Online Product Review Impact: The Relative Effects of Review Credibility and Review Relevance

Abstract This study conceptualizes, operationalizes, and identifies the drivers of online product review (OPR) relevance and examines its relative effect on OPR impact compared to review credibility. In contrast to previous studies, this study is the first to conceptualize review credibility as a distinct construct from reviewer expertise and trustworthiness comprising a cognitive-affective dimension (perceptions) and a behavioral dimension (likelihood to act). Results show that review relevance contributes significantly to explaining OPR impact and that review relevance and review credibility (drivers of OPR impact) provide a significantly better fit to the empirical data than review credibility alone. In fact, review relevance is almost an equally strong driver of OPR impact as review credibility. However, the relationships between review credibility and its two hypothesized drivers—reviewer trustworthiness and reviewer expertise—are mixed. While a significant positive relationship is found between credibility and trustworthiness, as expected, a significant negative relationship is found between credibility and expertise.