The Impact of Online Brand Community Type
on Consumer’s Community Engagement Behaviors:
Consumer-Created vs. Marketer-Created Online Brand
Community in Online Social-Networking Web Sites
Doohwang Lee, Ph.D.,1 Hyuk Soo Kim, M.A.,2 and Jung Kyu Kim, M.A.3
Abstract
The current study proposed and tested a theoretical model of consumers’ online brand community
engagement behaviors, with particular attention given to online brand community type (consumer vs.
marketer-created). By integrating attribution and social identity theories, this study investigated the causal
linkages between intrinsic motives of altruism, social identification motivations, and online brand community engagement behaviors. The results showed that consumers’ online brand community engagement
intentions were indirectly influenced by the different types of communities through different levels of
consumers’ attributions to intrinsic motives of altruism. This study also found that, in the attribution processes, consumers’ intrinsic motives of altruism motivated them to identify themselves socially with the
online communities they join. Finally, this study demonstrated that the intrinsic motives of altruism and
social identification motivations provided strong social incentives to motivate consumers to engage in
subsequent online brand community behaviors.
Introduction
The rapidly growing popularity of online networking Web sites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, socialetc.) has enabled both marketers and consumers to build and
promote consumer–brand relationships through online brand
communities. In such online brand communities, marketers
can facilitate the online brand communities as a versatile
brand-building tool so that they can create, customize, and
distribute persuasive advertising messages for products
and services. At the same time, avid consumers can also build
and manage many successful online brand communities in
which they can lead other members to engage voluntarily in
various community behaviors such as membership intention,
recommendation, active participation, and so forth.1 However, there has been little research on how consumer-created
online brand communities are different from marketercreated online brand communities in terms of the social psychological processes that motivate consumers to participate in
online brand community engagement behaviors.
The present study proposes and tests a model of online
brand community engagement that integrates attribution
theory2 with social identity theory.3 Specifically, this study
posits that two types of online brand communities differentiate the degree to which consumers attribute intrinsic motives of altruism to the two different types of community
creators. In the attribution processes, consumers’ intrinsic
motives of altruism motivate them to identify themselves
socially with the online communities they join. Consequently,
consumers’ intrinsic motives of altruism and social identification motivations are assumed to provide strong social incentives to motivate consumers to engage in subsequent
online brand community behaviors.
Attribution theory and discounting principle
Based on the assumption that human beings are active
perceivers of observable events, attribution theory specifies
the ways in which individuals infer causality of why the
events occur by taking into consideration both internal personal characteristics (intrinsic motives) and external situational characteristics (extrinsic motives) of the events they
perceive.2 Notably, individuals tend to reduce multiple possible attribution situations into a single plausible explanation
1Department of Telecommunication and Film, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
2Department of Advertising and Public Relations, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
3College of Communication and Information Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING
Volume 14, Number 1-2, 2011
ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2009.0397
59
for the events they observe, possibly because consumers tend
to associate rapidly causes with events and generalize across
similar attribution situations.2 Consequently, external factors
can be easily discounted when internal factors are assumed to
explain an event or the other way around.
Past consumer behavior research suggests that consumers tend to attribute corporations’ marketing strategies
to extrinsic motives of profit exploitation and discount
their intrinsic motives of altruism.4,5 For example, Rifon
et al.5 applied attribution theory to corporations’ sponsorship of a health Web site and found that consumers
were more likely to associate the sponsorship to intrinsic
motives of altruism than to extrinsic motives of profit exploitation. The findings suggest that if consumers associate
the sponsorship to intrinsic motives of altruism, they are
more likely to discount the corporation’s self-serving motives of profit exploitation and infer the altruistic motives
of the sponsor.
In the current context of online brand communities,
marketers’ effort to create and manage online brand communities for their brands can be viewed as a type of sponsorship whose primary objective is to increase sales profit
indirectly by enhancing the image of the corporation. Accordingly, when consumers are exposed to the marketercreated online brand communities, consumers are more
likely to associate the marketer’s effort with extrinsic motives of profit exploitation or, at best, corporation image
enhancement by discounting the marketer’s possible intrinsic motives of altruism. Conversely, it can be also expected that consumers are more likely to attribute intrinsic
motives of altruism to consumer-created online brand
communities so that they expect the communities to allow
other existing or would-be members to share their knowledge about the brand or product with no extrinsic motives of
profit exploitation. In this sense, it is reasonable to predict
that the consumer-created online brand community will
positively influence their intentions to engage in online
brand community behaviors through consumers’ attribution
to intrinsic motives of altruism.
H1: A consumer-created online brand community will generate stronger attribution to intrinsic motives of altruism than
a marketer-created online brand community.
H2: Consumers’ attribution to the intrinsic motives of altruism
will mediate the effect of community type on consumers’
online brand community engagement intentions.
Social identity theory and social
identification motivations
Social identity has been highlighted as another important
determinant of individual behaviors in online brand communities.6,7 The concept of social identity is defined as ‘‘that
part of an individual’s self-concept that is derived from his
knowledge of his membership of a social group together with
the emotional significance attached to that membership.’’3(p69)
From this perspective, Dholakia et al.7 argued that social
identity is a defining motivation for consumers to identify
themselves as members of online communities, satisfy their
fundamental social needs, and maintain positive social
identity by participating in social behaviors for the groups to
which they belong. In fact, many of the traditional benefits of
social belonging, support, and social acceptance have been
found to be positively associated with individuals’ community activities in online communities.8
It is also important to note that consumers’ social identification motivations can be largely influenced by how consumers infer the altruistic motives of the online brand
communities that they belong to. If consumers perceive that
the online brand communities provide strong intrinsic motives of altruism, such attribution may strengthen consumers’
social identification motivations to create positive social relationships with the communities. Consequently, these positive social identification motivations will lead consumers to
perform community engagement behaviors to reinforce further their social identity in the online brand communities.
Based on the reasoning, this study formulated the following
hypotheses.
H3: Consumers’ attribution to the intrinsic motives of altruism
will mediate the effect of community type on consumers’
social identification motivations.
H4: Consumers’ social identification motivations will positively influence their online brand community engagement
intentions.
Methods
Participants, research design, and procedures
A total of 120 college students were recruited for an online
experiment at a large southern university in the United States.
For the online experiment, participants were directed to visit
a newly created online brand community on Facebook. The
stimulus Web site demonstrates how online users can use
the online community to access, read, and post opinions
about a fictitious digital-camera brand and product, Carleton
5D Mark 2 Camera. Content for the site was drawn and
adapted from existing Facebook digital-camera online brand
communities.
For the online experimental setting, a 22 (community type: consumer- vs. marketer-created community
community size: small vs. large community) between-subjects
factorial design was employed to investigate the effects of the
brand community type on consumers’ willingness to engage
in the community activities while controlling for the possible effect of the community size. As a result, four versions of
the Facebook online brand community were created for the
online experiment, and 30 participants were randomly assigned to each of the four experimental conditions with the
help of a random assignment program placed in the online
experiment instruction page. Most participants were Caucasian (89.2%) and female (59.2%). Participants’ ages ranged
from 18 to 27 years, and the mean age was 20 years
(SD ¼ 1.66).
Stimulus
For the manipulation of the community type, the marketercreated community condition showed statements reading
‘‘This community is created and managed by Carleton
Camera Company’’ at the top and bottom of the page and
‘‘Carlton is a company that manufactures digital cameras.
Carleton Company created this community for sharing ideas
and stories about Carleton digital cameras with Facebook
users’’ in the right column of the page. In the same fashion,
the consumer-created community condition demonstrated
60 LEE ET AL.
statements reading ‘‘This community is created and managed
by David Smith’’ at the top and bottom of the page, and ‘‘I am
a general user of Carleton cameras. I created this community
for sharing ideas and stories about Carleton digital cameras
with Facebook users’’ in the right column of the page.
Next, for the manipulation of the community size, the
small community condition indicated that the online community currently had 15 members, five reviews, two discussion topics, and 40 wall posts on the page, and the large
community condition indicated that the online community
currently had 9,993 members, 800 reviews, 100 discussion
topics, and 27,000 wall posts on the page. Except for the
manipulations of the community type and size, all features
and content were identical in the four versions of the online
brand community.
Measures
Consumers’ online brand community engagement intention was considered the primary dependent variable. Consumers’ social identification motivations and online brand
community’s intrinsic motives of altruism were considered
the two intervening variables that mediate the effects of
online brand community type on consumers’ community
engagement.
Consumers’ online brand community engagement intention. Seven 7-point Likert-type items measured online
brand community engagement intention, ranging from ‘‘very
unlikely’’ to ‘‘very likely.’’ Specifically, the items asked subjects to indicate how likely or unlikely they would be to
participate in the following online brand community activities in future: (a) providing new information about the brand
to other people; (b) actively participating in the online brand
community’s activities; (c) supporting other members of the
online brand community; (d) saying positive things about the
online brand community to other people; (e) recommending
the online brand community to anyone who sought their
advice about the brand; (f ) encouraging other people to use
the brand in future; and (g) not hesitating to refer other
people to the brand. This scale exhibited a high degree of
internal consistency (Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.94).
