Brand community participation in Taiwan: Examining the roles of individual-, group-, and relationship-level antecedents

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Abstract

This study extends brand community research by proposing and testing a model of user participation in brand communities. The authors conceptualize three levels of antecedents of brand community participation (individual, relationship, and group) based on qualitative results and an extensive literature review. The empirical analysis derives from data pertaining to car brand communities in Taiwan and supports most of the hypotheses. However, some differences emerge between Taiwanese and Western car brand users with regard to relationship-level factors. In addition, perceived critical mass accounts for some social mechanisms that underlie members' decisions to participate in the brand community. Finally, a quantile regression analysis extends prior literature by showing that different rules of exchange motivate brand users, depending on their participation levels. The paper discusses the managerial implications of these findings as well as several important research issues and avenues.

Introduction

Even in unresponsive marketing environments, Muñiz and O'Guinn (2001, p. 412) define a brand community as “a specialized, nongeographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships among users of a brand” which offers a fresh, effective, and vital means to forge deep, enduring, affective bonds between consumers and brands (Thompson and Sinha, 2008). This consumer-centric, co-creative, and relational approach increasingly is heralded as a pillar of brand differentiation and sustainable competitive advantage (Thompson et al., 2006). Marketing scholars dedicate considerable effort to understanding the process of brand community cultivation (e.g., Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006, McAlexander et al., 2002, Muñiz and O'Guinn, 2001) with the growing recognition that a brand community creates value in the exchange process.

A key feature of this process is brand community participation, defined as the extent to which a member actively engages in community activities and interacts with other brand community members. Community participation motivates members to integrate into the community by encouraging them to participate in shared rituals and traditions, thereby perpetuating the community's history, culture, and consciousness. Participation ensures a community's long-term growth by attracting new members and strengthening the foundation of older members. Brand managers also can benefit from community participation that offers valuable insights into potential product design improvements and new product development opportunities (Algesheimer et al., 2005).

Previous research on brand communities suggests various outcomes of brand community cultivation. For example, McAlexander et al. (2002) posit that community participation encourages multifaceted relationships (i.e., between owners and the community, as well as between customers and the brand) that exert direct, positive, and long-term influences on brand loyalty. Thompson and Sinha (2008) also find that higher levels of participation increase consumers' likelihood of adopting a new product from the preferred brand while decreasing their likelihood of adopting new products offered by competitive brands. However, Muñiz and O'Guinn (2001, p. 427) caution managers that brand communities could “pose enormous rumor control problems,” and Algesheimer et al. (2005) find that normative pressure results in reactance, which can have negative effects on consumers' behavioral intentions.

Such studies tend to focus on the outcome variables of community participation and contrastingly this paper attempts to understand the factors that influence users to engage in brand communities. Community participation involves complex, interpersonal exchange processes, so this study focuses on individual- and relationship-level determinants, as well as traditional group-level factors. Wasko and Faraj (2005) investigate individual, relational, and group-level factors influencing voluntary knowledge contributions but cannot confirm whether empirical findings in computer-mediated knowledge exchange networks extend to offline brand communities in a study of contribution behavior in electronic networks of practice. Therefore, this study aims to enhance understanding of the antecedents of brand community participation and extend prior research by simultaneously investigating three levels of participation factors.

Moreover, no prior research examines member brand community participation outside Western societies, though factors of group participation that are effective in one national culture may lead to different outcomes or even be inappropriate in another. For example, considerable evidence suggests that Asian cultures are more group oriented than the United States (Hofstede, 1980, Schwartz and Bardi, 2001). Several relationship management studies (e.g., Atuahene-Gima and Li, 2002, Redding, 1993) suggest that, compared with Western societies, Chinese societies exhibit a lack of trust of people outside the family. Steenkamp and Baumgartner (1998) also stress the need to validate models developed in one country (often the United States) in other countries.

As Atuahene-Gima and Li (2002) observe, many Western businesses fail in Chinese societies because their managers do not understand individualized behavior and instead assume everyone responds similarly to marketing programs. Accordingly, the present study offers a cross-validation of the link between multidimensional drivers and brand community participation in an Asian-Pacific national culture, Taiwan.

Section snippets

Conceptual framework and hypothesis development

The proposed conceptual framework (Fig. 1) addresses several research gaps. This section offers a brief review of literature pertaining to community participation, as well as the theoretical rationale for the causal relationships in the proposed model.

Qualitative research method

Consistent with prior research, the present study examines brand communities using data collected from car clubs, because cars elicit high levels of emotion and involvement among owners that encourage brand community participation (Algesheimer et al., 2005). The 10 car brand communities in this study have dedicated online forums that attract many posts. Membership in the clubs ranges from 40 to 350 persons, and the clubs' longevity ranges from approximately 2 to 11 years. The communities revolve

Results

This study used LISREL 8.54 to test the theoretical model in Fig. 1. Following Anderson and Gerbing (1988), this study adopts a two-step testing approach: First, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provides the assessment of the measurement properties of the reflective latent constructs. Second, the study performs a structural equation analysis to test the research hypotheses. Additional analyses using quantile regression offer a more complete picture of the development of community

General discussion

A brand community's long-term viability depends critically on participation by members (Algesheimer et al., 2005, McAlexander et al., 2002). Although existing marketing literature notes the importance of brand community participation for cultivating brand communities, the antecedents of community participation receive little attention. The results from this study show that, with the exception of brand relationship satisfaction, three levels of antecedents (i.e., individual-, relationship-, and

Limitations and further research avenues

The study contains some limitations. First, this study uses cross-sectional data to derive causation. The results accord with the theoretically specified causal sequence outlined in the hypotheses although cross-sectional data do not permit the exclusion of alternative models. Further research using both archival and self-reported data could investigate the specific sequence of states and actions. Second, the investigation of the community participation factors includes a limited number of

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    The authors thank the anonymous JBR reviewers and AMS conference participants for their invaluable help with previous versions of the article. They also gratefully acknowledge the support and feedback provided by Associate Editor Tony Ellson.

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