Search results

To influence consumer perceptions, firms often manipulate online product reviews on their own websites or third-party forums by anonymously adding positive reviews, deleting unfavorable reviews or offering rewards to encourage favorable reviews. This study aims to investigate consumer perceptions of online review deceptions and how these perceptions influence their subsequent purchase behavior. In particular, consumers’ awareness, suspicion and detection are studied and specific manipulation tactics are evaluated.

Both qualitative and quantitative studies are relied upon to understand consumer perceptions of online review deceptions. In-depth interviews with 16 experienced online shoppers were conducted to collect the illustrative accounts concerning consumer awareness of online review deceptions, their suspicion, detection and evaluation of different manipulation tactics. A survey of 199 consumers was then followed to validate and corroborate the findings from the qualitative study and generalize the interview results onto the general public.

The results from in-depth interviews suggest that consumers take a negative view toward online review deceptions, but the degree of negativity varies across different manipulation tactics. Moreover, different types of manipulations vary in terms of perceived deceptiveness, ease of detection and unethicality, as well as their effect on consumer purchase intention and perceived helpfulness of online product reviews. The findings from the survey further confirmed the qualitative findings.

The findings have a number of meaningful managerial implications for industry associations and policymakers on whether and how to regulate online review deceptions.

This study applies and extends information manipulation theory and deception detection literature to an online context to increase the richness of the relevant theories. It is among the first to empirically investigate online review deceptions from a consumer’s perspective, as opposed to a firm’s perspective as previous studies have done.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the online shopping intention of customers by watching artificial intelligence (AI)–based deepfake video advertisements using media richness (MR) theory and Information Manipulation Theory 2 (IMT2).

A conceptual model was developed to understand customers' online shopping intention by watching deepfake videos. A quantitative survey was conducted among the 1,180 customers using a structured questionnaire to test the conceptual model, and data were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The outcome of this research provides the antecedents of the online shopping intention of customers after watching AI-based deepfake videos. These antecedents are MR, information manipulation tactics, personalization and perceived trust. Perceived deception negatively influences customers' online shopping intention, and cognitive load has no effect. It also elucidates the manipulation tactics used by the managers to develop AI-based deepfake videos.

The distinctive model that emerged is insightful for senior executives and managers in the e-commerce and retailing industry to understand the influence of AI-based deepfake videos. This provides the antecedents of online shopping intention due to deepfakes, which are helpful for designers, marketing managers and developers.

The authors amalgamate the MR and IMT2 theory to understand the online shopping intention of the customers after watching AI-based deepfake videos. This work is a pioneer in examining the effect of AI-based deepfakes on the online shopping intention of customers by providing a framework that is empirically validated.

This study aims to examine the tourists' visit intention by watching deepfake destination videos, using Information Manipulation and Media Richness Theory.

This study conducted a primary survey utilizing a structured questionnaire. In total, 1,360 tourists were surveyed, and quantitative data analysis was done using PLS-SEM.

The results indicate that the factors that affect the tourists' visit intention after watching deepfake videos include information manipulation tactics, trust and media richness. This study also found that perceived deception and cognitive load do not influence the tourists' visit intention.

The originality/salience of this study lies in the fact that this is possibly among the first to combine the Media Richness Theory and Information Manipulation for understanding tourists' visit intention and post-viewing deepfake destination videos.

This study aims to investigate the effect of deepfake video advertisements on hotel booking intention by applying the media richness theory (MRT) and information manipulation theory (IMT).

A quantitative survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire to understand the effect of deepfake hotel video advertisements on booking intention. A large cross-section of 1,240 tourists was surveyed and data were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The outcome of this research provides the factors affecting the booking intention due to deepfake hotel video advertisements. These factors are media richness (MR), information manipulation (IM) tactics, perceived value (PV) and perceived trust (PT). Cognitive load and perceived deception (DC) negatively influence the hotel booking intention.

The distinctive model that emerged is insightful for senior executives and managers in the hospitality sector to understand the influence of deepfake video advertisements. This research provides the factors of hotel booking intention due to deepfake video advertisements, which are helpful for designers, developers, marketing managers and other stakeholders in the hotel industry.

MR and IMT are integrated with variables such as PT and PV to explore the tourists' hotel booking intention after watching deepfake video advertisements. It is the first step toward deepfake video advertisements and hotel booking intentions for tourists. It provides an empirically tested and validated robust theoretical model to understand the effect of deepfake video advertisements on hotel booking intention.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how predatory journals use spam emails to manipulate potential authors. This has been done based on McCornack’s information manipulation theory (IMT). Generally, predatory publishing is on the increase globally but more pronounced in developing countries. Although it affects both young and seasoned scholars, inexperienced scholars and those ignorant on credible publishing are the most affected.

