情境因素对网络社群中消费者生成内容行为的影响研究——以IT产品消费为例

Web2.0技术的发展,使得消费者可通过在线网络或社区自由地生成内容,但少有研究关注情境因素对消费者生成内容行为的影响。本文通过从现有网络消费者社群中收集数据,采用客观度量的方式,研究了情境因素对消费者生成内容行为的影响。结果表明,消费者生成内容行为受到激励、标识、地位、知识和声望的影响。更具体地说,与无激励相比,消费者在有激励的条件下,对其他消费者的问题响应更加及时,响应的平均速度也更快,生成内容所含信息量更多;网络社群团队成员标识和级别地位都对消费者生成内容的频率及信息量产生正向影响;网络社群消费者的级别地位正向影响其生成内容领域的发展,并进而影响其生成内容频率的变化;网络社群消费者向其声望领域生成内容更加及时,且生成内容所含信息量更大。     

Does the host match the content? A taxonomical update on online consumption communities

Abstract

This article proposes a taxonomy of online consumption communities in order to address this rather ambiguously conceptualised research field. Specifically, intercommunity differences are investigated with regard to how content focus (brand vs activity) and its congruency with the type of host (doubled vs mixed) affect consumers’ posting behaviour. Based on an online survey (n = 888), a series of regressions of various benefits on posting behaviour supports the usability of the proposed taxonomy. In particular, social benefits had the strongest effect on consumers’ posting behaviour across all communities, while the effects of functional, altruistic and sharing benefits varied in significance and direction of influence when accounting for the different community characteristics. These findings help marketing managers to design online communities and motivate consumers to contribute.     

Antecedents of participation in online brand communities and their purchasing behavior consequences

This study intends to fill some gaps in knowledge about online communities and their influence on consumers’ purchase decisions. A review of the extant literature on online brand communities reveals that most prior studies have focused on identifying the factors associated with joining and participating in online communities. However, limited studies examine the implications of participation in online brand communities in terms of consumer behaviors, such as brand liking and intention to purchase the brand. In addition, these few studies have either focused on the influence of operational elements of the online community on purchase intention or on the influence of community members’ characteristics regarding purchase intention. Therefore, this study aims to provide an integrated framework for operational and user characteristics’ antecedents associated with consumers’ participation in online brand communities and their effect on purchase decisions. Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model. Data were collected via a survey of the Facebook pages of 282 members of Egyptian telecommunication companies. The findings provide insights into how these antecedents should be managed to enhance participation in virtual telecommunication communities.     

Social Capital and Consumer Value Co-Created Within an Online Health Community

Many health providers sponsor online communities that enable health consumers to connect and share experiences. This qualitative study draws upon both social capital and consumer behavior theories to demonstrate that consumers participating in the creation of social capital co-create value for themselves and each other. This netnographic study contributes and operationalizes theoretical frameworks for identifying social capital and consumer value within online communities. Results identify 14 social-capital-building practices and further reveal that these practices represent two distinct themes: practices that create a caring environment and practices that assist others. Findings indicate that members of online health communities gain affective, functional, social, and rational benefits such as empathy, self-esteem, status, connectedness, and efficiency. As a managerial and practical contribution, this study establishes online communities as an important component of patients’ healthcare networks not only for exchanging information and support but also as settings for accessing social capital.     

Consumers as legitimating agents: How consumer‐citizens challenge marketer legitimacy on social media

Previous research has shown that consumers increasingly challenge the legitimacy of marketers and unsolicited marketing communication in online contexts. Based on a qualitative study, this article examines how and for what reasons consumers challenge marketer legitimacy—the perceived appropriateness of marketers and their activities—in the empirical context of Reddit, a popular social news and community website. The study suggests that consumers challenge or accept marketer legitimacy in online communities based on particular, community and situation specific, legitimacy criteria that reflect and reproduce the values and norms of the community. In doing so, it is argued, consumers play a role as legitimating agents—consumer‐citizens that have the power to confer or deny legitimacy in the context of business‐society relations. Overall, the study advances knowledge in the field of consumer studies in two ways. First, it builds a symbolic interactionist perspective on consumer‐citizens as legitimating agents who enact their active citizenship role in the marketplace by assessing and constructing marketer legitimacy in online communities. Second, it offers an empirically grounded account of how and for what reasons consumer‐citizens challenge or accept the legitimacy of marketers and unsolicited marketing communication in online communities.     

