Loughborough University
Browse
Mousavi_03-Final-Lboro.pdf (449.44 kB)

Interpreting social identity in online brand communities: Considering posters and lurkers

Download (449.44 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2017-04-11, 10:51 authored by Sahar MousaviSahar Mousavi, Stuart Roper, Kathy Keeling
This study investigates the psychological effects of social identity on both posters and lurkers in online brand communities (OBCs). The results reveal the intermediate mechanisms mediating and moderating members’ social identity effects on members’ brand commitment, leading to positive word-of-mouth and their resistance to negative information about the brand. This article treats social identity as a multidimensional construct. Differences between posters and lurkers on the relationships among the cognitive, affective, and evaluative components of social identity are investigated along with their positive effect on brand commitment and behavioral consequences. Using a sample of 752 OBC members, both posters and lurkers emerge as valuable members and equally likely to derive social identity from their membership of an OBC. However, there are counterintuitive results for relationships within the research model between active and passive members of OBCs. These results offer implications for theory and can help managers to be better interactive marketers.

History

School

  • Business and Economics

Department

  • Business

Published in

Psychology & Marketing

Volume

34

Issue

4

Pages

376 - 393

Citation

MOUSAVI, S., ROPER, S. and KEELING, K., 2017. Interpreting social identity in online brand communities: Considering posters and lurkers. Psychology & Marketing, 34(4), pp. 376-393.

Publisher

© Wiley

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2017-03-09

Notes

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: MOUSAVI, S., ROPER, S. and KEELING, K., 2017. Interpreting social identity in online brand communities: Considering posters and lurkers. Psychology & Marketing, 34(4), pp. 376-393, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20995. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.

ISSN

0742-6046

Language

  • en

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC