The influence of the number of brand community memberships on customer centric measures

摘要

Drawing upon the cognitive appraisal and attachment theories, the purpose of this research paper is to examine how the number of brand communities a member belongs to impacts customer centric measures such as satisfaction, delight, loyalty, and promotion. This understanding will help brand managers to understand how individuals who are heavy users of a variety of brand communities will be different from individuals who are more focused in their individual brand community membership. The study used a cross-sectional survey that was conducted among the members of various brand communities (N = 503) from Canada and the United States. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to examine the strength, effect, and significance of the relationships. The results of the paper confirm the impact of the number of brand communities a person is a part of on brand community satisfaction, attitudinal loyalty, and behavioral loyalty-but not on social and physical promotion. Furthermore, brand community satisfaction was significantly related to the delight construct. The delight construct also had a significant relationship with attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Finally, attitudinal, and behavioral loyalty were significantly related to social and physical promotion. Extant research has examined the behavior of the individual member in a brand community, but the impact of the number of brand community memberships on customer centric measures has been an under researched area. This research is aiming to fill this void.