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The antecedents and consequences of social interactions in firm-sponsored community: a social network perspective

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A Correction to this article was published on 16 January 2023

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Abstract

The firm-sponsored online brand communities thrive on value-adding interactions. Existing studies, however, ignore the reasons for social interaction. A sufficient understanding of the factors driving social interactions and ultimately affecting community outcomes is still lacking. Our research examines how social interactions occur and influence consumer purchase behavior from a social network perspective, drawing on the theories of planned behavior and homophily. Our exponential random graph (ERG) models show that consumer-specific traits (e.g., deal proneness) and similarity on tenure, location, and deal proneness positively drive social interactions, while similarity on age, premium-product propensity does not. Our two-stage least square (2SLS) regressions find that social interactions among co-located consumers strongly influence purchase behavior. Our study contributes to the social interaction literature by emphasizing the types of social interactions and their antecedents and consequences with various consumer purposes. Our findings open a new research direction and novel business applications in firm-sponsored community management.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the guidance received from the senior editor, the associate editor, and their anonymous reviewers. The first two authors are co-corresponding authors. This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.: 72071218, 71932002, 71704078, and 72188101), Shenzhen Special Fund for the Development of Strategic Emerging Industries (No. JCYJ20170818100156260), research fund of Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province (2020YFSY0061), Hong Kong General Research Grants under CityU 11507717 and CityU 11508517.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, University of Science of Technology of China & City University of Hong Kong, Hefei, China

    Qiang Zhang

  2. School of Business, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Ji Wu

  3. School of Management and Economics, Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, China

    J. Leon ZHAO

  4. School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Liang Liang

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  1. Qiang Zhang
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Zhang, Q., Wu, J., ZHAO, J.L. et al. The antecedents and consequences of social interactions in firm-sponsored community: a social network perspective. Electron Commer Res 24, 1967–1995 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-022-09586-0

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