Understanding Information Adoption in Online Review Communities: The Role of Herd Factors

Online consumer reviews have shown as an important source of information that affects individuals´ purchase decision making. To understand the influence of massive online reviews in online communities, this study extends prior research on information adoption by incorporating the perspective of herd behavior. We develop and empirically test a research model using data collected in an existing book review site. Our results illustrate two major aspects of findings. First, informational factors, including argument quality and source credibility, predict the adoption of online reviews. Second, we find strong empirical support for the impacts of herd factors, that is, discounting own information and imitating others posit significant influences on the adoption of online reviews. Our findings suggest that herd behavior plays an important role in consumers´ information adoption in online review communities. Discussions on both theoretical and practical implications are provided.