Expert Online Review Platforms: Interactions between Specialization, Experience, and User Power

Abstract

Using the “Computers are social actors” paradigm, this study brings the concept of power to human–computer interactions in tourism. Building on theories of social power and deliberate practice, the authors examine psychological effects of expert power of online travel review platforms (influencer) and its interaction effects with the power of users (influenced). Two expert platform attributes are conceptualized: specialization and experience. A significant interaction effect was identified between platform specialization, platform experience, and user power on perceived information-task fit using a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment. When users are powerful, specialization affected perceived information-task fit for low-experience platforms; no significant effect was evident for high experience platforms. When users are powerless, specialization did not affect perceived information-task fit, regardless of experience condition. Perceived information-task fit mediated the effect of specialization on intention to use. The findings contribute to power discourses by exploring the workings of expert power.

Antecedents of human-robot collaboration: theoretical extension of the technology acceptance model

“…A total of 500 employees from the TTH industry in the USA (recruited from MTurk) were randomly asked to participate in the survey with a screening question (“Do you currently work in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry?”) at the beginning. “MTurk has recently become a popular source of data in tourism research owing to its reliability, validity, and time and cost-effectiveness” (Mehraliyev et al , 2021, p. 389). The purposive sampling method was used to collect the research data from the TTH industry with different geographical distributions in the research area.…”

Enhancing visit intention in heritage tourism: The role of object‐based and existential authenticity in non‐immersive virtual reality heritage experiences

“…When implemented in a heritage tourism context, VR technologies have been argued to provide tourists with unique and authentic experiences (Jin et al, 2020; Tsai, 2020). While authenticity has been widely recognized to have the potential to affect visitors' satisfaction and behavior in heritage tourism in‐person experiences (Fu, 2019; Yu et al, 2020), a limited number of studies investigated whether the authenticity conveyed by VR, specifically through non‐immersive representations of a heritage site, can also have a meaningful impact on tourist satisfaction and behavioral intentions (Mehraliyev et al, 2021). Kim, Lee, et al (2020) successfully used the stimulus‐organism‐response (SOR) model by Mehrabian and Russell (1974) and measured authenticity to predict cultural VR experiences.…”

Sentiment analysis in hospitality and tourism: a thematic and methodological review

“…Moreover, they established a methodology for “classifying documents, not by topic, but by overall sentiment” (Ibid., p. 1) in a case study of movie reviews. Social media have a special power in hospitality and tourism (Mehraliyev et al , 2020b, 2020c; Nusair, 2020) because of its information-intensive and experience-based nature (Wang et al , 2002). Along similar parallels, sentiment analysis research is/should be of special importance to hospitality and tourism.…”