Egoboo vs. altruism: the role of reputation in online consumer communities

This article focuses on the role of reputation in consumer communities. Reputation systems can have a sanctioning function (incentive for good conduct) or a signalling function (e.g. signalling competence or trustworthiness). If the sanctioning function is dominant, striving for reputation should be the major motivation for contribution. However, contributions also can be motivated by altruism, the pleasure of interaction, earning money or generalized reciprocity. An online study of members of a German consumer community assessed the motivations for contribution and the evaluation of various features of the site. Overall, reputation turned out to be the least important motivation. Five types of users could be distinguished, but only the multiple motive consumers scored high on reputation. However, all community members perceived the quality ratings of the reviews as very important. The findings suggest that reputation has mainly a signalling function, but not so much of a sanctioning function in consumer communities. © 2009 SAGE Publications.