Beyond the words: how reviewer status and review features jointly affect helpfulness in online employee reviews

This study examines how the employment status of reviewers, specifically whether they are current or former employees, influences the perceived helpfulness of online workplace reviews. Using a dataset of 3.7 million employee reviews, we find that reviews written by current employees are generally perceived as more helpful than those written by former employees. To explore this effect, we analyze whether textual cues such as length, sentiment, and specificity interact with reviewer identity. Current employees tend to write longer reviews that include more emotional expression and specific content. Among these features, review length, which is associated with greater informativeness and perceived credibility, increases perceived helpfulness. In contrast, sentiment and specificity, which reflect subjectivity, either reduce credibility or have no significant effect. These findings suggest that the helpfulness advantage of current employee reviews depends on how well the content aligns with readers’ expectations of informative and credible communication. This study contributes to understanding how reviewer characteristics and textual features jointly shape credibility judgments in online labor platforms.