虚拟社群中的品牌定位——基于用户生成内容点互信息的实证研究

互联网的迅速发展使得虚拟的品牌社群不断涌现,如何测量用户生成内容中有关品牌的定位,从而了解用户对品牌的感知情况,对于营销理论界和实务界都具有重要意义。在研究中,开拓性地使用了点互信息理论和语义分析方法,从用户生成的文本信息中挖掘用户对品牌的感知情况,并将其量化得到品牌知觉图。通过对数据的分析,了解品牌在虚拟社群的用户中感知定位与公司定位初衷的差异,并且得到相互竞争的品牌在相同的定位维度上的差异。     

消费者社群地位与生成内容有效性的关系研究

随着Web2.0技术的发展,消费者可通过在线网络或社区自由地生成各种各样的内容。通过对太平洋快问网收集的数据进行科学分析,结果表明:消费者的社群地位正向影响其生成内容的有效性;消费者生成内容的领域宽度中介了社群地位与生成内容有效性的关系,并从总体上对生成内容的信息量和有效性产生负向影响;消费者生成内容的频率中介了社群地位与生成内容有效性的关系,并从总体上对生成内容的有效性产生负向影响;消费者生成内容的信息量中介了社群地位与生成内容有效性的关系,并对生成内容的有效性产生正向影响。     

Investigating social motivations,opportunity and ability to participate in communities of virtual co‐creation

Communities of virtual co‐creation are emerging as a new form of consumer engagement, where through a collaborative and interactive process, ideas and knowledge from consumer are applied differently to create new value for the consumers themselves, the company and all stakeholders. The aim of this paper is to explore the drivers, namely motivation, opportunity and ability, of consumer willingness to participate in communities of virtual co‐creation. The role of social motivations, that is, altruism and social reputation, particularly relevant inside online communities, is investigated. Data were collected through an online survey on 180 consumers from diverse nationalities. The unit of analysis was a virtual co‐creation activity for food products. Findings show that consumer motivation and ability have a relevant influence on willingness to participate in co‐creation projects, while opportunity has not. In particular, ability showed to be the most relevant factor, suggesting that virtual co‐creation initiatives should be properly designed to facilitate the engagement of consumers. Further, results indicate that consumers' motivations are driven by both altruism and social reputation, where altruism plays a greater role. This confirms that social relations are key motivational drivers in virtual communities, where value is created through interaction with like‐minded people, exchange of information and experiences, provision of support.     

Cultural Differences in Consumer Engagement in Brand-Related SNS Groups: A Cross-Cultural Study of China and the United States

To gain a better understanding of consumer engagement in brand-related social network site (SNS) groups, this study examines how consumers engage with the brand and other members of the groups among different national cultures through the lens of brand community characteristics and collective value creation practices within brand communities. Through conducting a directed qualitative content analysis of two cases—consumer wall posts in a Facebook group and a Renren group—this study finds supporting evidence that although consumers in both groups actively shared their product use experiences, consumers in the Renren group tended to explicitly express their shared consciousness with other group members, share their product use experiences in a modest and respectful way, and actively engage in social networking, while consumers in the Facebook group tended to focus on product use sharing. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Accelerating new product diffusion: How lead users serve as opinion leaders in social networks

In social networks or, more specifically, online communities on tech-products, opinion leaders are important sources of advice for other consumers in the adoption and diffusion of new products. However, possibilities for potential users to exert their influence on opinion leadership are ignored. This study determines whether and how lead users may serve as opinion leaders in social networks and advise other consumers in the adoption and diffusion of new products. Our survey with 308 users in the Xiaomi and Huawei communities suggests that higher lead userness is positively and significantly associated with the likelihood of opinion giving and passing. Product-possessing innovativeness has a higher impact compared with information-possessing innovativeness. Product involvement does not enhance the effect of information-possessing innovativeness. The findings provide a better understanding of the formation of opinion leadership in social networks for an accelerated diffusion of new products.     

Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: What motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the Internet?

Through Web-based consumer opinion platforms (e.g., epinions.com), the Internet enables customers to share their opinions on, and experiences with, goods and services with a multitude of other consumers; that is, to engage in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication. Drawing on findings from research on virtual communities and traditional word-of-mouth literature, a typology for motives of consumer online articulation is developed. Using an online sample of some 2,000 consumers, information on the structure and relevance of the motives of consumers’ online articulations is generated. The resulting analysis suggests that consumers’ desire for social interaction, desire for economic incentives, their concern for other consumers, and the potential to enhance their own self-worth are the primary factors leading to eWOM behavior. Further, eWOM providers can be grouped based on what motivates their behavior, suggesting that firms may need to develop different strategies for encouraging eWOM behavior among their users.     

The Biotechnology Communication Paradox: Experimental Evidence and the Need for a New Strategy

In the past, communication strategies aimed at facilitating consumer acceptance of genetically modified foods have focused on technology-driven, top-down practices. The utility of these practices in influencing the extent to which consumers accept specific GM foods was tested in attitude change experiments involving 1655 consumers from Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the UK. Different information strategies were tested against a control group for their ability to change consumer attitudes. No attitude change occurred. Rather, results indicate that all strategies had a uniform attitude activation effect that significantly decreased consumers' preferences for GM foods as compared to the control group. The discussion focuses on why technology-driven information strategies have failed to convince consumers of the merits of GM foods, and relates these results to recent changes in consumer policy that are aimed at engaging consumers in the debate about innovation processes rather than attempting to align their views with those held by expert communities.     

