Information Search Costs Research Articles

Artificial intelligence for hospitality big data analytics: developing a prediction model of restaurant review helpfulness for customer decision-making

Purpose Big data analytics allows researchers and industry practitioners to extract hidden patterns or discover new information and knowledge from big data. Although artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the emerging big data analytics techniques, hospitality and tourism literature has shown minimal efforts to process and analyze big hospitality data through AI. Thus, this study aims to develop and compare prediction models for review helpfulness using machine learning (ML) algorithms to analyze big restaurant data. Design/methodology/approach The study analyzed 1,483,858 restaurant reviews collected from Yelp.com. After a thorough literature review, the study identified and added to the prediction model 4 attributes containing 11 key determinants of review helpfulness. Four ML algorithms, namely, multivariate linear regression, random forest, support vector machine regression and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), were used to find a better prediction model for customer decision-making. Findings By comparing the performance metrics, the current study found that XGBoost was the best model to predict review helpfulness among selected popular ML algorithms. Results revealed that attributes regarding a reviewer’s credibility were fundamental factors determining a review’s helpfulness. Review helpfulness even valued credibility over ratings or linguistic contents such as sentiment and subjectivity. Practical implications The current study helps restaurant operators to attract customers by predicting review helpfulness through ML-based predictive modeling and presenting potential helpful reviews based on critical attributes including review, reviewer, restaurant and linguistic content. Using AI, online review platforms and restaurant websites can enhance customers’ attitude and purchase decision-making by reducing information overload and search cost and highlighting the most crucial review helpfulness features and user-friendly automated search results. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first to develop a prediction model of review helpfulness and reveal essential factors for helpful reviews. Furthermore, the study presents a state-of-the-art ML model that surpasses the conventional models’ prediction accuracy. The findings will improve practitioners’ marketing strategies by focusing on factors that influence customers’ decision-making.

The Role of Information Search Cost on Seller's Disclosure of Negative Information

This study has attempted to provide an important understanding about the information asymmetry in markets through empirical analysis on how the disclosure of low quality can increase demand even in the short run. More specifically, this study has extended the previous findings from the related literature by considering the effect of information search cost and providing empirical evidences about the effect of voluntary disclosure of low quality, using an experimental method with purchase scenarios. The results from our analysis show that reduced perceived risk have an important effect on sharing negative information, while the effect of information search cost is minimal. We also explain the circumstances whereby the information disclosure of a seller with low-quality product can enhance not only the seller’s profitability but also customers’ welfare by increasing the market demand and the demand for the seller claiming high quality.

ЛЮДСЬКИЙ КАПІТАЛ ЯК СКЛАДОВА ІННОВАЦІЙНО-ОРІЄНТОВАНОЇ ЕКОНОМІКИ

The article explores human capital as an embodied and integrated resource of socio-economic development of the country, influencing the level and quality of life in society, the possibilities of sectoral and intersectoral development of the economy, given current global trends and national potential. It is determined that human capital is formed as a result of investment and accumulation of a certain reserve of health, knowledge, skills, abilities, motivations, which are appropriately used in a particular area of social reproduction, contribute to the growth of labor productivity and manufacturing efficiency. In the innovation-oriented economy it is important to create appropriate conditions for the formation and reproduction of human capital in order to transform basic human resources in relation to the formation of incentives for productive work, the growth of the welfare of the population, balancing social costs, ensuring sustainable growth of the national economy, etc. The modern stage of social development strengthens the role of the human capital as a component of innovation-oriented and sustainable economy, which determines the need to increase the efficiency of use of accumulated experience, adaptation of methods of research of the human capital development, as well as systematic use of professional competencies of society representatives. As a result, the concept of formation and development of the human capital, as well as its investment support and state regulation regarding sustainable growth of the labor productivity and reproduction of the human capital in accordance with modern requirements, in particular, globalization, Industry 4.0, digitalization, socialization is reconsidered. The modern structure of investments in human capital includes the following types of investments: the cost of education (the cost of general and special education, formal and informal education, the cost of training in the workplace), the cost of health care (physical and mental health), information search, migration, mobility, motivation, R&D, informatization, intellectual innovation, ecology and healthy lifestyles, culture and recreation. In this case, the availability of information to private investors or the population about promising areas of investment in the human capital is accompanied by a systematic receipt of profit, which maintains their interest for a certain period of time.

