Investigating Usefulness Configurations of Online Consumer Reviews: A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Online reviews have a significant impact on consumers’ purchasing decisions. Many researchers have studied the relationship between review usefulness based on various factors related to online review, but existing studies have focused only on the linear relationship between variables methodologically. Therefore, this study examines the usefulness of online reviews from a configurational perspective derived from the complex interactions between elements, and aims to identify how these configurations differ according to product types. This study developed a conceptual model by combining HSM and ELM based on the theoretical discussion on the information processing and analyzed 7,316 cases collected from Amazon.com using fsQCA. As a result, three configurations affecting online usefulness were derived from search goods and four from experience goods. In short, consumers consume reviews through the complex interaction of various factors related to reviews, and the factors affecting the usefulness of search goods and experience goods are different.