What makes an online review credible? A systematic review of the literature and future research directions

K. Pooja and Pallavi Upadhyaya ()
Additional contact information
K. Pooja: Manipal Institute of Management, Manipal Academy of Higher Education
Pallavi Upadhyaya: T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal Academy of Higher Education

Management Review Quarterly, 2024, vol. 74, issue 2, No 4, 627-659

Abstract: Abstract Online reviews of products and services are strategic tools for e-commerce platforms, as they aid in consumers’ pre-purchase decisions. Past research studies indicate online reviews impact brand image and consumer behaviour. With several instances of fake reviews and review manipulations, review credibility has become a concern for consumers and service providers. In recent years, due to growing webcare attitude among managers, the need for maintaining credible online reviews on the e-commerce platforms has gained attention. Though, there are several empirical studies on review credibility, the findings are diverse and contradicting. Therefore, in this paper, we systematically review the literature to provide a holistic view of antecedents of online review credibility. We examine variables, methods, and theoretical perspective of online review credibility research using 69 empirical research papers shortlisted through multi-stage selection process. We identify five broad groups of antecedents: source characteristics, review characteristics, consumer characteristics, interpersonal determinants in the social media platform and product type. Further, we identify research issues and propose directions for future research. This study contributes to existing knowledge in management research by providing the holistic understanding of the “online review credibility” construct and helps understand what factors lead to consumers’ belief in the credibility of online review. The insights gained would provide managers adequate cues to design effective online review systems.

Keywords: Review credibility; Systematic literature review; Online review; eWOM credibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M00 M30 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11301-022-00312-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:manrev:v:74:y:2024:i:2:d:10.1007_s11301-022-00312-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11301

DOI: 10.1007/s11301-022-00312-6

Access Statistics for this article

Management Review Quarterly is currently edited by Thomas Reutterer, Jonas F. Puck, Engelbert Dockner and Anne d'Arcy

More articles in Management Review Quarterly from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().