Modding as Rating Behavior in Virtual Communities: The Case of Rooster Teeth Productions
OCSC '09 Proceedings of the 3d International Conference on Online Communities and Social Computing: Held as Part of HCI International 2009
The Role of Mutual Trust in Building Members' Loyalty to a C2C Platform Provider
International Journal of Electronic Commerce
Consumer Empowerment Through Internet-Based Co-creation
Journal of Management Information Systems
Explaining mobile community user participation from a social capital perspective
International Journal of Mobile Communications
Electronic Commerce Research and Applications
Avatar-based innovation: Consequences of the virtual co-creation experience
Computers in Human Behavior
Antecedents of application service continuance: A synthesis of satisfaction and trust
Expert Systems with Applications: An International Journal
Individual Virtual Competence and Its Influence on Work Outcomes
Journal of Management Information Systems
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
"What's coming next?" Epistemic curiosity and lurking behavior in online communities
Computers in Human Behavior
Disclosure Intention of Location-Related Information in Location-Based Social Network Services
International Journal of Electronic Commerce
Theory and Analysis of Company-Sponsored Value Co-Creation
Journal of Management Information Systems
Journal of Management Information Systems
Hi-index | 0.01 |
Although previous scholars have examined the value of virtual communities to customers, in this study we investigate the role of a firm's efforts in cultivating trust and harvesting value for themselves via the virtual communities that they sponsor. We hypothesize that the perceptions of a firm's efforts to provide quality content, to foster member embeddedness, and to encourage interaction foster favorable customer beliefs about and trust in a virtual community sponsor. Further, we hypothesize that trust motivates customers to behave relationally toward the sponsoring firm by sharing information with, coproducing new products with, and granting loyalty to, the sponsoring firm. Data from 663 customers are analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques. We find that efforts to provide quality content and foster member embeddedness have positive effects on customer beliefs about the sponsor. In fact, fostering member embeddedness has a stronger explanatory effect on customer beliefs than does providing quality content. However, despite the fact that previous studies show that customers value interaction in virtual communities, our findings suggest that firms must do more than encourage interaction among their community members if they hope to create value from their virtual communities.