Consumers’ social identification motivations. Six 7-point
Likert-type items measured social identification motivations,
ranging from ‘‘very unlikely’’ to ‘‘very likely.’’ Specifically, the
six items asked the participants to indicate how likely or
unlikely they would be to: (a) belong to the online brand
community; (b) identify themselves with the community; (c)
be attached to the community; (d) see themselves as a part of
the community; (e) be related with the community; and (e) get
involved in the community. This scale showed a high degree
of internal consistency (Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.95).
Intrinsic motives of altruism. Two 7-point Likert-type
items measured intrinsic motives that the online brand
community will generate, ranging from ‘‘strongly disagree’’
to ‘‘strongly agree.’’ Specifically, the two items asked the
participants to indicate the intrinsic motives of altruism that
the online brand community generates: (a) the online brand
community creator has good intentions toward the community members; and (b) the online brand community creator’s
intention is benevolent toward the community member.
The two items for the scale were significantly correlated
(Pearson’s r ¼ 0.67, p < 0.01).
Results
Effect of community type on intrinsic motives
of altruism
A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed a significant main effect of community type on altruistic motive in
the hypothesized direction, with the consumer-created online
brand community (M ¼ 4.98, SD ¼ 0.86) engendering higher
intrinsic motives of altruism than the marketer-created online
brand community (M ¼ 4.54, SD ¼ 1.20), F ¼ 5.37, p < 0.05,
Z2 ¼ 0.064, thus providing support for H1. There was no
strong statistical evidence that the community size directly
affected the intrinsic motives of altruism ( p > 0.1) and moderated the main effect of the community type ( p > 0.1).
Mediating role of intrinsic motives of altruism
in the effect of community type on consumers’
online brand community engagement intentions
Another two-way ANOVA also revealed that there was a
statistically significant main effect of community type on
consumers’ online brand community engagement intentions,
with the consumer-created online brand community
(M ¼ 4.43, SD ¼ 1.25) generating higher online brand community engagement intentions than the marketer-created
online brand community (M ¼ 3.87, SD ¼ 1.25, F ¼ 6.412,
p < 0.05, Z2 ¼ 0.05). However, there was no strong evidence
that community size directly affected community engagement intentions ( p > 0.05) and moderated the main effect of
the community type ( p > 0.05).
In order to test whether altruistic motives mediated the
relationships between the community type condition and
consumers’ community engagement intentions, a bivariate
regression was first performed by regressing intrinsic motives
of altruism on consumers’ online brand community engagement intentions. The overall regression, F(1, 119) ¼ 37.51,
p < 0.001, R2 ¼ 0.24, was significant, and the proposed intervening variable—intrinsic motives of altruism—was also
significantly associated with the consumer’s community engagement intentions (b ¼ 0.59, p < 0.001). Then, an analysis
of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed by including the
proposed mediator of intrinsic motives of altruism as the
covariate and the consumers’ community engagement intentions as the dependent variable. The model was significant, F(3, 116) ¼ 13.60, p < 0.001, and the altruistic motive was
significant, p < 0.001. However, the main effect for the community type was no longer significant, p > 0.1. Consequently,
these findings supported the hypothesized mediating role of
the altruistic motives on the effect of the community type on
consumers’ willingness to engage in online brand community
activities. Thus H2 was supported.
Mediating role of intrinsic motives of altruism
in the effect of community type on social
identification motivations
A two-way ANOVA revealed that there was a significant
main effect of community type on social identification motivations, with the consumer-created online brand community
ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITY 61
(M ¼ 4.48, SD ¼ 1.29) generating higher social identification
motivations than the marketer-created online brand community (M ¼ 4.00, SD ¼ 1.23), F ¼ 4.39, p < 0.05. Z2 ¼ 0.04.
However, there was no strong statistical evidence that community size directly affected consumers’ social identification
motivation ( p > 0.1) and moderated the main effect of the
community type ( p > 0.1).
In order to examine whether the altruistic motive mediated
the relationships between the community type condition and
consumers’ social identification motivations, an ANCOVA
was performed by including the intrinsic motives as the
covariate and the social identification motivations as the
dependent variable. The model was significant, F(3, 116) ¼
12.53, p < 0.001, and the intervening variable of altruistic
motive was still significant, p < 0.001. However, the main
effect for the community type on social identification motivations was no longer significant, p > 0.05. Consequently, the
results supported the hypothesized mediating role of altruistic motives on the effect of the community type condition on
consumers’ social identification motivations toward the online brand community. Thus H3 was supported.
Effect of social identification motivation on online brand
community engagement intentions
A multiple regression was performed by regressing consumers’ social identification motivation on consumers’ online
brand community engagement intentions while controlling
for the direct main effect of intrinsic motives of altruism. The
overall regression, F(2, 117) ¼ 44.84, p < 0.001, R2 ¼ 0.43, was
significant, and social identification motivation was also
significantly associated with the dependent variable (b ¼ 0.49,
p < 0.001), supporting H4. The significant effect of intrinsic
motives of altruism also remained significant in the model
(b ¼ 0.31, p < 0.001).
To confirm further the proposed direct and indirect relationships between the variables, a path analysis was performed using AMOS 6. The path analysis showed that, first,
the significant main effect of the online brand community
type on intrinsic motive of altruism was confirmed (b ¼ 0.21,
p < 0.05). The intrinsic motives of altruism was also found to
affect consumers’ online brand community engagement intentions directly (b ¼ 0.26, p < 0.001), as well as indirectly
through social identification motivations. In the indirect process, intrinsic motives of altruism influenced social identification motivations (b¼ 0.47, p < 0.001), which, in turn, also
affected consumers’ online brand community engagement intentions (b ¼ 0.50, p < 0.001). The model fit indices indicated
that the path model was consistent with the data (AGFI ¼ 0.95,
NFI ¼ 0.98, RMSEA ¼ 0.04, w2 ¼ 2.4, df ¼ 2, p¼ 0.29). Finally,
43% of the total variance in consumers’ online brand community engagement behavioral intentions was jointly explained by all the causes specified in the model. Figure 1 shows
the final path model of online brand community engagement.
Discussion
Overall, the results of the current study empirically explicated how consumers’ attribution processes influence their
social identification motivations and community engagement
intentions. Specifically, consumers’ attribution of intrinsic
motives of altruism to the marketer-created online brand
community was discounted, but such attribution was
strongly generated when consumers browsed the consumercreated online brand community. Such attribution patterns,
in turn, significantly influenced consumers’ online brand
community engagement behaviors directly, as well as indirectly through their social identification motivations. Consequently, the results confirmed the causal linkage between
community type, consumers’ intrinsic motives of altruism,
social identification motives, and online brand community
engagement intentions.
The results of the current study also highlighted practical
implications for marketers who should be strategically aware
of how to execute online brand communities as a marketing
tool. Marketers may not realize that consumers can easily
associate marketers’ effort to build and manage online brand
communities with extrinsic motives of profit exploitation and
are less likely to engage in community behaviors in marketercreated online brand communities. One possible approach is
to develop a platform of online brand communities encouraging consumers to voluntarily share and exchange their ideas
rather than imposing the corporation’s own ideas such as sales
coupons or sweepstakes. As Algesheimer et al.1 claimed,
marketers may have to employ a passive role when facilitating
online brand communities such as being merely a sponsor of
consumer-created online brand communities. It is certainly
plausible that corporations can sponsor charity events or activities for members in consumer-created communities.
The present research is subject to several limitations. First,
although college students are dominant users on Facebook,
the utilization of college students as participants may limit
FIG. 1. Final path model of online brand community engagement behavior.
62 LEE ET AL.
the generalization of the results because college students do
not represent the whole group of consumers in online brand
communities. In addition, it should be noted that the small
sample size of the participants (n ¼ 120) may be not sufficient
to offer a conclusive statistical evidence to support the proposed causal relationships in the structural modeling process
that often requires a large sample of participants in general.
Another limitation of this study may arise from the current
experiment stimuli. In the experiment, participants were
asked to visit mock-up online brand communities and read
through the content. Because the stimulus online brand
communities did not measure the participants’ actual community engagement behaviors, including posting messages
and becoming members, this study might not be able to observe how consumers could actually attribute to the two
different types of communities, formulate their social identification motivations, and engage in community behaviors.
It should also be noted that, since the study used engagement intentions instead of actual engagement behaviors as a
dependent variable, potential inconsistency between the two
measures should be taken into consideration especially in the
domain of human–computer interaction on the Internet
where consumers are fearful of privacy violations.9 In this
regard, future studies should examine the possible impact of
privacy concerns on attribution and social identification
processes in online brand community engagement behaviors.
Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.
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Address correspondence to:
Dr. Doohwang Lee
Department of Telecommunication and Film
University of Alabama
430B Reese Pilfer Hall
College of Communication and Information Sciences
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
E-mail: dlee@ua.edu
ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITY 63
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