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Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

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01-01-2014 | Original Empirical Research

Firm-hosted online brand communities and new product success

Authors: Richard L. Gruner, Christian Homburg, Bryan A. Lukas

Published in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science | Issue 1/2014

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Abstract

Many firms use online brand communities to support the launch of their new products. This study proposes a typology of firm-hosted online brand communities and examines whether such a classification system can improve predictions of new product success. A cross-industry analysis of 81 firm-hosted online brand communities shows that these communities reflect three archetypes. A subsequent survey of 170 community-hosting firms in the consumer durable goods industry reveals that the three types of communities are not equally important for new product success. Moreover, one archetype generally underperforms the other two as a new product support mechanism. Overall, the results demonstrate that firm-hosted online brand communities can be a predictor of new product success.

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The literature contains other attempts to classify online communities. For example, Correll (1995) developed four types of online community membership and participation: regulars, newbies, lurkers, and bashers. Hagel and Armstrong (1997) identified four types of online communities: communities of transaction, interest, fantasy, and relationship. These studies, however, do not (1) concentrate on online brand communities or communities hosted by firms, (2) develop a taxonomic classification system for online communities, or (3) examine whether online communities are related to new product success.

Product innovativeness and entry timing can interact with each other as contingencies. For example, a product may be late and incrementally innovative or late and radically innovative. To comply with space limitations, we do not address such interaction combinations and instead focus conceptually and empirically on the likely contingency effects of each factor separately. This approach enables us to establish a basic understanding of each factor’s individual contingency effects for future research.

We note that in one instance, a pairwise comparison involving the Restricted OBC variable is statistically only marginally significant (p = .079; Table 4).

Online communities that served other purposes than to establish relationships with customers and enhance new product success, such as corporate research (e.g., communispace.com) or open-source software development (see Hemetsberger and Reinhardt 2009) were not part of our content analysis.

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Title: Firm-hosted online brand communities and new product success
Authors: Richard L. Gruner
Christian Homburg
Bryan A. Lukas
Publication date: 01-01-2014
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science / Issue 1/2014
Print ISSN: 0092-0703
Electronic ISSN: 1552-7824
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-013-0334-9

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