Analytical Essay on Credibility and Trustworthiness of Online Reviews

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1. Introduction

Does anyone nowadays purchase a product or service without reading online customer reviews? The answer is: only very few people do. In fact, 82 percent of consumers read online reviews before purchasing a product (Kaemingk, 2019).

Online reviews, a form of electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM), are defined as information created by an actual or former consumer who has purchased the product or service and is made available via electronic vendor websites, online forums, blogs, review sites or social networking sites (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, & Gremler, 2004; Park, Lee, & Han, 2007). This type of customer-generated content can include customers’ product or service experience, their evaluation or their opinion about the product or service (Park et al., 2007).

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With the rise of online commerce, digital product reviews thrived and have become a primary source of information and assistance during the consumer’s decision-making process. Today, people often base their purchase decisions on information retrieved from online sources and are more reliant on the opinion of others (Cheung, Lee, & Rabjhon, 2008).

While the frequent use of eWOM has become more common, so have the concerns regarding the credibility of online reviews. One of the main concerns regarding online reviews’ trustworthiness is that the content might be fraudulent or manipulated by someone with a vested interest (Luca & Zervas, 2012). Theoretically, online reviews create benefits for both consumers and marketers by improving the accessibility of product information (Chan, Lam, Chow, Fong, & Law, 2017; Forman, Ghose, & Wiesenfeld, 2008; Karimi, & Wang , 2017). However, as online reviews can be published by anyone and usually do not require a verified identity, it becomes possible to manipulate reviews to enhance product ratings which constitute an impediment to the usefulness of online reviews (Thornhill, 2019). Compared to a few years ago, the problematic of fake reviews has become widespread and acquired particular relevance. According to data retrieved from ReviewMeta, the percentage of unverified online reviews on Amazon, reviews with no evidence that the reviewer has bought or used the product, has increased from 6 percent in 2018 to 31 percent at the beginning of 2019 (retrieved from Walsh, 2019). In March 2019 the number of unverified reviews on Amazon rose to approximately 56 percent, with an average star rating of 4.95 (out of 5), and outweighed the number of verified reviews (Walsh, 2019).

Consequently, the alarming numbers and the current threat to the trustworthiness of online reviews highlight the necessitude for empirical research on the topic of credibility in the area of eWOM. In order to assist review websites in strengthening consumers’ perception of eWOM, earlier academic research has examined several factors that drive the credibility and trustworthiness of online reviews. For instance, Morana and Muzelleca (2017) introduced the 4Cs of Credibility Framework, which attempts to summarize the factors that constitute eWOM credibility. In accordance, eWOM source and message influence credibility at a subordinate level (Morana & Muzelleca, 2017)

Traditionally, the majority of credibility studies has focused comprehensively on the effect of contextual cues within consumer reviews like the message length, valence or quality (Racherla, Mandviwalla, & Connolly, 2012; Salehan & Kim, 2015). For example, research showed that online reviews encompassing high-argument quality are more trusted. Deriving from that websites are recommended to implement mechanisms for assessing the reviews’ message quality. This enables them to display reviews of the highest message quality and thereby increase consumers’ trust in online reviews (Racherla et al., 2012).

Besides, the disclosure of the review source’s identity-descriptive information is another factor strengthening the perceived credibility of online reviews (Forman et al., 2008; Xie, Miao, Kuo, & Lee, 2011). Although the topic of review source identity has been addressed in past academic literature, in comparison to the amount of research on contextual review cues, it remains understudied. Yet, studies revealed that source information can be utilized as a heuristic cue to assess the credibility of online reviewers and thus raises perceived credibility of reviewers by revealing the reviewer’s details (Dou, Walden, Lee, & Lee, 2012; Xie et al., 2011). The review source’s perceived credibility, in turn, will cause readers to regard the review as trustworthy (Filieri, 2016).

However, the majority of studies concerning source credibility have treated identity disclosure as a binary variable (disclosed vs. not disclosed) and only investigated whether the disclosure itself impacts the readers’ perception of the review or reviewer (Munzel, 2016; Xie et al., 2011). Consequently, the question that arises is “Which disclosed reviewer identity-descriptive information leads readers to perceive the review source as credible?” In accordance, the primary purposes of this study are the following:

  1. To examine the extent to which the disclosure of personal information of the review source (gender, age, current country of residence) impacts customers’ perception of the reviewer’s credibility and their purchase intention in current low-trust age.
  2. To understand the moderating influence of reviewer-reader similarity on consumer’s perception of source credibility.

This study will provide valuable practical as well as theoretical contributions regarding the role of the review source.

One a theoretical level, the current research is going to deepen the understanding of credibility theory by uncovering to what extent the disclosure of specific source characteristics like the reviewer’s age, gender or current country of residence impact the reader’s perception of a review.

Furthermore, even though the influence of source identity on the consumer’s perception of reviews and their behavior has been already addressed, prior research has looked at the composition of credibility in the online environment during a time when fake reviews were scarce. Now that the threat of fraudulent reviews is as prevalent as never before, consumers have become more skeptical which suggests that they are more likely to draw interferences about missing information in reviewers’ profiles. Hence, consumers today might be less likely to believe that anonymous reviewers have similar tastes to their own (Naylor, Lamberton, & Norton, 2011) but instead are more likely to question the reviewer’s credibility and interpret the non-disclosure of identity descriptive information negatively. Subsequently, the validity of past findings might be questionable in this low-trust age and the thesis is going to provide current empirical evidence on the effect of source identity on credibility perceptions.

