Making up or taunting?

Abstract

Online consumer reviews (OCRs) are characteristic of, and play a vital role in, the sharing economy, the new business model for (in particular younger) generations of consumers. Even so, discussions of the pragmatic strategies that sharing businesses employ in response to negative OCRs are still a scarcity in academic literature. The present article makes an original contribution to rapport management studies by examining both the negative and positive rapport management strategies (RMS; Spencer-Oatey 2008) in the responses of British and Chinese Airbnb hosts to 200 negative OCRs in English and 200 negative OCRs in Chinese; among the 400 responses by Airbnb hosts replying to their angry guests’ negative OCRs, there were just 10 negative and 10 positive RMSs. The study also examines similarities and differences between English and Chinese responses to negative OCRs.