Measurement of online review helpfulness: a formative measure development and validation

Rachita Kashyap (), Ankit Kesharwani () and Abhilash Ponnam ()
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Rachita Kashyap: ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education
Ankit Kesharwani: Indian Institute of Management Rohtak
Abhilash Ponnam: Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies

Electronic Commerce Research, 2023, vol. 23, issue 4, No 8, 2183-2216

Abstract: Abstract Existing measures of Review Helpfulness do not systematically capture the helpfulness of a review according to the content quality of the review. In a bid to answer this issue, we have developed and validated a formative measurement instrument of review helpfulness based on key review characteristics namely: (i) feature-wise information, (ii) comparison with other brands, (iii) grammar, and (iv) timeliness of the review post. This study adopted a mixed method approach to develop the construct. Focus groups were used to elicit the review characteristics that determine review helpfulness. Pre-tests were conducted to finalize the product and brand for which online reviews were to be assessed. Study has used orthogonal design for building survey questionnaires which contained example reviews with varying levels of the review characteristics. After validating the formative measure of review helpfulness, the theoretical as well as managerial implications of the measure were also discussed in detail.

Keywords: Online reviews; Electronic word of mouth; Review helpfulness; Formative measurement; Scale development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s10660-022-09531-1

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