One Good Turn Deserves Another? From Personalized Content to Consumer Citizenship Behavior in Online Brand Communities
[Thesis]
Kpekpena, Israel
Callow, Mchael
Morgan State University
2020
189
Ph.D.
Morgan State University
2020
Among the numerous ways that firms are making use of consumers' online presence is the formation of online brand communities (OBCs). However, having OBC alone does not suffice; it is crucial to engage brand followers effectively. One strategy for doing so is personalization, which is an expensive venture that can go wrong if not properly managed. The situation presents marketing researchers with the task of unraveling various complex relationships involved in consumers' journey from personalized content to community citizenship behaviors in OBCs. Some questions which remain to be answered are as follows: what are the consumers' cognitive and emotional responses to an OBC's personalized content; how do these responses affect the consumers' community citizenship behavior, and; what are some of the consumer characteristics that moderate the journey from personalized content to citizenship behaviors? Relying on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory, the study proposed a conceptual model and fitted it with data made up of 787 respondents from the US adult population. Findings confirmed that, as predicted, personalized content in OBCs is a significant influencer of consumers' extra-role activities-helping others, providing feedback, and making recommendations. While engagement remains a prominent mediating factor in the above relationships, consumers' perceived usefulness of the communities also mediates the process and elicit similar behaviors. Further, these relationships are dampened by consumers' privacy concerns, susceptibility to interpersonal influence, and usage of internet-based applications. Lastly, a multigroup analysis showed differences between fan-based OBCs and firm-based OBCs, concerning the formation of OBCs and the regulation of community activities. The association between community identification and usefulness is stronger in firm-based OBCs, while perceived personalization has a stronger relationship with usefulness in fan-based OBCs. The findings serve the goal of science by providing theoretical understanding into complex relationships in OBCs. Findings also throw light on marketers' unintended contribution to creating compulsive internet consumers whose actions, in turn, harm the firm. With these findings, marketers are in a better position to prevent possible backlash from the implementation of personalization tactics.