Do Online Reviews Reflect a Product's True Perceived Quality? - An Investigation of Online Movie Reviews Across Cultures

When does the reported average of online ratings match perceived average assessment? We apply behavioral theory to capture intentions in rating online movie reviews in two dissimilar countries - China and the United States. We argue that consumers' rating behaviors are affected by cultural influences. Based on data collected from imdb.com and douban.com, we found significant differences across raters from these two different cultures. Additionally, we examined how cultural elements influence rating behavior for a hybrid culture - Singapore. Under-reporting bias occurs when consumers with extreme opinions are more likely to report their opinions than consumers with moderate reviews, resulting in reviews that may be biased estimators of quality and certainly have higher variance. An experimental study shows that under-reporting is more prevalent among U.S. online social network, and thus that online reviews are more reflective of a movie's true perceived quality in Chinese and Singapore than in the U.S.