Consumer Behavior In Firm-hosted Online Travel Communities

Online travel communities are an increasing phenomenon that is motivating deep changes in the travel industry. The purpose of this work is to explain consumer intention to participate in these communities and loyalty to the firm that hosts the community. To do that, we propose a model that integrates Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Social Identity Theory in order to explain the intention to participate in online travel communities. In addition, we analyze the link between the intention to participate in the community and two behavioral intentions that may benefit the host firm: intention to use the firm products/services and the intention to recommend the host firm. Results reveal that TPB, TAM and Social Identity Theory form an appropriate framework to explain the intention to participate in the community. In addition, we find a positive effect of intention to participate in an online travel community on the two behavioral intentions considered. Based on these results, some conclusions and implications are proposed

Does the host match the content? A taxonomical update on online consumption communities

This article proposes a taxonomy of online consumption communities in order to address this rather ambiguously conceptualised research field. Specifically, intercommunity differences are investigated with regard to how content focus (brand vs activity) and its congruency with the type of host (doubled vs mixed) affect consumers’ posting behaviour. Based on an online survey (n = 888), a series of regressions of various benefits on posting behaviour supports the usability of the proposed taxonomy. In particular, social benefits had the strongest effect on consumers’ posting behaviour across all communities, while the effects of functional, altruistic and sharing benefits varied in significance and direction of influence when accounting for the different community characteristics. These findings help marketing managers to design online communities and motivate consumers to contribute. © 2015, Westburn Publishers Ltd

User-generated content and travel planning: an application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

User-Generated Content (UGC) such as online travel reviews written by travelers and posted to virtual communities are being used more frequently to communicate travel-related information. UGC is therefore helping travelers to make decisions about their travel. Utilizing the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), which is one of the most comprehensive models explaining behavioral intention, this study contributes to the further development of theories of online consumer behavior by determining which factors are most important in relation to the use of UGC in the travel industry. The TPB has three independent determinants of behavioral intention: attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control. Therefore the aim of this paper is to examine the roles of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavior control in respect of travelers’ intention to use UGC when making travel plans

eWOM & Referrals in Social Network Services

If a few decades ago the development of the Internet was instrumental in the interconnection between markets, nowadays the services provided by Web 2.0, such as social network sites (SNS) are the cutting edge. A proof of this trend is the exponential growth of social network users. The main objective of this work is to explore the mechanisms that promote the transmission and reception (WOM and referrals) of online opinions, in the context of the SNS, by buyers of travel services. The research includes some research lines: technology acceptance model (TAM), Social Identification Theory and Word-of-Mouth communication in virtual environment (eWOM). Based on these theories an explicative model has been proposed applying SEM analysis to a sample of SNS users’ of tourist service buyers. The results support the majority of the hypotheses and some relevant practical and theoretical implications have been pointed out for tourist managers

Motivations behind liking: Implications of Facebook brand community behavior on purchase intentions

Companies’ Facebook pages have emerged as a commonly used marketing channel but consumers’ underlying motivations to use these pages and their effect on members’ intentions to purchase the host company’s products are currently unclear. The present study examines consumers’ hedonic and utilitarian motivations to use company-hosted Facebook pages in relation to the community usage behavior (browsing vs. contribution), and the relationship between usage behavior and purchase intentions. By using data collected from 1161 members of a travel agency’s Facebook page, the author finds that hedonic motivations indicate a higher propensity to contribute to the community while utilitarian motivations relate more strongly with only browsing the community page. The results also demonstrate that browsing has a stronger relationship with purchase intentions than contribution. The results offer insight into interpreting consumers’ behavior in brand communities and give implications on what kind of content induces purchase intentions the most

Sense of Community: A Missing Link to Understand Users’ Performance in Firm-hosted Online Communities

We extended the current research stream about online communities by introducing sense of community as a new construct tounderstand the motivations of online collective and relational actions and highlight users’ loyal promotion to both the onlinecommunity and the host firm. In addition, through the lens of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), membershipperformance was presented as a form of users’ voluntary participation, voluntary cooperation, and firm-hosted loyalty,indicating users’ total contribution to the online community and the host firm. We then examined the relationships betweenmembership performance and its potential drivers. The research model was empirically tested using self-reported data from247 users of four firm-hosted online communities. Overall, we found that sense of community, trust in the host firm, andcommunity loyalty have either full or partial effects on membership performance

Web Auctions in Europe

This paper argues that a better understanding of the business model of web auctions can be reached if we adopt a broader view and provide empirical research from different sites. In this paper the business model of web auctions is refined into four dimensions. These are auction model, motives, exchange processes, and stakeholders. One of the objects of this research is to redefine the blurry concept of the business model by analyzing one business model, the web auction model. We show in this research the complexity and diversity of factors contributing to the success of the web auction model. By generalizing the results to the level of business model we also show how complex and diverse business models can be. Motivated by the lack of empirically grounded justification for the mixed business results of web auctions, this paper adopts a qualitative approach that includes telephone interviews with web auctions developed in different European countries.exchange processes;stakeholders;Web auctions

