A Power-threat View of The Role of Neighborhood Demographics on Airbnb Review Sentiments

Reviews in online sharing platforms hold value and drive sales. They also can include bias based on the review author's racio-ethnicity. We set out to understand how racio-ethnicity bias impacts review sentiment. To do this, we draw on the power-threat view and propose two hypotheses. We find support for these hypotheses using archival data from 2,473 guest/host dyads and their associated Airbnb reviews. We find reviews with a more positive sentiment are left by guests from the national majority racio-ethnicity and hosted by a host from the same racio-ethnicity. This pattern is stronger in neighborhoods primarily inhabited by members of minority racio-ethnicities. This research contributes to the literature on online reviews and holds practical implications for digital platforms.