The moderating effect of movie production efficiency on the relationship between eWOM and review helpfulness

Purpose - This paper aims to intend to study the effect of movie production efficiency on eWOM and the moderating effect of efficiency on the relationship between eWOM and review helpfulness for movies. Design/methodology/approach - Production efficiency is suggested by comparing the power of movie resources (e.g. the power of actors, directors, distributors, production companies) against box-office revenue through a data envelopment analysis (DEA). Findings - The study results present that the number of reviews, the number of reviews by reviewers and review extremity are greater in an efficient subsample than in an inefficient subsample. For efficient movies, the review depth and the strength of the sentiments in the reviews are more positively related to review helpfulness. The prediction results for review helpfulness using the k-nearest neighbor method and automatic neural networks show that the efficient subsample provides a significantly lower prediction error rate than the inefficient subsample. The study results can support the effective facilitation of helpful online movie reviews. Originality/value - As the numbers of online reviews are increasingly used to provide purchase decision support, it becomes crucial to understand which attributes represent average helpful reviews for movies. While previous studies have examined eWOM (online word-of-mouth) variables as predictors of helpfulness on movie websites, the role of the production efficiency of movies has not been examined considering the relationship between eWOM and review helpfulness for movies.