Beyond Stars and Ratings: A Comprehensive Examination of Online Shoppers’ Review-Writing Behaviour

Abstract

Online customer reviews have become an important part of online shopping. They help consumers make purchasing decisions, shape expectations before buying and provide feedback that can influence businesses and online platforms. While many studies have examined the effect of online reviews on purchasing decisions, less attention has been given to the factors that encourage consumers to write reviews themselves, especially after a genuine online shopping experience. This thesis addresses this issue by examining the factors that influence Australian online shoppers’ intention to write online reviews after a recent online purchase. The existing literature has focused on the role of reviews from the perspective of readers rather than writers. With regard to writers, there is limited understanding of how cognitive and social factors shape post-purchase evaluations, how personality traits influence satisfaction with the shopping experience and how altruistic motivations encourage consumers to share their experiences by writing reviews. To address these gaps, this thesis draws on expectation confirmation theory and social cognitive theory and incorporates the Big Five personality traits, together with three altruistic motivations: beneficence, pay-it-forward tendencies and prosocial behaviour. This thesis is guided by three main objectives. The first is to examine how perceived usefulness of online reviews, online shopping self-efficacy and observational learning influence confirmation and satisfaction in online shopping experiences. The second is to examine the impact of the Big Five personality traits on satisfaction and, thereby, the intention to write online reviews. The third is to examine the impact of altruistic motivational factors on the intention to write online reviews. Taken together, these objectives invite a broader understanding of review-writing intention by placing cognitive, personal and altruistic influences within one framework. This thesis adopts a quantitative approach within a positivist research paradigm. Data were collected through an online survey of Australian residents aged 18 years and over who had made an online purchase within the previous 12 months. After data screening and cleaning, 354 valid responses were retained for analysis. The data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), which was well suited to the model’s complexity and the nature of the data. The findings showed that perceived usefulness of online reviews and online shopping self-efficacy both had positive and significant effects on confirmation, and that confirmation had a strong positive effect on satisfaction. Satisfaction also had a positive and significant effect on the intention to write online reviews. Observational learning, however, did not significantly influence confirmation. Additionally, among the Big Five personality traits, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism significantly influenced satisfaction. Satisfaction also mediated the relationship between the significant personality traits and the intention to write online reviews. Perceived performance risk showed a tentative moderating effect on the relationship between satisfaction and the intention to write online reviews, approaching but not reaching conventional significance levels. In addition, beneficence, pay-it-forward tendency and prosocial behaviour all had positive and significant effects on the intention to write online reviews. Overall, the thesis shows that the intention to write online reviews is shaped by post-purchase evaluation, personality and altruistic motivations. It extends the application of expectation confirmation theory and social cognitive theory to the context of online review writing, demonstrating that review-writing intention is shaped by a sequential process of expectation confirmation and satisfaction alongside personality and altruistic dispositions. From the results, the thesis offers practical implications for online retailers and platforms seeking to encourage the contribution of reviews from genuine customers