THE BEHAVIORAL SIDE OF RECOMMENDATION AGENTS: A BIBLIOMETRIC REVIEW | O LADO COMPORTAMENTAL DOS AGENTES DE RECOMENDAÇÃO: UMA REVISÃO BIBLIOMÉTRICA

Resumo

Recommendation agents have been used to assist consumers in online purchase for almost 20 years. Their use has been studied in academic research with two different approaches. The first one addresses computational problems related to generating accurate recommendations. The other seeks to understand how user interaction with recommendation agents can alter behaviors in online shopping. Through bibliometric and scientometric methods, this study looked for the most influential papers, authors and journals in the field of behavioral recommendation research. In the present work, only articles investigating behavioral aspects of recommendation usage were considered. The identified articles were analyzed in terms of their methodology, variables and repercussion. At the end, a total of 175 articles published in journals from many different fields of academic research were found, attesting the multidisciplinary nature of this topic. Most of the studies were empirical investigations using experimental methodology, however theoretical papers showed to be more influential. It was possible to identify 29 different dependent variables used to measure the effects of recommendations in online assisted purchase. The 19 independent variables used in these studies were related to characteristics of the recommendation agent, user characteristics or vendor characteristics. Results also showed that the field still lacks confirmatory studies capable of creating a greater assurance for the knowledge already developed in the field.

DOI: 10.18226/23190639.v5n1.05