Motives for posting fake reviews: Evidence from a cross-cultural comparison

•Customers’ reviews are highly important in the cosmetic industry.•The self-determination theory is used to examine the motives for falsifying reviews.•The motives for posting fake reviews from a cross-cultural view are highlighted.•The motives for posting fake reviews partially depend on the reviewer’s culture.•The gamification by online review platforms motives customers to write fake reviews. The main purpose of the present study is to address the existing research gaps by examining the motives of customers for writing online fake reviews for cosmetic products. Based on the self-determination theory, 20 customers from South Korea and 31 from France were interviewed in order to conduct a cross-cultural comparison. The results demonstrate the extrinsic and intrinsic motivations of South Korean and French customers for posting fake reviews for cosmetic products and highlight the similarities and differences between the two cultures. Both theoretical and managerial implications were presented. This study helps cosmetic brands better understand the motives of customers for posting fake reviews and how to deal with them.