Sarit Moldovan

The Open University of Israel | openu · Department of Management and Economics

A high volume of sales or online reviews can make a product seem more popular and established and consequently enhance its appeal. But is it advisable to display both metrics? We focus on the interplay between volume of sales and number of reviews and explore what happens when these signals are perceived as congruent versus incongruent. Five experi...

This research explores characteristics that make consumers more likely to circulate ads. We focus on (a) the main transmitters of the viral content which we refer to as propagators, consumers who are more socially connected and active, and (b) two key ad characteristics: creativity and informativeness. Results from field data and two online studies...

Consumers often encounter product-related numerical information, such as attribute ratings and version numbers. This research demonstrates that a smaller (compared to a larger) numerical difference can increase perceived improvement and enhance product appeal. We find that when a product’s version number or a rating changes from a decimal number to...

The role of opinion leaders in the diffusion of innovation has recently come under scrutiny: On the one hand, their central role in accelerating diffusion has been recognized in industry, academia, and the popular media. On the other hand, it has been argued that opinion leaders do not create contagion processes that differ significantly from those...

This research examines the impact of irrelevant information and its valence (positive or negative) on consumers' evaluations, choices, and post-choice satisfaction, within the context of online reviews. We demonstrate that seemingly irrelevant online reviews can enhance positive impressions, but only if they are labeled with a negative valence (e.g...

Early adopters are considered essential to new product success due to their role in encouraging others to adopt. In this paper, we show that this may not always true. Early adopters with a high need for uniqueness may experience a communication dilemma of whether or not to communicate about innovations they adopt. The dilemma derives from the clash...

This paper explores how the dimensions of new products, specifically, the originality and usefulness of the products, influence word-of-mouth (WOM). In four studies, using lab and field setups, we find that originality and usefulness have different effects on WOM. We show that consumers spread more WOM about original products, but the valence of wh...

We explore the effects of individual-and network-level negative word-of-mouth on a firm's profits using an agent-based model, specifically an extended small-world analysis. We include both permanent strong ties within the social network, and changing, often random, weak ties with other networks. The effect of negative word-of-mouth on the Net Prese...

Many new products fail, despite preliminary market surveys having determined considerable potential market share. This effect is too systematic to be attributed to bad luck. We suggest an explanation by presenting a new percolation theory model for product propagation, where agents interact over a social network. In our model, agents who do not ado...

It has long been accepted that word-of-mouth (w-o-m) communications play a key role in new product adoption and much interest has been directed to the positive impact of interpersonal communications on new product dissemination and adoption. Limited attention, however, has been given to the adverse effect of negative w-o-m and consumers' resistance...

We model dynamics of positive and negative word-of-mouth spread in a social network. The classic percolation model is modified by introducing local negative efiects due to non-adoption. The resistant agents inform their neighbors, and as a result the neighborhood becomes less susceptible to the spreading product. We introduce two parameters, quanti...