KOREASCHOLAR

While researchers have demonstrated the benefits of customer reviews on company sales, a largely uninvestigated issue is the interplay between emotions and cognitive cues of information in the processing of online reviews. Drawing on Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, this paper analyzes: (i) the independent effect of each dimension of emotions (arousal and pleasure), empathy with the reviewer and persuasiveness on perceived helpfulness of online reviews; (ii) the impact of perceived helpfulness on eWOM adoption; (iii) the moderating effect of sequence of reviews on the impact of emotions on perceived helpfulness of online reviews. In order to test the hypotheses of the model an experimental subjects-design was carried out using valence order: positive-negative vs. negative-positive as a condition. Data was collected in January 2016 using a sample of 830 Spanish TripAdvisor users. Participants were instructed to imagine a situation where they were going out for dinner to an Italian restaurant with friends and they were told to read a total of 10 reviews about the restaurant in the same order they were displayed and answer the questions that followed. Data analysis shows a bias effect of sequence of reviews on the impact of emotions and empathy with the reviewer on review helpfulness, which, in turn, influences eWOM adoption. When the sequence of TripAdvisor reviews begins with positive commentaries (POS-NEG), pleasure elicited by eWOM is a stronger driver of perceived helpfulness and empathy with the reviewer than if the sequence is the opposite (NEG-POS). On the contrary, arousal only triggers eWOM helpfulness when the user reads negative commentaries followed by positive ones. This study is novel because it explains how emotions and perceived usefulness of online reviews play a central role in eWOM adoption in tourism services to make consumption decisions.

• Carla Ruiz(University of Valencia, Spain)
• Enrique Bigné(University of Valencia, Spain)
• Rafael Currás(University of Valencia, Spain)