Fairness and devotion go far: Integrating online justice and value co-creation in virtual communities
Introduction
The Internet has had a significant and progressive impact on people’s daily lives for the past few decades. With the Internet and the development of other technologies generating an unprecedented proliferation of virtual communities around the world (Andersen, 2005), increasingly more users are relying on the Internet to obtain useful information instead of offline sources (Yen, Hsu, & Huang, 2011). In addition, an increasing number of users now connect with one another through online channels to share interests and form virtual communities (Blanchard, 2008, Koh and Kim, 2003; Tonteri, Kosonen, Ellonen, & Tarkiainen, 2011). Prior research has explored different aspects of online user behavior, such as peer-to-peer information sharing and problem solving (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, & Gremler, 2004; Mathwick, Wiertz, & De Ruyter, 2008; Wasko and Faraj, 2000, Wasko and Faraj, 2005), intentional information seeking and social interactions involving communities (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2002, Yi and Gong, 2013), and time spent chatting online (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, 2004; Yen et al., 2011). Yet, although virtual communities are rapidly growing, many still fail because of a lack of sufficient active contributors and continuous supply of knowledge content (Chen & Hung, 2010). The success of virtual communities greatly depends on the contributions of members (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2002, Dholakia et al., 2004, McWilliam, 2000). Despite the many advantages derived from user participation behavior, previous studies on such behavior have ignored the phenomenon that users often act as value co-creators of virtual communities (Bendapudi and Leone, 2003, Vargo and Lusch, 2004, Yen et al., 2011). Indeed, within virtual contexts, value can be co-created with and determined by the users in the consumption process and through value-in-use (Lusch and Vargo, 2006, Vargo and Lusch, 2004, Vargo and Lusch, 2008). Therefore, scholars and practitioners should work to understand and value users’ co-creation behavior in virtual communities.
Extant literature has focused on managing customers as human resources (Groth, 2005; Groth, Mertens, & Murphy, 2004) and found that users exhibit value co-creation behaviors in virtual communities. Most previous studies have addressed either knowledge contribution or knowledge-sharing behaviors (Bock, Zmud, Kim, & Lee, 2005; Chen & Hung, 2010; Chiu, Hsu, & Wang, 2006; Chen, Yang, & Tang, 2013; Hashim & Tan, 2015; Hsu, Ju, Yen, & Chang, 2007; Wasko & Faraj, 2005) or citizenship behaviors, including voluntary behavior (Kang, Lee, Lee, & Choi, 2007), helping behavior (Fang and Chiu, 2010, Wasko and Faraj, 2005, Yen et al., 2011), and the spread of positive word of mouth (Mathwick et al., 2008). Previous organizational behavior research has identified two types of value co-creation: in-role behavior (e.g., task performance), which refers to behavior necessary for successful value co-creation, and extra-role behavior (e.g., organizational citizenship behavior), which is voluntary behavior that provides extraordinary value to the firm and is required for value co-creation (Bove, Pervan, Beatty, & Shiu, 2009; Groth, 2005, Yen et al., 2011, Yi and Gong, 2008, Yi and Gong, 2013; Yi, Nataraajan, & Gong, 2011). Indeed, as partial employees of virtual communities, community users contribute by performing both in- and extra-role co-creation behaviors (Groth, 2005).
Within the context of online communities, knowledge contribution behavior serves as the basis for smooth operations, while online community citizenship behavior represents a crucial means of promoting the effectiveness of online communities (Dholakia et al., 2004, Williams and Cothrel, 2000). Similar to in-role behavior, knowledge contribution behavior refers to behavior that is expected and required of members to share and co-create knowledge. Conversely, online community citizenship behavior, analogous to extra-role conduct, refers to discretionary efforts directed toward helping, feedback, advocacy, and tolerance in virtual communities (Groth et al., 2004; Lengnick-Hall, Claycomb, & Inks, 2000). Both knowledge contribution behavior and online community citizenship behavior are vital and have been most often applied to characterize customers’ online community participation (Yen et al., 2011). To gain deeper insights into such a value co-creation phenomenon, this study shows that users’ online value co-creation behavior comprises knowledge contribution behavior (in-role) and online community citizenship behavior (extra-role). Although prior studies have stressed the importance of online value co-creation behavior, rare research on virtual community has integrated both types of online value co-creation behaviors into a model. Therefore, to adopt a more comprehensive perspective, this study proposes a co-creation-based integrated framework by incorporating both in- and extra-role value co-creation into the model.
