Building relational worth in an online social community through virtual structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness

摘要

This research explores the creation of relational worth in an online social community through the lens of social capital theory. Virtual structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness as dimensions of social capital are assessed through the concepts of media dependency and parasocial interaction. Both constructs are regarded as antecedents of relational worth in online social communities, which develops through their users' self-connection to the community. To test the proposed conceptual model an analysis was undertaken of data from 370 personal interviews with online social community users. The results showed that structural and relational embeddedness are both associated with the development of online social community self-connection; and that in turn, community self-connection helps create relational worth, which is comprised of community openness and advocacy. The research contributes to the improved understanding of the formation of social capital in an online social community and addresses the under-researched role of members' self-connection in generating relational worth in a virtual context.