Role of brand engagement and co-creation experience in online brand community continuance: A service-dominant logic perspective

Value creation and acquisition are pivotal for continuous participation in online communities and thus have become goals that brand companies strive to develop in online brand communities (OBCs). Prior studies, however, predominately adopted the goods-dominant logic to assess the role of OBC members' value perceptions in their value experiences. Such an approach overlooks the fact that one's value experiences in OBCs manifest in the co-creation with the brand and with other OBC members, benefiting from technology platforms and one's community motives. We thus draw on the service-dominant logic to formulate a research model with seven research hy-potheses. These hypotheses depict relationships among five research constructs, in which (1) OBC continuance intention serves as the ultimate dependent variable, (2) brand engagement and co -creation experience represent OBC members' value experiences in consumer-to-brand and consumer-to-consumer interactions, respectively, and (3) social media affordances and members' OBC identification serve as the antecedents of OBC members' value experiences. We used the Amazon MTurk platform to collect 246 valid samples worldwide that represent general OBC members. We adopted PLS-SEM to assess the measurement model and test the proposed hy-potheses. Our findings indicate that co-creation experience and brand engagement are pivotal value experiences that can increase OBC continuance intention. In addition, social media affor-dances and OBC identification are instrumental to both value experiences through their facili-tation of technology-mediated and communal interactions for resource integration and service exchange among OBC members and the brand. This study sheds light on OBC research by identifying the central role of brand engagement and co-creation experience in OBC continuance. We also discuss theoretical and practical implications and provide future research suggestions.

Automated summary

This study investigates the importance of brand engagement and co-creation experience in online brand communities (OBCs) through the lens of service-dominant logic. The findings suggest that both co-creation experience and brand engagement play pivotal roles in increasing OBC members' intention to continue participating in the community. Additionally, social media affordances and OBC identification facilitate technology-mediated and communal interactions, enabling resource integration and service exchange among OBC members and the brand.