Brand community integration, participation and commitment: A comparison between consumer-run and company-managed communities

Abstract

In the past two decades there has been a growth in the rate at which consumers join, companies use, and researchers study brand communities. Given the expansion of brand communities, scholars insistently analyze why individuals join and stay in them. However, no study concurrently examines the links among the members' integration, participation and commitment to a brand community. Furthermore, research conceive brand communities as homogenous. Whether the feelings and behaviors of members of different kinds of communities, and specifically consumer-run and company-managed brand communities, are comparable is unknown. Using a sample of 2,167 consumers of a leading motorcycle brand, this study examines the members' integration, participation and commitment to consumer-run and company-managed communities. The findings reveal that consumer-run communities stimulate higher levels of integration, participation and commitment than the companymanaged communities, but that the mechanisms connecting integration, participation and commitment are invariant across the two types of community.

Company versus consumer performance: does brand community identification foster brand loyalty and the consumer’s personal brand?

“…Social media allows people to create and manage a network in which members can collaborate and interact with everyone at the same time (Pedeliento et al 2020). Users can benefit from connecting with other consumers (Hajli 2014; Stephen and Toubia 2010), celebrities and businesses (Hajli 2014;Ilicic and Webster 2016;Saboo et al 2016), which also provide online consumer services (Chua and Banerjee 2013; Karakaya and Barnes 2010).…”

“…The relationships between virtual communities' members and brands, and the consequent community identification, are still confusing to companies and have become a major issue for brand research (e.g. Zaglia 2013;Wolter et al 2016;Tuškej et al 2013;Manchanda et al 2015;Coelho et al 2018;Pedeliento et al 2020). One key point is the existence of two relationships: one relationship between consumers' brand identification and brand attachment and one among consumers that join a community and build such relationships with the community members (Millán and Díaz 2014).…”

The Impact of Online Brand Community Markers on Consumer Brand Engagement: Studying the moderating role of gender

“…These communities constitute a new marketing research tool used to collect reliable data about consumers, their needs, preferences, intentions, lifestyle, and post-purchase behaviour. It represents a new mean of relationship marketing for building connections with the customers and enhancing brand performance (Kumar & Nayak, 2018;Pedeliento et al, 2020;Veloutsou & Black, 2020). These communities provide its members with valuable sources of information about the brand, constitute a network of relationships with like-minded members to share their experiences and express themselves.…”

“…Highly engaged consumers cherish the various community benefits including social, hedonic, and functional benefits (Laroche et al, 2012), and are involved in wide range of activities to build brand meaning and represent the brand within and outside the group boundaries (Veloutsou & Black, 2020). Accordingly, consumers engagement is the means of companies to get benefits from their participative membership in brand communities (Bowden et al, 2017), either initiated by consumer or by the company, including longterm relationships, loyalty, purchase intentions, higher sales, and insights to improve product innovation (Pedeliento et al, 2020).…”

“…The understanding of brand community population and how it affects the brand-community relationship and brand-based consequences have recently gained extensive attention from scholars and practitioners (Hoang et al, 2019;Islam & Rahman, 2017;Kumar & Nayak, 2018;Pedeliento et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2015). For instance, the recent work of Pedeliento et al, (2020) highlights the significance of members' demographic in brand community participation and brand community relationships in different types of brand communities.…”