Besides, the findings of this study are expected to have practical implications. When examining different online review websites, it becomes apparent that the extent to which many online review sites, such as “TripAdvisor”, “Yelp”, “Google” or “Amazon”, provide information about the reviewers diverges vastly (Appendix, Table 1). By studying the effect of the disclosure of identity-descriptive variables, this research will provide valuable information for electronic vendors on how to increase sales by encouraging or requiring customers to disclose specific types of personal information such as age or location when signing up as a reviewer.

In addition, the findings of the study can be utilized as guidelines by review website operators to ease customers’ information search. Since consumers apply heuristics during the search for information, providing the most relevant characteristics of the reviewer next to the review content might facilitate the search and potentially enables consumers to save time and effort.

2. Theory and Hypotheses

Figure 1 – Conceptual Model

2.1 The Review Source

EWOM has become a prevalent instrument for consumers to search for product information. Although, in recent years the credibility of online reviews has been repeatedly criticized. One reason why online reviews are considered less credible is because online reviews can be published by anyone and usually do not undergo an accurate verification process which could lead to a growing number of fraudulent reviews (Kusumasondjaja, Shanka, & Marchegiani, 2012). Thereby, when relying on eWOM consumers face uncertainty with regard to the trustworthiness of information and have to distinguish truthful from deceptive reviews (Kusumasondjaja et al., 2012). According to the social identity theory, consumers can reduce such uncertainty by choosing to communicate with similar others (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Hence, disclosing identity-descriptive information of the source helps communicators to identify individuals who share similar values and characteristics (Kusumasondjaja et al., 2012). The source and the availability of source information are thus essential factors throughout the process of information search and credibility evaluation.

There are further reasons according to prior empirical research why the source plays a substantial role in online communication. First, the disclosure of the source’s identity constitutes a heuristic device that increases consumers’ efficiency in processing a large amount of information (Forman et al., 2008). Second, source identity positively impacts source credibility which amplifies the usefulness of information (Sussman & Siegal, 2003). This argument is supported by Kusumasondjaja et al. (2012), who revealed that reviews are perceived more credible once reviewer’s self-descriptive information is disclosed, compared to when the reviewer’s identity is not disclosed. Correspondingly, Ghose and Ipeirotis (2010) discovered that the disclosure of the reviewer’s identity-descriptive information positively influences the helpfulness ratings of the review.

2.2 The Effect of Disclosure of Identity-Descriptive Reviewer Information on Perceived Source Credibility

Source credibility entails that positive characteristics of a communicator affect the extent to which the message receiver values and accepts the information transmitted (Ohanian, 1990). According to Hovland, Janis and Kelley (1953), source credibility is composed of two main dimensions, namely, trustworthiness and expertise. Trustworthiness implies that consumers perceive the source of communication as reliable and believe it objectively provides information (Ohanian, 1990; Ohanian, 1991). Expertise is defined as “the extent to which a communicator is perceived to be a source of valid assertion” (Hovland et al., 1953).

The findings of previous research on credibility theory imply that the disclosure of source information positively impacts their perceived expertise or trustworthiness. For instance, Forman et al., (2008), who studied the phenomenon of information disclosure in an online community setting, discovered that individuals who reveal identity-descriptive information are considered to be more trustworthy, than a person who does not disclose such information.

Nevertheless, in existing literature, it remains underexplored which specific type of identity-descriptive details consumers are relying on to judge the reviewer’s credibility. Prior studies only measure the impact of certain source characteristics on source credibility while neglecting other essential information from reviewers such as age. In the conceptual model of this paper, it is proposed that perceived source credibility is influenced by the disclosure of the age, gender and country of residence of the reviewer.

First, the disclosure of the reviewer’s country of residence in a review is one type of information that can activate identification and discernment. For instance, if reviewers disclose their location in their reviewer profiles, this can affect how the readers will judge the reviewer’s credibility (Park, Xiang, Josiam, & Kim, 2014). According to Park et al. (2014), when the disclosed location of the reviewer is consistent with the review content that will result in a higher level of the perceived trustworthiness of the reviewer.

Second, gender might constitute another influencing factor of source credibility. However, the evidence on this relationship between gender and source credibility remains contradictory. White and Andsager (1991), who investigated the effect of gender on the credibility of newspaper columnists, found that there is no significant relationship between the columnist’s gender and the perceived credibility of the columnist. However, subsequent research on the same topic concluded that female columnists were seen as more credible than male columnists (Armstrong & McAdams, 2009). Therefore, it remains to be determined if gender has a significant influence on perceived credibility, and whether women or men are viewed as a more credible source of information.

Third, the reviewer’s age is an alternative type of demographic information that could potentially influence how readers perceive the review source. Yet, the effect of the reviewer’s age on source credibility was only studied in combination with the disclosure of other types of demographic information such as gender. Su, Lehto R., Lehto, Y., Yi, Shi, and Liu (2017), found that web pages revealing the reviewer’s gender and age are considered as more credible than web pages that do not disclose such demographic information. Hence, the isolated effect of the disclosure of the review source’s age on perceived source credibility remains to be asserted.

In conclusion, a detailed investigation into the self-disclosure of the reviewer will tend to be valuable in understanding how consumers determine the credibility of the source in an online review environment. Considering the literature, reviewer profiles that disclose identity-descriptive details such as age, gender or current state of residence are expected to attain a higher level of perceived source credibility. Thus, the following hypotheses are to be tested:

  • H1a: The disclosure of the reviewer’s gender will positively impact the perceived source credibility of consumers.
  • H1b: The disclosure of the reviewer’s age will positively impact the perceived source credibility of consumers.
  • H1c: The disclosure of the reviewer’s current state of residence will positiv

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