The Influence of Social Capital in an Online Community on Online Review Quality in China

Collaboration is to make full use of the advantages of each one, not only saving time but also saving resources. As a form of collaboration, online reviews attract attentions of scholars and businessmen in China. However, previous research mostly explores how review quality affects product sales or how review content influences quality of online review. In this study, we present how social capital of reviewers affects the quality of review. Based on the social capital theory and social network theory, we consider a reviewer´s social network, in degree and out degree, experience, and activity, and build a theoretical model for review quality. We use 1764 reviews in an online community in China to test our hypotheses through the Tobit regression method. The research results not only make theoretical contributions to research on online review quality, but also help enterprises manage and apply online reviews effectively.