What makes population perception of review helpfulness: an information processing perspective

What makes online consumer reviews (OCRs) helpful to consumers has been an important issue to academics and practitioners. In this paper, we explicate the moderation role of the reviewer's similarity to the vocal population on the relationship between review characteristics and population-perceived review helpfulness from an information processing perspective. Vocal population refers to those community members who regularly post and read OCRs, respond to other users' posts, and evaluate other OCRs. We purposively focus on two types of similarity, i.e., linguistic style similarity and expertise similarity. The empirical results indicate that the two dimensions of similarity play different roles in shaping population perceptions of review helpfulness. Specifically, linguistic style similarity positively moderates the impact of review valence and review length on review helpfulness, while expertise similarity negatively moderates the effect of review valence and review length on review helpfulness. We also discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings.