Abstract
The benefits of virtual communities in increasing firms' profits, instilling knowledge in consumers, and enhancing consumers' social experience and enjoyment are widely recognised. However, relatively little is known about how the use of a virtual community could influence consumers' emotional well-being. This study examines the relationships among virtual community features (structural and experiential routes) as antecedents of virtual community engagement, including quality of use of virtual communities (time spent online and level of information exchange), electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) purchasing behaviour, and consumers' emotional experience. Furthermore, by extending the cultural perspective to virtual community engagement, this study examines the role of collectivistic values on the aforementioned relationships. The proposed hypotheses are tested on the basis of data collected from 286 members of different virtual communities in Taiwan. The results partially support the theory that features of virtual communities influenced the quality of use, which then has a subsequent effect on consumer eWOM purchasing and emotional well-being. The results of the empirical analysis add credence to the proposed relationships. The role of collectivistic values is also partially supported. A detailed discussion of the findings and limitations of this study is provided.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 207-217 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Australasian Marketing Journal |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 23 Jun 2015 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Australasian Marketing Journal. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Australasian Marketing Journal, [23, 3, (2015)] DOI: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2015.06.001© 2015, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Keywords
- Quality of Use
- Emotional Well-being
- Virtual Community
- Collectivistic Value