Information policies and biased cost perceptions - The case of Swedish residential energy consumption

Households typically receive utility bills where all electricity use during a fixed period is lumped together. The lack of direct feedback in the form of marginal costs of using specific electric appliances potentially leads to mistakes in households' decision-making because of biased cost perceptions. In this paper, we test the commonly held notion that lack of relevant energy-related knowledge results in cost underestimation of using electric appliances that may lead to over-consumption of energy. Contrary to this notion, our results show that less knowledgeable energy consumers tend to have higher cost perceptions than others. This finding implies that less knowledgeable energy consumers may consume too little of energy. We also find that a substantial share of the sampled households, in particular less knowledgeable energy consumers, are less willing to receive relevant cost-free information about their energy use and costs. This finding suggests that poor energy-related knowledge may not only be a matter of high information search and processing costs, but also a matter of consumers’ limited attention capacity.

Breathing life into consumer rights: smartphone tools facilitating the \u201cright to know\u201d on substances of very high concern in REACH articles

BackgroundThe EU chemicals regulation “Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals” (REACH) aims to reduce the usage of substances of very high concern (SVHCs) by firms. Therefore, a consumer right-to-know about SVHCs in articles is intended to create market-based incentives. However, awareness of the right-to-know among EU citizens is low. Moreover, the response window of 45 days afforded to suppliers impedes immediate, informed decisions by consumers. Consequently, despite being in effect for more than 10 years, only few consumer send requests. Civil society actors have developed smartphone applications reducing information search costs, allowing users to send right-to-know requests upon scanning an article’s barcode. Answers are stored in a database and made available to the public immediately. This paper assesses to which extent smartphone tools contribute to an increased use of the right-to-know by undertaking a case study of the application “ToxFox” by the German non-profit organisation Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND).ResultsAn analysis of the data from the BUND database for the period 2016 to 2018 reveals that about 20 thousand users have sent almost 49 thousand requests. This has led to more than 9 thousand database entries, including 189 articles which contain SVHCs above the legal threshold. The data also indicate that receiving information on requested articles encourages further use of the application. Many suppliers accept the application and pro-actively provide information on articles without SVHCs above the threshold. However, most consumers use the application only for a short time, and suppliers are struggling to reply to right-to-know requests.ConclusionEvaluating the results, the study identifies options to enhance the application’s design in terms of user motivation and legal certainty, and to enhance the framework governing "barcode" assignments to articles with a view to better contributing to transparency. As for policy implications, a lack of consumer requests can in part be traced back to design flaws of the right-to-know and a lack of implementation and enforcement of REACH. In addition, suppliers have to increase their supply chain communication efforts to make sure they are in a position to properly answer consumer requests. We recommend several policy options addressing these and additional aspects, thus contributing to the legislative review of Art. 33 REACH.

Transaction costs and participation in avocado export marketing in Murang’a County, Kenya

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of transactional costs on smallholder avocado farmers’ participation in the export market and the extent of participation in Murang’a County, Kenya.Design/methodology/approachData was collected from 384 avocado farmers in Murang’a County, following stratified sampling. The Heckman two-stage model was used for analysis.FindingsResults showed that the cost of information search was an important variable that impedes smallholders’ participation in export marketing while harvesting costs inhibits the extent of participation in export marketing.Research limitations/implicationsThis study used data at the farm level. Therefore, insights on transaction costs among other marketing agents in the export market value chain would be an issue for future studies.Originality/valueFollowing the debate on transaction costs and market participation among farmers in Sub-Sahara Africa, this paper models transactional costs and export market participation among avocado smallholders and measures the extent of participation with the inclusion of harvesting costs, negotiation costs, monitoring costs and information search costs that are not common in previous studies, thus contributing to the development of literature.

