Exploring effects of source similarity, message valence, and receiver regulatory focus on yelp review persuasiveness and purchase intentions

Abstract

This study is among the first to investigate the impact of message, source, and receiver characteristics on user attitudes toward Yelp reviews, with the subsequent impact of these attitudinal evaluations on review persuasiveness. Specifically, it examines the roles of review valence (positive/negative) and sidedness (one-sided/two-sided), as well as perceived similarity with the reviewer, on user perceptions of helpfulness, trustworthiness, and credibility of the review. The study also tests moderating effects of perceived source similarity and user regulatory focus on the relationships among message characteristics, attitudinal variables, and purchase intentions. Our results disconfirm the negativity bias reported in previous studies and indicate that positive reviews are perceived as more trustworthy, credible, and helpful than negative or twosided reviews. Review helpfulness and credibility, in turn, positively impacts its persuasiveness, with regulatory focus playing a complex nuanced role in the persuasiveness -behavioral intentions relationship. Based on the findings, future research avenues and managerial implications are proposed.

Online Review Helpfulness: Role of Qualitative Factors

“…Third, the cognitive processing of text is highly contextual and could be influenced by reviewer characteristics (Pentina, Bailey, & Zhang, 2015). As a result, reviewer characteristics could influence consumers' perceptions about the review (Zhang, Wu, & Mattila, 2014).…”

The impact of regulatory focus and word of mouth valence on search and experience attribute evaluation

“…engage in positive or negative word of mouth (De Matos and Rossi, 2008;Sweeney et al, 2005;Harrison-Walker, 2001). A limited number of studies till date have shown that the impact of regulatory focus on product decisions can be moderated by the word of mouth valence (Pentina et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2010), albeit with interesting differences. Zhang et al (2010) finds when regulatory focus is matched with promotion (prevention) consumption goals, positive (negative) word of mouth is more persuasive than negative (positive) word of mouth.…”

“…For example, they do not study the effect of word of mouth valence on product attitude and choice, a variable that is important for regulatory focus literature (Motyka et al, 2014) (Gap 3). Further, the limited research that connects regulatory focus and word of mouth (Pentina et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2010) fail to consider the recent theoretical developments in the regulatory focus literature, and just propagate their hypotheses based on match between regulatory foci and valence of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 information. For example, both Pentina et al (2015) and Zhang et al (2010) argue that promotion (prevention) foci are more sensitive to positive (negative) information as it helps them to achieve (avoid) positive versus negative outcomes.…”

Spatial analysis of users-generated ratings of yelp venues

“…is. In this regard, some researchers have tried to use Yelp reviews to analyze ratings of business venues from different perspectives, including influence of consumer reviews on purchase decisions (e.g., [14,20]), fraud and credibility of reviews (e.g., [12,15]), prediction of venue ratings (see [6,7,9,10,16,29]), venue recommendation [4,13,22,30]. Although more and more researchers are interested in Yelp data, exploiting geospatial information of Yelp data is missing in most of the aforementioned studies.…”