口碑经济的罪与罚

    当然，我们也不要只看最近的评价，或是最显眼的网络搜索结果。大多数人都是懒人，看东西只看摘要和最近的评论，而那正是各种声誉管理公司最爱朝我们下手的地方。在好评的大海里淹没几条差评是最简单的事，这当然也是看商家有没有请声誉管理公司的最简单的方法。你也可以看看最正面或最负面的评价是否大多采用了类似的语言（也可以编个程序检测一下），这种方法虽然不完美，但也有可能检测出这些评价是否虚假，或经过了一番“管理”。

    最后，如果社会资本真的像钱一样，阻止伪造就将变得越来越重要。同样像制贩假钞一样，阻止伪造虚假评价与想方设法“制造”或“管理”评价之间的角力也在日益升级。随着评分的经济影响越来越大，造假的诱惑也会呈指数级增长。

    口碑经济的美妙世界远远谈不上美妙，甚至离诚信也有很远的距离。因此，你最好尽可能地相信那些不偏不倚的专家意见，只要你能找得到它们。其实在很多领域，这些专家意见都不难找到，只是有时你可能得付钱。很多报纸也刊登最佳餐厅的排行榜，另外很多机构，包括《消费者报告》和Checkbook都在提供各种产品和服务的公正评价。

    当然，专家的节操也是可以买卖的，不过比起大多数“水军”，甚或那些为了利润而“管理”声誉的企业来说，专家顾及其社会地位，会更加患得患失一些。不要让简单的总结评分欺骗了你，而不去花充足的时间去芜存真。即便是在口碑经济中，“谨防上当”仍然是一条颠扑不破的真理。（财富中文网）

    本文作者Jeffrey Pfeffer是斯坦福大学商学院组织行为学教授。他的新书《领导力B.S.》将于2015年9月由哈珀柯林斯出版社出版。

    译者：朴成奎

    审校：任文科

    Certainly don’t rely solely on the most recent reviews or the most prominent online search results. Most people are cognitively lazy, looking only at summaries and a few, recent reviews, and that’s precisely the behavior that reputation management of any form counts on. So drowning negative reviews in an ocean of positive ones is the simplest and, ironically, the easiest way to detect reputation management games. You can also read (or program a computer to read) the most positive and negative reviews to see if many of the reviews use similar language, a possible but not perfect indicator that they are fake or managed.

    In the end, if social capital is truly like money, preventing counterfeiting is going to become increasingly important. Just as in the case of money, there is an arms race between those seeking to prevent counterfeit ratings and those who seek to profit from the fact that reputations can be “manufactured,” or at least managed. And as the economic implications of ratings grow, the temptations to cheat will increase proportionately.

    The wonderful world of the reputation economy is far from completely wonderful—or even honest. Therefore, to the extent possible, you might be better off relying on unbiased expert opinions if you can find them. And you can in many domains, although sometimes you might have to pay. Many newspapers publish best restaurant lists, and numerous organizations, including Consumer Reports and Checkbook, seek to provide unbiased reviews of all types of products and service providers.

    Expert opinion can be bought and sold, too, but experts have more to lose and have more of their social identity tied up in their unbiased expertise than the people selling their ratings on some website, or maybe even than the companies who manage reputations for a profit. And don’t let the ready availability of summary scores induce you to not expend sufficient effort on discerning the best from the rest. In the reputation economy, too, “let the buyer beware” is a useful guideline.

    Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. His latest book, Leadership B.S.: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time will be published in September 2015 by HarperCollins.