• Knowledge Management Research
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.17-35
• /
• 2010

As the internet has been used widely, many online communities have been appeared. Initially, many users used online communities for communication and information sharing. Recently, users start using online communities for building, maintaining, and extending social networks which they did in offline environments previously. The importance of online community is considered by many scholars and also companies to use it strategically. Therefore many studies have focused on exploring characteristics of online communities. Most of them have emphasized the importance of online community. Few study focuses on dynamics within online community. By using social network analysis (SNA), this study tries to explore dynamics of online community. Specially, By measuring the centrality of online community and tracing its changes, this study investigates how the relationships among participants in online communities have been changed over the time. Findings of this study indicate that, as participants has joined in an online community over the time, an opinion leader is appeared, and her/his power is changed.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.5 no.4
• /
• pp.107-116
• /
• 2018

The aim of this study is to delve deeper into the online brand community study. This study tests (a) the effects of online brand community on its outcomes, (b) the impact of value creation practice construct as a whole, (c) the effects of value creating practice construct on the two types of loyalty, loyalty toward the brand and the community. Participants of this study (N=353) are members of four types of online brand communities (e.g., business-to-consumer virtual product support community, firm-hosted online community, user-generated online community, peer-to-peer problem-solving community, and social media based brand community). Data were collected online using Amazon Mechanical Turk from April 10, 2016 to May 10, 2016. The data were analyzed through structural equations modeling using AMOS 20. The three community markers (e.g., consciousness of kind, rituals and traditions, and moral responsibility) and the four value creation practices (e.g., social networking, impression management, community engagement, and brand use) are proved to be significant indicators of online brand community and value creation practice constructs, respectively. Test results showed that strong and effective online brand communities generate value creation practices, and value creation practices enhance brand loyalty. The mediating effects of community loyalty between value creation practices and brand loyalty were revealed.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.69-90
• /
• 2005

Online community as a business model has gotten much attention in online market. And it has been recognized as an increasingly important tool for better understanding and relationships with customers. Thus, There are needs for conducting researches, such as those being performed in social psychology area. Due to the lack of current researches on online community, variables that have been considered in social science and factors in relationship marketing are adopted in this study. The primary purpose of this research is to develop and test a model that explains the process of how sense of online community through relationship quality influences customer loyalty. The major findings of this study are as follows: First, sense of online community was found to have a positive influence on relationship quality. Second, relationship quality was found to have a strong positive effect on customer loyalty. Finally, relationship quality was found to have a mediation effect between the sense of online community and the customer loyalty. Implications of these findings are discussed for researchers and practitioners.

• Archives of design research
• /
• v.19 no.3 s.65
• /
• pp.131-142
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study is to develop an online community construct, which proposes an inclusive illustration of the structure of online communities, for online community designers. This study reviewed researches from psychology, sociology, management engineering, and practical reports to understand the characteristics and dynamics of online communities. The proposed online community construct visualizes the cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of online community. As the notion of community originates from geographical groups, and with the assumption that geographical community shares identical characteristics with online community, this study reviewed researches about geographical communities as a starting-point. Then the study went through three main perspectives (1) online community attributes, (2) sense of online community and (3) challenges of online community. Then this study proposed an online community construct that encompasses the reviewed frameworks. The online community can be seen as a congregation of members from two sources. One is from the 'Shared Goal' that meets the personal needs. Given the shared goal, members gather into the community without personal relationship and have more chances to feel the sense of belonging to their needs fulfillment or benefit. This befitting tendency leads to strengthening of membership. Public online forums fall under this classification. The other source is from the emotional connections that are already initiated by personal and casual contacts in the real world. The network of emotional connection can evolve into an online congregation of people under faint boundaries. Although there is no (or weak) shared goal, members are strongly bound to other members. Personal homepage or web log (blog) can be classified as an example of relationship-oriented community.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.261-273
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study is to find out how the online brand community characteristics affect customer behavior according to self-construal level and gender difference. The characteristics of online community are divided into interaction, objectivity, information provision, and activity reward. First, interactivity and activity compensation among the characteristics of online community have a positive effect on brand community commitment. On the other hand, the effect of purpose and information provision is insufficient. Second, the greater the commitment to the brand community, the higher the WOM effect is. Finally, this study shows that customers with dependent self-construal tendencies have more brand community support than customers with independent self-construal tendencies, and females show more brand community support than males. This study suggests an efficient marketing approach to companies through a brand community commitment by understanding the intrinsic motivation of consumers' self-construal level.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
• /
• v.36 no.3
• /
• pp.1-26
• /
• 2011

