The Influence of eWOM and Editor Information on Information Usefulness in Virtual Community

This study proposes that editor information strength and completeness, as well as electronic word-ofmouth (eWOM) strength, completeness and quantity have positive effects on the information readers’ general perception of information usefulness in the virtual community; we further predict that sense of belonging can moderate these variables’ effects on information usefulness. We collect 289 data from two famous third party review forums in China, the analytical results confirm 4 of the 5 main effect hypotheses, which indicate that both editor and eWOM information, if possessing certain attributes, can significantly affect information reader’s perception of information usefulness. Furthermore, we confirm sense of belonging can significantly moderate 3 of the 5 independent variables’ effects on information usefulness; it validates the significance to take information reader’s sense of belonging into consideration during their information processing.