focal product’s eWOM is largely influenced by that of its neighborhood. On the other hand, the good connectivity between two products, which is defined as the number of paths connecting them, is closely associated with the eWOM similarity between them. The findings suggest that the products should be considered as interactive collectives rather than separated individuals particularly in the eWOM studies.

Keywords: Product recommendation network; eWOM similarity; Electronic commerce; Network distance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10660-020-09432-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:elcore:v:22:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10660-020-09432-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10660

DOI: 10.1007/s10660-020-09432-1

Access Statistics for this article

Electronic Commerce Research is currently edited by James Westland

More articles in Electronic Commerce Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().