March 31, 2015, in the afternoon, Dr. Zhang Han, Georgia Institute of Technology, was invited to visit the School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, and made a presentation entitled "When Do Consumers Value Positive versus Negative Reviews Empirical Investigation of Confirmation? An Bias in Online Word of Mouth”. The report is hosted by Professor Yan Zhijun.
In the online word-of-mouth literature, research has consistently shown that negative reviews have a greater impact on product sales than positive reviews. Dr. Zhang Han's research shows that consumers tend to perceive reviews that confirm (vs. dis-confirm) their existing beliefs as more helpful and the confirmation bias is effected by dispersion of the rating and average rating.

Dr. Zhang Han received his Ph.D. in information system management from the University of Texas-Austin in 2000. He is currently the Georgia Institute of Technology School of management Helen and John Taylor Rhett, Jr. associate professor (with tenure), and serves as Area Coordinator for the Institute's information technology management. He is also a visiting fellow at the prestigious University of Texas-Austin Electronic Commerce Research Center. His research focuses on online trust and reputation, online payment and electronic market evolution. His papers have been published in Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Decision Support Systems and other academic journals. He is now editorial board member of Decision Support Systems, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications Pacific Asia (ECRA), Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Database Management.