To examine whether long reviews are uniformly more useful to readers, this study utilizes the experimental design approach to investigate the interplay of review depth, review breadth, and review language style on readers’ perceived usefulness and adoption intention of online hotel reviews. Drawing on the results from two experiments, review depth is proven to exert a positive impact on readers’ review usefulness and adoption intention. The moderating role of review breadth is verified, and the positive effect of review depth on review usefulness is attenuated (accentuated) when review breadth is high (low). The moderating role of review language style is also confirmed, and the result shows longer reviews written in literal language are considered more useful to readers than those written in figurative language. Being one of the first studies examining the interplay of review content and review style on review usefulness, this study provides important theoretical and practical contributions.

为了检验长评论是否对读者更有用，本研究利用实验设计方法来调查评论深度、评论广度和评论语言风格对读者感知在线酒店评论有用性和采用意愿的相互作用。根据两个实验的结果，评论深度被证明对读者的评论有用性和采用意愿产生积极影响。验证了评论广度的调节作用，当评论广度高（低）时，评论深度对评论有用性的积极影响减弱（增强）。评论语言风格的调节作用也得到证实，结果表明，用文字语言撰写的较长评论被认为比用比喻语言撰写的评论对读者更有用。