The in-depth transmission and reception process of the factors influencing review helpfulness from the signaling timeline perspective

Many existing studies have considered the factors influencing review helpfulness, mainly focusing on reviewer impact, review informativeness, and managerial response, based on signaling theory. However, previous studies have simply regarded these factors as independent signals, thus ignoring their in-depth transmission and reception processes. The conclusions about the impact of reviewers on review helpfulness are also inconsistent due to the inaccurate measurement of variables. To fill the above gaps, we followed the signaling timeline theoretical framework used in signaling theory and employed a bootstrapping analysis to examine how reviewer impact, review informativeness, and hotel managerial responses interact to influence review helpfulness. In this study, we used a unique dataset that included official labels from one leading online travel agency. The results show that reviewer impact may affect review helpfulness sequentially through review informativeness and hotel managerial response. Furthermore, by using official labels, both reviewer expertise and reviewer experience significantly affect review helpfulness. Finally, we discussed the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.