Judgments of the Value of Information: The Role of Information Provider Behavior and Information Seeker Goal Orientation
42 Pages Posted: 6 Feb 2007
Abstract
Although marketing managers and customers often seek information to make decisions or gain knowledge, we know little about what affects individual judgments of the value of received information. We argue that, in settings where information comes from multiple information providers with whom the information seeker have had no prior interaction (i.e., no face-to-face interaction), aspects of information provider behavior influence seeker judgments of the value of received information. Analysis of a web forum for marketing professionals shows that an information provider's current behavior, that is, how quickly, how frequently, and how elaborately they respond to an information query; and an information provider's past behavior, that is, their reputation as an expert in a given domain and their reputation as a generalist, impact judgments of information value. Importantly, these effects are moderated by the information seeker's goal orientation; in particular, whether they are trying to learn something new (a learning orientation) or whether they are seeking advice about what to do (a decision-making orientation).
Keywords: value of information
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