The current study through document analysis focuses on email invites from predatory journals sent to the author between June 2016 and December 2018 after publishing a peer-reviewed journal article. The resultant texts were analysed using a directed qualitative content analysis.

Findings indicate that the invites flouted all the four Gricean maxims (of quality, quantity, manner and relevance) as posited by IMT. This suggests that the spam mails sent to the author sought to manipulate potential authors to publish with predatory journals.

This qualitative study focuses on email invites to the author which may not fully capture the manipulation by predatory journals.

It is important that scholars in developing contexts are aware of how predatory publishers seek to manipulate their victims. Universities and research institutions should be intentional in enlightening their academic staff on predatory journals and their characteristics. Similarly, universities should consider disincentivising their faculty members who publish in such platforms.

The originality in this study lies in its use of IMT to explain how predatory journals manipulate potentials authors.

This paper examines how and why online daters, differentiated by gender, strategically self-present in online dating profiles when pursuing two competing goals: attracting potential daters and avoiding detection as a liar.

A survey and a content analysis were employed to test four hypotheses.

The results revealed that seeking to project an attractive image in online dating was significantly associated with acquisitive self-presentation. The online daters adopted falsification more than any other strategies, and women were more likely than men to embellish their self-presentation, especially their physical appearance.

The findings clarify people's mate selection processes in light of the interpersonal deception theory (IDT) and the information manipulation theory (IMT) as well as take an evolutionary psychological perspective on computer-mediated communication. For practitioners, they provide a more nuanced picture of deceptive communication in online dating and, for online daters, can guide the adaptation of their online behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the restatement information disclosed in the Form 8K and the Press Release. It examines the relationship between manipulating the quantity, quality, manner and timing of restatement information and the probability of committing fraud.

The authors used 18 informational indicators developed by BenYoussef and Breton (2016), and applied the prediction methodology based on F-scores, developed by Dechow et al. (2011).

Results indicate that the information content of restatement announcements provides significant insights into the likelihood of fraud occurrence. A firm that manipulated previous earnings will continue to do so, and will try to mislead investors by releasing inaccurate and incomplete information in the Form 8K and the Press Release. The model helps identify this manipulation and hence can be used as a tool for fraud detection.

This paper applies the constructs drawn from Information Manipulation Theory to restatement contexts to detect fraud.

The paper is of use to regulators, investors and financial crime experts, as it provides insights to better fraud detection.

The paper is based on proprietary data that were hand collected, and is being used first time to predict fraud.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to build a theoretical model that identifies textual cues to distinguish between authentic and fictitious reviews, and to empirically validate the theoretical model by examining reviews of positive, negative as well as moderate polarities.

Synthesizing major theories on deceptive communication, the theoretical model identifies four constructs – comprehensibility, specificity, exaggeration and negligence – to predict review authenticity. The predictor constructs were operationalized as holistically as possible. To validate the theoretical model, 1,800 reviews (900 authentic + 900 fictitious) evenly spread across positive, negative and moderate polarities were analyzed using logistic regression.

The performance of the proposed theoretical model was generally promising. However, it could better discern authenticity for positive and negative reviews compared with moderate entries.

The paper advances the extant literature by theorizing the textual differences between authentic and fictitious reviews. It also represents one of the earliest attempts to examine nuances in the textual differences between authentic and fictitious reviews across positive, negative as well as moderate polarities.

This study aims to apply McCornack’s (1992) information manipulation theory to the context of fraud and investigates the effects of culture on perceived deceptiveness.

In total, 400 Chinese consumers and an equal-size sample of Canadian consumers were recruited to fill an online survey. The survey integrates four scenarios of insurance fraud and measures of perceived deceptiveness, cultural tightness and horizontal-vertical idiocentrism allocentrism, in addition to some control variables.

Results show that at the societal level of culture, perceived deceptiveness is higher in individualistic than in collectivistic cultures. When accounting for the level of situational constraint, cultural tightness was found to magnify the perceived deceptiveness. At the individual level of culture, vertical-allocentrism and vertical-idiocentrism were found to weigh against the perception of deceptiveness.

Understanding cultural differences in perceived deceptiveness is helpful to spot sources of consumers’ vulnerability to fraud tolerance among a culturally diverse public.