News or Noise: Mobile Internet Technology and Stock Market Activity

Mobile internet devices reduce trading frictions and information search costs for investors, but also introduce attention-competing activities, such as social networking. We use exogenous nationwide and city-level outages of the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) to investigate the effect of mobile internet technology on investors’ information-gathering vs. attention-diverting activities. We find that trading volume and trading frequency surge by about 5% on days when mobile internet systems go dark, consistent with a greater role for devices (when not dark) in diverting the limited attention of investors away from information-gathering and trading—even when they are used by presumably more sophisticated investors.

The study of spatial concentration in the hotel industry : Focusing on the US case

It has been commonly observed that the hotel industry is not randomly or equally distributed, but rather is developed with concentration in certain geographical areas. In order to find out the reasons why the hotel industry is concentrated in a certain area or space, and what the conditions and characteristics that determine those occurrences, this paper studied the spatial concentration of the hotel industry in the USA by focusing on the theory of agglomeration and external economic related to the hotel industry, and uses the STR Hotel Census Data in USA to lay a spatial econometric model to identify regional characteristics that shape these patterns. The results showed that the hotel industry was developed by locating itself in regions where it can enjoy agglomeration benefits (i.e. securing basic demand, recruiting a flexible and skilled labor force, and fitting to a related variety as an urbanization economy, reducing customers’ information search cost), and because the hotel industry are demand sensitive industry so they are bound to locate themselves in a region where they can minimize business risk in demand but maximize business opportunities derived from spatial agglomeration advantages. This study suggested some significant implications to local government planners and policy makers, and stakeholders’ property investment decision-makers, such as local environments are of greatly important factors as much as the importance of micro level locational environment for new hotel development because they can evaluate their potential and opportunities to develop hotel industry in terms of urbanization economy and localization economy etc.

How do consumers in the sharing economy value sharing? Evidence from online reviews

With the rapid development of information technology, platform-facilitated collaborative consumption has recently become attractive to consumers. A comparative study of consumers' online review behavior and its impact on overall satisfaction and demand in the accommodation-sharing economy and the hotel industry indicates that consumers' perceptions and behavior change gradually with changes in the level of sharing—from no sharing when staying in hotel rooms to intensive sharing when sharing rooms through collaborative consumption. Online consumer reviews focus on product and service attributes, and the influential factors of customer satisfaction and demand differ when consumers are at different accommodation-sharing levels. Not all attributes described in online reviews influence overall customer satisfaction. With a higher level of sharing, consumers' valuation changes from more to less tangible attributes. Consumers at a higher sharing level care more about social interaction and economic value than consumers at a lower sharing level. Transaction costs, particularly the information search and acquisition costs, play an important role in influencing customer purchase decisions in the sharing economy. Consumers refer to direct information for tangible attributes and to previous consumers' online reviews for intangible attributes to familiarize themselves with details before making purchase decisions. Our study provides implications that help platforms and hosts better target consumer segments with different sharing levels and more effectively utilize online reviews to generate positive electronic word of mouth to enhance consumer demand and the performance of platform economics.

Working Capital Management

Preferably, there would be no requirement for rhythmic movement assets and liabilities in light of the way that there would be no weakness, no trade costs, information search costs, arranging costs, or creation and advancement goals. The unit cost of age would not vary with the sum made. Getting and crediting rates will be same. Capital, work, and thing business sector will be flawlessly forceful and would reflect every single available datum, as such in such a circumstance, there would be no good position for placing assets into transitory assets. Additionally every affiliation is looked with its own one of a kind purposes of control on as far as possible and advances it can use there are fixed similarly as factor costs related with creation stock. Toward the day's end, the business divisions where certifiable firm worked are not flawlessly engaged. [1],[ 3],[5]

