Information Usefulness and Attitude Formation a Double-Dependent Variable Model (DDV) to Examine the Impacts of Online Reviews on Consumers

Abstract

With the popularity of online shopping, a large body of studies have paid much attention to the factors influencing consumers’ information seeking and assessing. However, theoretical development and empirical testing are still not enough to explain this phenomenon, that is, during the information seeking and assessing process, what factor play a decisive role is a question needed to be deeply explored. This study, thus, aim to understand the impact of the attributes of online reviews on consumer. In addition, we find that review volume (RV: a heuristic factor) have direct impacts on perceived usefulness (PU) and attitudes (ATT), while source credibility (SC: another heuristic factor) only influences the perceived usefulness (PU), but no effects on attitudes (ATT). As for the moderating effects, perceived social-psychological risk (PSR) moderates the effects of both reviews volume (RV) and source credibility (SC) on perceived usefulness and attitudes. We explored the reasons underlying those findings , and also discuss implications for both researchers and practitioners.