Given that distinctive contributions may come from each type of value co-creation behavior, identifying the antecedents underlying such behavior in virtual communities should help both academics and practitioners gain insights into how to stimulate members’ value co-creation in virtual communities (Grewal, Levy, & Kumar, 2009; Verhoef et al., 2009). Online interactions represent a multi-sided process between one user and other community members, and by participating in virtual communities, users can form justice perceptions. Justice, regarded as the fundamental basis for relationship maintainability and sustainability in a social exchange (Fang & Chiu, 2010; Lind, Kulik, Ambrose, & de Vera Park, 1993), is an effective and readily available mechanism for dealing with diverse, uncertain circumstances (Lind & Van den Bos, 2002), such as the virtual context. Specifically, Chiu et al. (2006) call for research to examine whether online justice perceptions influence individuals’ behaviors in virtual communities. In this regard, we extend the notion of users as partial employees (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004) and adopt social exchange theory (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005, Homans, 1961) and equity theory (Adams, 1965, Leventhal, 1980) to identify various perceived online justice dimensions, including distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice. In addition, drawing on the complementary perspective (Kay & Jost, 2003), we add a complementary justice factor that has not yet been examined in extant literature.
Previous work suggests that sense of virtual community is a psychological outcome in virtual communities (Oh, Ozkaya, & LaRose, 2014) and reflects the extent to which individual users feel that they belong to virtual communities. Because sense of virtual community can lead to appropriate behavior (Zhao, Lu, Wang, Chau, & Zhang, 2012), we further use this variable as a critical mediator between users’ justice perceptions and online value co-creation behavior in virtual communities. Using survey responses from 278 active virtual community members, we develop, validate, and test a model that investigates the impacts of the justice dimensions on participants’ in- and extra-role value co-creation behavior in online communities. The results corroborate our propositions that members’ justice perceptions (i.e., distributive, procedural, interpersonal, informational, and complementary justice) can facilitate the psychological mechanism of sense of virtual community, which in turn leads to positive in- and extra-role value co-creation behavior (i.e., knowledge contribution behavior and online community citizenship behavior). These results provide important implications for both research and business practice.
The remainder of this article proceeds as follows. In Section 2, we review the literature on online value co-creation behavior and different justice perceptions in virtual communities. A synthesis of previous research leads to hypotheses and helps formulate a research framework for the study. In Section 3, we describe the methods and measurements and, in Section 4, provide the results. Section 5 discusses the managerial and research implications and presents limitations and future research directions.
Section snippets
Value co-creation
Prior research has considered value co-creation and its groundwork from different perspectives, such as “value-in-experience” (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004) and “value-in-use” (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000) first emphasized the changing role of customers from passive audiences to active co-creators of experience. Companies can thus achieve a competitive advantage by co-opting customer competence (Bendapudi & Leone, 2003). Co-creation involves an effort between multiple
Data collection
We developed an online questionnaire that was posted on different online communities and forums to recruit diverse respondents. Similar to Chou, Wang, and Tang’s (2015) typology of virtual communities, respondents were recruited from different kinds of virtual communities, including general forums (i.e., UrCosme, Fashion Guide, or KENLU.net), professional or technical forums (i.e., DC view, letsplay3atoys.com, or Figure Hobby Club), and discussion boards (i.e., iPeen.com or sisgo.com), but
Results
All models were run on LISREL 8.71 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1996) in the current study. LISREL is viewed as one of the most widely used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) techniques in IS research. Following the two-step analytical procedures (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998), we will first examine the measurement model, and then the structural model. The aim of the two-step approach is to assess the reliability and validity of the measures before using them in the full model.
Discussion, implications, and limitations
This study contributes to research on virtual communities by incorporating online justice perceptions that ultimately lead to value co-creating behaviors, including in-role knowledge contribution and extra-role online community citizenship behavior. The results indicate that all five justice perceptions have significant effects on both in- and extra-role value co-creation behaviors indirectly through the mediating role of members’ sense of virtual community. According to these findings, members
Conclusion
Using social exchange and equity theories, we developed and tested a theoretical model that investigated the antecedents (i.e., online justice perceptions) conducive to the cultivation of sense of virtual community and the consequences reflected by in- and extra-role value co-creation behaviors in virtual communities. By combining the organizational justice literature with the virtual community research streams, the results indicated that all five perceived online justice antecedents
En-Yi Chou is a PhD doctoral candidate student of International Business at National Taiwan University. He received his master degree in international business from Yuan Ze University in Taiwan. His current research interests include knowledge management, virtual communities, electronic commerce, services marketing, and branding strategies. He has published a paper in Online Information Review.
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En-Yi Chou is a PhD doctoral candidate student of International Business at National Taiwan University. He received his master degree in international business from Yuan Ze University in Taiwan. His current research interests include knowledge management, virtual communities, electronic commerce, services marketing, and branding strategies. He has published a paper in Online Information Review.
Cheng-Yu Lin is a PhD doctoral candidate student of International Business at National Taiwan University. He received his master degree in international business from National Taiwan University. His research interests focus on virtual communities, online social networks, services marketing, and branding strategies. His work has appeared in Journal of Service Management.
Heng-Chiang Huang is a Professor in the Graduate Institute of International Business, National Taiwan University. He completed his PhD at the University of Michigan. His research areas include e-marketing, brand communities, healthcare marketing, and consumer behavior. He has published papers in Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Information & Management, Computers in Human Behavior, Online Information Review, Behavior and Information Technology, and other journals.