As brand is increasingly important as a competitive source and information and communication technology based on Internet is rapidly advanced, many companies have paid attention to online brand community that is expected to help strengthen the customer's awareness on their products and services. This study suggests four factors-interaction, purpose, playfulness, reward-that facilitate online brand community commitment, and examines the effect of online brand community commitment on brand loyalty from the perspective of social identity theory. For this purpose, 243 sample data were collected from three online brand community sites and the proposed research model was empirically tested using LISREL 8.7 based on structural equation model. In conclusion, this study proposed theoretical and practical implications along with its limitations and future studies.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.415-432
• /
• 2021

The growth of social media has enabled firms to create virtual organizations (online communities) in which value can be co-created with members. Yet, current typologies of firm-sponsored online communities focus either on the firm or participants, and not the interaction between them. This paper provides a systematic review of the online community literature from 2000 to 2018 to develop an understanding of the types of firm-sponsored online communities and the co-creation of value within them. Four types of sponsored online communities are found. These can be differentiated based on the output for the sponsoring firm and the level of self-organization of the communities. This study contributes to the discussion of value co-creation by (i) shedding light on differences among firm-sponsored online community types based on the level and nature of interaction within an online community; and (ii) examining the perceived value co-created through community interactive experiences.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.163-169
• /
• 2016

This study is to analyze factors affecting a growth of online community with perspectives of social network. Particularly this study tries to explore structural phenomenon built by interactions between users in a certain of free board belonging to the online community, in which focuses on one's writing a comments responding on those of others. With using SNA(Social Network Analysis), the social network data calculated from users' interaction shown as their comments were collected to draw out each individual's centrality value representing the structure of the online community and also we estimated duration time and the number of each comments as a proxy variable representing growth of the online community. And then cause-and-effect relationship between individual's centrality value and the duration time and the number of each comment were analyzed. As a result of the analysis, Core-Periphery, Centralization and Reciprocity have significant effects on the duration time and the number of each comment, therefore those significant values representing online structure will give an implication to manage, to promote the online community, to forecast its evolution path and to build critical policies.

• Fashion, Industry and Education
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.31-39
• /
• 2016

With the emergence of online communities, the role of online communities in establishing brand equity has been greatly emphasized. In order to enhance our understanding of commitment in online brand communities, the present study attempts to investigate how three dimensions of community commitment (continuance, affective, and normative commitment) influence each component of brand equity (brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality, and brand loyalty) in the context of company-initiated online brand community. An online survey was conducted with a sample of online brand community members. The results found differential impacts of three types of community commitment on brand equity components, emphasizing the role of continuance and affective commitment. Continuance community commitment positively influenced brand awareness and brand association. Affective community commitment positively affected perceived quality, while among the three, only continuance and affective community commitment influenced the enhancement of brand loyalty. The results suggest that brand marketers need to focus on continuance and affective commitment factors in their online communities to effectively enhance brand equity possessed by consumers. Theoretical and managerial implications are provided.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.1-12
• /
• 2023

Purpose: This study identified the effects of the three types of consumer interactions on the utilitarian and hedonic values experienced by community members, their degree of participation, and brand loyalty. In addition, the mediating effect of virtual interactivity between the interactions that occur within the online brand community and the value experienced by community members was also identified. Research design, data and methodology: An online survey was distributed, and the data gathered was analyzed using structural equations modeling. Results: Test results showed that product-information interaction has a positive effect on utilitarian value and interpersonal interaction has a positive effect on hedonic value. Human-computer interaction was found to have a negative effect on hedonic value and no significant effect on utilitarian value. Furthermore, it was revealed that among the three types of interactions, virtual interactivity had a mediating effect only in the relationship between human-computer interaction and hedonic value. Moreover, utilitarian values experienced by community members affected their level of participation which ultimately enhances brand loyalty. Hedonic value did not affect their level of participation within the online brand community. Conclusions: When marketers establish online brand community strategies, they must place elements that can directly help the use of brands and products.