Transaction Cost Analysis on Revenues and Profits of Red Chili Farming

This research aimed to analyze the transaction cost structure and the effect of transaction costs on the revenue and profit of red chili farming. The analytical methods used were Transaction Cost Economic (TCE) analysis and multiple regression analysis. This research was conducted in Garut Regency, West Java, on 145 farm households. The research results showed that the highest percentage of transaction cost components was at implementation costs of 25.1 percent, followed by information search costs of 23.1 percent and negotiation costs of 22.3 percent. The number of transaction costs formed in red chili farming was IDR 3,990 727.74 per year. The ratio of transaction costs to total costs was 0.0285. This indicated that farmers had to issue 2.85 percent of the total costs for transaction costs. In addition, the percentages of transaction costs for revenue and profit of red chili farming were 4.65 and 5.27 percent respectively. The results also showed that five variables had significant effects on the benefits of red chili farming. The five variables included the price of chili seeds, manure, insecticides, labor wages, and transaction costs.

Political rents and voter information in search equilibrium

Political parties committed to grab rents may run for election, and even win, if citizens are uninformed. But, how is the political equilibrium affected if citizens can mitigate this information problem through costly information search? We propose a political equilibrium theory with endogenous information search and turnout. We show that: (i) the political equilibrium generates political uncertainty characterized by a distribution of rent policies; (ii) the expectation of this rent distribution is inversely U-shaped in the information search cost; (iii) turnout is lower and rents are higher the more proportional is the electoral system.

Improvement for Better Impacts of the Market Information System or MIS in Developing Countries

The agriculture sector is one of the economic pillars in a developing country. For the better governance of the sector, Market Information System (MIS) was promoted in 1980 in developing countries after the liberalization of the market and the withdrawal of Para-public from the agricultural sector. From the perspective of economic theory, the emergence of an MIS in an economy is supposed to reduce information search costs and influence the behaviour of economic agents such as producers, traders and consumers. So these agents should have access to this information to guide their decisions.

Many hands: The effect of the prior inventor-intermediaries relationship on academic licensing

We study the role of the relationship among inventors and intermediaries in the licensing of university inventions. We suggest that a prior inventor-intermediaries relationship positively influences licensing rates through selective retention of higher quality relationships and mutual learning in the relationship, enabling intermediaries to reduce both information asymmetry and search costs between inventors and potential licensees. We argue that the influence of a prior inventor-intermediaries relationship on licensing is especially important before intellectual property protection is attained and can be substituted by the buyer-side contacts of inventors and intermediaries. We test these predictions using 919 inventions from the technology transfer office at Stanford University. This study has implications for the policies and design of university technology licensing organizations.

Individual Health Insurance Market with an Entrant – The ACA Health Insurance Exchange Observations

Abstract In this paper, a general framework is built up to model the dynamic of consumer health plan choice and individual health insurance market competition. A primary goal is to identify driving forces to individual health insurance equilibrium market coverage and premium. In the baseline model, we introduce plan quality information search cost as an additional determinant to consumer’s plan choice. Health insurers compete under the Hotelling’s game theory framework. Equilibrium solutions of the baseline model highlight the importance of budget limit and information search cost to health plan enrollment. The more important objective is to examine the impact of market entrants on equilibrium insurance market coverage and plan prices. In the model with market entry, we add an additional dimension to the baseline model. Equilibrium solutions and numerical studies show positive impact of higher insurance market coverage and lower health plan prices. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) brought multiple unprecedented changes to the health insurance market and provided opportunities to study market dynamics and driving forces. The ACA health insurance exchange market experience shows consistency with our model findings even at the early stage of implementation. More importantly, market observations suggest that entry barriers of claim costs and information search cost are high for entrants.

