TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing the Impact of Textual Content Concreteness on Helpfulness in Online Travel Reviews
AU - Shin, Seunghun
AU - Chung, Namho
AU - Xiang, Zheng
AU - Koo, Chulmo
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2016S1A3A2925146).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2019/4/1
Y1 - 2019/4/1
N2 - The online travel review has become one of the most influential information sources for travelers’ decision making. This research primarily aims to examine the relationship between review textual content concreteness and review helpfulness in the tourism context. In particular, we examine how this relationship plays out under two individual circumstances, namely, temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency. Based on the construal level theory and feeling-as-information theory, two experiments are conducted to test whether the influence of review concreteness is moderated by temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency. The results show that the main effect of review concreteness is significant; however, in contrast to the assumptions of theories and results of relevant studies, both interaction effects of temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency are not. Finally, we interpret the findings and discuss the implications and limitations of this research.
AB - The online travel review has become one of the most influential information sources for travelers’ decision making. This research primarily aims to examine the relationship between review textual content concreteness and review helpfulness in the tourism context. In particular, we examine how this relationship plays out under two individual circumstances, namely, temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency. Based on the construal level theory and feeling-as-information theory, two experiments are conducted to test whether the influence of review concreteness is moderated by temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency. The results show that the main effect of review concreteness is significant; however, in contrast to the assumptions of theories and results of relevant studies, both interaction effects of temporal distance and risk–benefit tendency are not. Finally, we interpret the findings and discuss the implications and limitations of this research.
KW - construal level theory
KW - feeling-as-information theory
KW - online travel review
KW - risk–benefit tendency
KW - temporal distance
KW - textual content concreteness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052558642&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0047287518768456
DO - 10.1177/0047287518768456
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85052558642
SN - 0047-2875
VL - 58
SP - 579
EP - 593
JO - Journal of Travel Research
JF - Journal of Travel Research
IS - 4
ER -