More is better? The influencing of user involvement on user loyalty in online travel community

Since user stickiness is low in most online communities due to user easy transferability, assessing the influence of user involvement on user loyalty is paramount. Using an online travel community and a four-level consumer cognitive structure model as a theoretical basis, this study combines semi-structured interviews and scenariobased questionnaires to investigate this relationship. Results suggest that breadth of involvement has an inverted U-curve effect on user loyalty, while depth of involvement has a positive influence. Sense of virtual community both moderates and mediates the relationship between breadth of involvement and loyalty, but does not moderate and only partially mediates depth of involvement and loyalty. Both service value to peaceful life and service value to social integration partially mediate user involvement and loyalty, but service value to social recognition does not.