What Happens When Recommendation System Meets Reputation System? The Impact of Recommendation Information on Purchase Intention

Recommendation systems are intended to increase consumer purchasing intentions and may enhance consumers´ experience value via personalized service. This study investigates how recommendation system and reputation system simultaneously affect customer purchase intention from an information communication perspective. A laboratory experiment was conducted to test the research framework which was proposed based on the social influence theory and the theory of reasoned action. The results demonstrate that consumer purchase intention is primarily affected by consumer attitude toward the purchase of the recommended product, and this attitude is driven mainly by the relevance to personal interests while also being affected by the external subjective norm regarding the purchase of the recommended product. This study also finds that the online feedbacks of reputation system exert a significant influence on the formation of external subjective norms. The results of this study provide useful insights into how recommendation information affects consumers´ attitude and purchase intention.