To See or Not to See: Salience in the Externalities of Public Responses to Online Reviews

This manuscript investigates the externalities of managers' responses (MR) to online reviews on popular travel websites. Specifically, we examine the effect of publicly responding to customers' reviews on subsequent reviewer ratings. We find that manager responses to negative reviews (MR-N) can significantly influence subsequent opinion in a positive way if those responses are observable at the time of reviewing. Interestingly, we find this...