Services for the underserved: unintended well-being

There is a lack of research on service consumption practices of Base of the Pyramid consumers. This study contributes to the Transformative Service Research agenda by understanding stigmatized service consumption practices and their effect on the well-being of these consumers; this has not been fully addressed until now. Additionally, it is shown that understanding the relations among consumers, communities, and informal service offerings results in the design of services with unintentional positive effects on well-being at individual, collective, and relational levels. Findings show that informal service offerings are non-discriminatory, hassle-free, jargon-free, and reputation-based. These findings pave the way to further explore such complex contexts to better understand the impact of service design on the well-being of such consumers. Positive practices can be adopted by any service industry that intends to serve that segment through the intentional redesign of offerings that are engaging, inclusive, and simple and acknowledge social standing.     

The impact of consumer local engagement on local store patronage and customer satisfaction

Abstract

This paper examines the drivers of local grocery retail patronage. Drawing on institutional and social network theory literature, we develop a framework to investigate how consumers’ personal values and engagement with local communities affect their satisfaction and local store patronage. We test our model with survey data on 1504 Finnish consumers. Our results show that the relationship between customer local engagement and local retail patronage is indirect rather than direct, and it is mediated by the vitality of local services, social interaction, and consumer satisfaction.     

Consumer participation in virtual communities: The role of personal values and personality

The important role that consumers play in virtual communities as active participants in the value co-creation process has been increasingly acknowledged in recent marketing thought and practice. This study applies and extends the well-established value–attitude–behaviour (VAB) model to investigate how personal values and personality jointly influence consumers' attitude and behaviour towards their participation in virtual communities. The results show that while the resultant conservation value dimension has an indirect influence on consumer participation behaviour in virtual communities through attitude, the extraversion trait has a direct effect. The findings clarify our understanding of how personal values and personality differently predict consumer participation in virtual communities, and confirm the role of personal values and the VAB model in explaining this phenomenon. This study suggests significant implications for virtual community marketing.     

The moderating effect of need for belonging and communal-brand connection on counterfeit purchasing

Developing social-links among consumers can increase firm performance but does having a communal-brand connection impact counterfeit consumption? Two studies are implemented to explore this question. Study 1 finds that there is a positive relationship between moral beliefs towards counterfeits and willingness to purchase counterfeits. Study 1 also discovers that a weak to average communal-brand connection moderates this relationship. However, study 2 reveals that need for belonging is a stronger moderator. In particular, consumers with a low to average need for belonging are less willing to purchase counterfeits when they hold unfavorable moral beliefs towards counterfeits but are more willing when they hold favorable moral beliefs. The results suggest that need for belonging levels influences a consumer's willingness to purchase counterfeit products. Managers are encouraged to promote messages to their brand communities that decrease moral beliefs towards counterfeits, such as counterfeit consumers are inauthentic and immoral.     

Leveraging Online Communities to Support the Brand and Develop the Community

While numerous organizations and consumers utilize interactive online marketing activities (e.g., creating discussion forums, having brainstorming sessions, and running surveys) to interact with the brand and fellow brand users, there is little research that addresses how important it is to offer community members activities based on their motivations to participate in the community. This research is an important first step at examining the degree to which marketers need to match marketing activities in online communities with community member motivations to affect brand and community outcomes. Using a longitudinal study of 256 members from 9 marketing research online communities in 3 different industries, this research finds that online communities can be used to positively influence a broad range of brand assessments, brand-supportive behaviors, and community-supportive behaviors. Furthermore, leveraging marketing activities in online communities is more complex than previously thought.     

Using the Internet to Facilitate Outshopping by Rural Residents: Survey and Implications

ABSTRACT

Outshopping is the behavior of consumers who make retail purchases outside of the community in which they live. Outshopping is most prevalent in rural communities and represents a serious threat to rural retailers. This paper investigates the impact of the Internet on outshopping by rural residents and examines behavior, attitudes, and future intentions. The study results indicate that rural consumers are using the Internet to facilitate outshopping and intend to significantly increase this behavior. These future intentions appear to be driven by high levels of satisfaction with the online buying experience. Implications for rural retailers are discussed.     

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) generation in new media platforms: The role of regulatory focus and collective dissonance

In this research, we examine the role of two motivational forces associated with creation of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM): regulatory focus and collective dissonance. Our studies show that generation of eWOM is enhanced by regulatory fit, while traditional WOM is dominated by the negativity effect. In study 1A, we show that prevention-focused consumers produce stronger intentions to post eWOM when they undergo a negative compared to a positive service experience. In study 1B, we find that promotion-focused consumers are more likely to post eWOM in reaction to a positive service experience when one's self-construal is independent. The final study shows that due to collective dissonance, consumers have greater intentions to create eWOM when their experiences are inconsistent with others' postings. We discuss the implications of these results for the development and management of eWOM communication in virtual communities.