The effect of review visibility and diagnosticity on review helpfulness – An accessibility-diagnosticity theory perspective

Review visibility is the amount of time that a review remains visible to consumers on the first or home page. The Accessibility-Diagnosticity Theory (ADT) suggests that visibility paired with diagnosticity will likely be stronger in affecting user actions. This study explores the effects of various visibility and diagnostic measures on review helpfulness. We also compared machine-learning models to capture ADT-based and traditional constructs to study their joint effects on review helpfulness. The results show that the ADT-based constructs and their interactions are robust in predicting review helpfulness. A parsimonious set of predictors that outperforms many traditional predictors is proposed. The managerial implications are also presented.