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The effects of corporate, review and reviewer characteristics on the helpfulness of online reviews: the moderating role of culture

The effects of corporate, review and reviewer characteristics on the helpfulness of online... The authors investigated the effects of the characteristics of reviews, reviewers and corporate factors on review helpfulness and assessed the role of culture in moderating these relationships.Design/methodology/approachA research model was established based on the elaboration likelihood and information adoption models. To empirically analyze this research model, 10,611 TripAdvisor reviews from 9 countries were collected. In addition, a zero-inflated negative binomial model and multilevel analysis were employed in consideration of the data characteristics.FindingsThe results revealed that review depth had a positive effect on review helpfulness, and review ratings and reviewer expertise had a negative effect. As a corporate characteristic, hotel size had a negative effect on review helpfulness. In addition, the effects of review rating, reviewer expertise and hotel rating exhibited significant differences based on the moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance and power distance level.Originality/valueThe results of this study expand the review helpfulness literature by explaining the inconsistent findings of previous studies via cultural theory. In addition, past research in this field has mainly focused on analyzing only review and reviewer characteristics, while this study demonstrated that company size negatively affects review helpfulness based on the signaling theory. Finally, this study contributes to cultural comparison literature by discovering that the processing of review information by consumers differs according to their cultural background. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Internet Research Emerald Publishing

The effects of corporate, review and reviewer characteristics on the helpfulness of online reviews: the moderating role of culture

Lee, Jungwon; Park, Cheol
Internet Research , Volume 32 (5): 33 – Sep 7, 2022
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Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
1066-2243
DOI
10.1108/intr-11-2020-0632
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Abstract

The authors investigated the effects of the characteristics of reviews, reviewers and corporate factors on review helpfulness and assessed the role of culture in moderating these relationships.Design/methodology/approachA research model was established based on the elaboration likelihood and information adoption models. To empirically analyze this research model, 10,611 TripAdvisor reviews from 9 countries were collected. In addition, a zero-inflated negative binomial model and multilevel analysis were employed in consideration of the data characteristics.FindingsThe results revealed that review depth had a positive effect on review helpfulness, and review ratings and reviewer expertise had a negative effect. As a corporate characteristic, hotel size had a negative effect on review helpfulness. In addition, the effects of review rating, reviewer expertise and hotel rating exhibited significant differences based on the moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance and power distance level.Originality/valueThe results of this study expand the review helpfulness literature by explaining the inconsistent findings of previous studies via cultural theory. In addition, past research in this field has mainly focused on analyzing only review and reviewer characteristics, while this study demonstrated that company size negatively affects review helpfulness based on the signaling theory. Finally, this study contributes to cultural comparison literature by discovering that the processing of review information by consumers differs according to their cultural background.

Journal

Internet Research – Emerald Publishing

Published: Sep 7, 2022

Keywords: eWOM; Internet marketing; Hotel industry; Culture; Power distance; Uncertainty avoidance

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