Paper title and abstract

Is comparison the thief of joy? Antecedents and consequences of getting compared by information intermediaries

Abstract: Information intermediaries play a crucial role in helping consumers discover and make sense of new market offerings. One important way they do this is by drawing comparisons to prior offerings. While routinely invoked as a key mechanism underlying myriad theoretical relationships, we still know surprisingly little about the act of comparison. In fact, there are conflicting views on (1) when evaluators draw comparisons, (2) which offerings get selected as referent, and (3) what the implications of comparisons are. We investigate these questions in the PC game market, focusing on expert reviews from two major review sites (Gamespot and IGN) matched to games on Steam—the leading digital PC games platform. Findings show that critics use comparisons as a discursive strategy to help consumers make sense of novel products. Moreover, exemplary—novel, critically acclaimed, and top-performing—games are systematically chosen as referent. Similarity in product features between the evaluated game and potential referents strongly predicts which game gets chosen as referent. Comparisons also fall in different ways, with negatively valenced comparisons having an especially strong effect on critics' ultimate judgment. In all, we offer new insights on how information intermediaries mediate between producers and consumers by highlighting the importance of comparisons.

Co-author: Richard Haans, RSM

About Joost Rietveld

Joost Rietveld is an Associate Professor in the department of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at the UCL School of Management. His research interests are at the intersection of technology strategy and innovation management. Joost’s research seeks to understand how inter-organizational dynamics, including platform-complementor relationships, alliances, and mergers and acquisitions, affect product-level outcomes. He is also interested in how digitization facilitates new and innovative ways of doing business including the freemium and platform-based business models. Joost’s research has been published in world-leading academic journals including Organization Science, Strategy Science, Research Policy, Journal of Management and the Strategic Management Journal. 

This seminar represented an integrative and important part of the House of Innovation's strategy to build a research environment through engagement with prominent guests and their work.

This seminar was part of the Academic Seminar Series offered in cooperation with the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship.