Subjective perception patterns of online reviews: A comparison of utilitarian and hedonic values

Online reviews are very important for the decision making of tourists, and such importance continues to grow as these reviews affect not only the tourism industry but also the operators of review platforms. Therefore, those factors that affect the perceived value of online reviews need to be investigated. Although the criteria and viewpoints for judging the value of these reviews may differ from one person to another, the existing studies on online reviews have not considered such differences. Therefore, this study aims to identify the differences in the patterns of the perceptions toward the utilitarian and hedonic values of online reviews. Building on a theoretical discussion of how information is processed during the decision making of individuals, this study develops a conceptual model that comprises three factors (i.e., the heuristic-reviewer, heuristic-review, and systematic-review factors) related to online reviews. For the data analysis, 2616 cases collected from Yelp.com were analyzed by using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis approach. The four patterns of perceptions toward the utilitarian value of online reviews (i.e., administrative reader, analytic reader, synthetic reader, and collaborative reader patterns) were derived. The three patterns of perceptions toward the hedonic value of these reviews (i.e., administrative-expertise-, synthetic-reviewer-, and nurturer-authenticity-focused readers) were also extracted. The results revealed some differences among those factors that influence the recognition of the utilitarian and hedonic values of online reviews.