Conceptualizing the Electronic Word-of-Mouth Process: What We Know and Need to Know About eWOM Creation, Exposure, and Evaluation

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is a prevalent consumer practice that has undeniable effects on the company bottom line, yet it remains an over-labeled and under-theorized concept. Thus, marketers could benefit from a practical, science-based roadmap to maximize its business value. Building on the consumer motivation–opportunity–ability framework, this study conceptualizes three distinct stages in the eWOM process: eWOM creation, eWOM exposure, and eWOM evaluation. For each stage, we adopt a dual lens—from the perspective of the consumer (who sends and receives eWOM) and that of the marketer (who amplifies and manages eWOM for business results)—to synthesize key research insights and propose a research agenda based on a multidisciplinary systematic review of 1050 academic publications on eWOM published between 1996 and 2019. We conclude with a discussion of the future of eWOM research and practice

A Social Relational Model for Firm-Hosted Virtual Communities: The Role of Firm Support

Since the ease of participation and the usefulness of information provided by online groups continue to proliferate in the World Wide Web, people increasingly participate in different forms of virtual community (i.e. online forums, bulletin boards, message boards, chat rooms) for their purposes, such as solving problems, building social relationships, sharing passions, developing professionals. Accordingly, an increasing number of companies are now attempting to exploit this phenomenon by hosting and supporting their own online community for commercial and non-commercial purposes, such as building relationships with their customers, getting their feedback, strengthening the brand, and reducing customer service costs by enabling customer-to-customer problem solving (e.g. Wiertz and Ruyter, 2007). Typical examples of these firm-hosted online communities are Dell Community, Lego® Message Boards, Manhattan GMAT Forums, Ford Forums, iPod (Apple) Discussions, etc. The purpose of this study is to examine factors such as consumers\u27 feelings (sense of community, trust) and the host firm\u27s supports that motivate consumers to exhibit their voluntary contributions and continue their membership in a firm-hosted online community. This dissertation conceptualizes a relational social model in which sense of virtual community and virtual community loyalty are hypothesized to influence customer trust in the host firm and customer citizenship performance (loyalty intention to the host firm, voluntary participation, voluntary cooperation), respectively. Three components of the firm\u27s support to the virtual community—support for member communication, content enhancement and recognition for contribution—are theorized to moderate the relationships between sense of virtual community and trust, and between virtual community loyalty and customer citizenship performance. The overall finding that emerges from the dissertation is that customer citizenship performance is impacted by a customer\u27s sense of virtual community, loyalty to the community, and customer trust in the host firm. Of the three firm support variables, only support for member communication moderates the relationship between virtual community loyalty and voluntary participation. The dissertation makes four theoretical and managerial contributions. First, the paper presents an interdisciplinary review of extant literature on firm-hosted virtual communities and builds on it to develop a conceptualization of relationships between customer-customer social outcomes and customer-business relational outcomes. Second, while previous research has predominantly focused on firm support as an antecedent of trust in customer-business dyadic relationships (Porter, 2004), this research investigates the role of firm support as a moderator of social relational relationships. Third, the study extends the notion of relationship marketing to include customer-customer relationships which has been forgotten in the marketing literature (Clark & Martin, 1994). The implication is that the host firm can use customers themselves to build long-term customer relationships, and based on it to maintain and increase the firm\u27s market share. Finally, from a managerial perspective, this study proposes a general framework that can enable companies to better understand some of the key aspects that define and drive loyalty in online communities. Since sense of community is unique to a specific community, this dissertation also illustrates that a virtual community is an inimitable asset which can be used as a strategic tool to build competitive advantage by a firm in an online environment

Perceived Firm Attributes, Social Identification, and Intrinsic Motivation to Voice in Brand Virtual Communities: Differentiating Brand-General and Innovation-Specific Perceptions

The question about why some brand virtual communities (BVCs) successfully motivate customers to engage in value creation (e.g., voice) while others do not is still an important but understudied research issue. To fill this research gap, we propose a research model to shed light on the antecedents of intrinsic motivation to voice by focusing on the role of perceived firm attributes. Specifically, we argue that firm attributes can be classified into brand-general versus innovation-specific attributes which affect intrinsic motivation through two types of social identification namely brand identification and community identification respectively. The links between these two types of perceptions are examined too. A field study of 291 BVC users was conducted to test the research model. The results show that customer orientation and perceived openness positively affect customers’ brand identification and community identification respectively, and customer orientation has a positive effect on perceived openness. Furthermore, the impact of brand identification on intrinsic motivation is found to be fully mediated by community identification