Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of two types of presentation formats (textual and imagery) involving online restaurant reviews (ORRs). The study examines ORRs on the basis of review usefulness and review enjoyment; the study investigates the effects of the two presentation formats on review usefulness and review enjoyment. Design/methodology/approach: Data from 1,776 reviews were collected from Yelp.com using a Web data-harvesting technique. Hypothesized relations in the model were tested by Tobit regression analysis. Findings: Empirical results show that different formats of ORRs affect review usefulness and review enjoyment in different manners; whereas both attributes of textual format (review length and readability) affect review usefulness, both aspects of imagery format (physical environment images and food and beverage images) are positively related to review enjoyment. However, review length and food and beverage images are the most important factors affecting both review usefulness and review enjoyment. In particular, the relation between the two formats of ORRs and review usefulness is mediated by review enjoyment. Research limitations/implications: The focus of this study is the two formats of ORRs in terms of dual coding theory and the mediating role of review enjoyment. The findings help online review website organizers manage the operation of various review formats in a proper manner. Managers can effectively select those formats that would achieve the desired effect. Originality/value: Unlike previous studies on the relation of attributes to online reviews, this study examines the perceptions of ORRs’ usefulness and enjoyment. In addition, this study encompasses diverse ORR factors (review length, review readability, physical environment images, food and beverage images) for a more comprehensive interpretation of ORRs.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of whether smartwatches will survive and gain their own niche within the consumer electronics market. Based on the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) framework, this study identifies and validates the impacts of both technological and fashion-related factors (interactivity, autonomy, visual aesthetics and self-expression) on product attachment towards smartwatches through user satisfaction and pleasure derived from their smartwatches.Design/methodology/approach: The authors collected the survey data via online surveys from 198 respondents and tested measurement and structural models with the partial least square technique.Findings: The authors found that both technological characteristics (interactivity and autonomy) and fashion-related characteristics (visual aesthetics and self-expression) have an impact on product attachment through pleasure.Research limitations/implications: Several other important characteristics of traditional wrist-watches such as durability or workmanship are not considered in this study, but should be included in future studies. The three-item measure of autonomy may be insufficient for more sophisticated wearable devices in the future. In future studies, the impact of product attachment on users’ continued usage should be examined.Practical implications: This study provides important practical implications for smartwatch makers interested in product development, as users were found to consider fashion-related characteristics to be as important as technological characteristics.Originality/value: This study is the first study that considers both aesthetic and technological factors for IT acceptance in the context of wearable devices. Also, instead of traditional IT acceptance measures such as continued use, this study investigates users’ product attachment, which is more relevant to the case of wearable devices.

Online travel reviews have become increasingly important as a result of the intangible and heterogeneous characteristics of the tourism industry as well as the recent diffusion of social media. This exploratory case study intends to examine the comparative importance of the six heuristic attributes (reviewer location, reviewer level, reviewer helpful vote, review rating, review length, and review photo) with respect to review helpfulness in the online hotel review context. Moreover, the salience of the individual levels within each review attribute and the importance of the attributes in positive and negative review-rating groups are compared. In total, 1,158 reviews of a hotel on TripAdvisor were collected and analyzed through conjoint analyses. This study found that the review rating and reviewer helpful vote attributes are the two most important factors. Finally, three major propositions are suggested based on findings of the study, and several theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Sharing economy businesses require extensive trust-based communication between users and service providers to facilitate users’ positive persuasion processes. Based on Aristotle’s rhetorical theory, this study identifies three key persuasive cues (credibility, emotional bonding, and accommodation characteristics) and validates their roles in establishing users’ trust in an Airbnb setting. The moderating role of interactivity is further analyzed. Research findings from a survey sample of 171 Airbnb users indicate that persuasive cues are positively associated with trust in Airbnb hosts, which significantly leads to Airbnb brand trust. Interestingly, the moderating role of interactivity is only found in the relationship between emotional bonding and trust in Airbnb hosts. This study contributes to a better understanding of the factors that affect users’ trust building in the sharing economy context, and it offers guidance for platform providers to better operate their businesses by highlighting the important roles of persuasive cues and interactivity in users’ trust-building processes.

CouchSurfing is a free social-network-based online hospitality exchange network, aptly representing a new sharing economy phenomenon. Based on social capital theory and previous literature, this study attempts to answer why hosts help strangers without any expected economic benefit within online hospitality exchange networks. An empirical study based on a Web survey conducted with CouchSurfing hosts reveals that the most identified antecedents (enjoy helping, shared narratives, desire to make friends, and reciprocity) are significantly related to hosts’ intention to share accommodations. Interestingly, the overshadowing effect of trust in CouchSurfing on the intention to share accommodations is also found.