The impact of media richness on consumer information search and choice

Consumers' make decisions based on information gathered from sources that vary in the richness of the medium. Some media are rich, and include video and audio components, while others are lean and consist solely of text. This paper examines whether consumer's information search and the number of options that they consider when making choices depend on the richness of the medium from which consumers gather information. A series of experimental studies shows that an improvement in media richness reduces the cost of information search and increases the number of options that consumers consider when making choices. These studies also show that consumers tend to rely more on stimulus-based information when media richness is high and more on memory-based information when media richness is low. An investigation of the underlying process shows that perceived cost mediates the relationship between media richness and information search.

Mobile Phone as an extension tool among female agricultural practitioners in Lagos State Nigeria

This study assessed the use of mobile telephone for extension among female agricultural practitioners in Lagos State. The study adopted purposive selection of Epe and Ikorodu Local Government Areas (LGA), while simple random sampling technique was used to select 60 female farmers and 5 female EAs in each of the two LGAs. Data was analyzed with descriptive statistics and chi square. Results showed that female agricultural practitioners in Lagos State cut across different age groups, changing trend of farming business as youths and the younger generation now take active part. The majority (97.69%) of the respondents owned and used mobile phone for accessing market information among others. Also, 90.8% respondents agreed that it’s an efficient and effective facility for extension communication. High cost of subscription, mobile phone and accessories were the major constraints reported. This study provided evidence on the role of mobile phones in reducing information search costs and asymmetries and increasing market efficiencies. It is recommended that an agricultural extension service incorporates/strengthens use of mobile phones for information dissemination by training EAs on opportunities inherent in the use of mobile phones.Keywords: Female agricultural practitioners, mobile phones, extension tools

Mobile Phone Use, Transaction Costs, and Price: Evidence from Rural Vegetable Farmers in Cameroon

ABSTRACTThe widespread use of mobile phones in Cameroon should be translated into increased farmers’ income by reducing information-search costs. This study seeks to investigate the effects of mobile phone use on transaction costs related to price information search. Ordinary least-square estimations reveal a positive relationship between mobile phones use and transaction costs. The results show that farmers’ use of mobile phones increases their transaction costs for carrots and tomatoes, unlike for cabbages. This paper suggests the establishment of vegetable information centers that can serve as an interface between stakeholders in agriculture by channeling adequate and timely information to farmers.

Refining online consumer search into an opportunity

The rise of the internet has given consumers far more information than ever before when it comes to seeking product information and making purchase decisions. Search platforms aggregate product information and decrease search costs by letting consumers refine search results (eg by price, location, brand or other product attributes) and also by recommending particular products to consumers. Enhanced search technologies have led to reduced search costs, heightening competition between firms. This paper argues that in such an environment, firms can benefit by managing their search platforms to further reduce consumers’ search costs. A platform where it is easy for a consumer to find the best product will benefit from increased consumer retention, as well as satisfaction with the purchased product. The paper offers a number of recommendations to firms for tailoring product recommendations and rankings, even for anonymous consumers whose individual preferences are unknown to the platform. It also points out that search behaviour can be used to glean insights about consumers’ unmet needs and that platforms should be managed so that consumer confidence in search results is protected. Finally, it considers that some search engine optimisation may actually increase search costs.

The Online Reviews' Effects on Internet Consumer Behavior

Consumer behaviors have always been the hot spot of the study. With the arrival of the network age and the popularity of e-commerce, the consumption pattern of shopping online is beginning. Until December of 2014, there were 649 million Internet users in China, and it's increasing. In the year of 2014, the number of most mainstream online shoppers has increased by 23.7% and shopping online has become an irresistible trend. New consumption mode can produce a new research subject, the study of Internet consumer behaviors becomes very important. This article used LocoySpider, a data mining software, to mine Taobao online reviews. Through the analysis of online reviews, we can study the effect of online reviews on consumer behaviors. During the study, we set the risk perception as intermediary variable. By the study, we can help the electronic commercial enterprises to attract customers, retain customers and reduce the information search cost.