Antecedents and purchase consequences of customer participation in small group brand communities

Abstract

This paper investigates behavior and determinants of the behavior of small group brand community participants. A small group brand community is a friendship group of consumers with a shared enthusiasm for the brand and a well-developed social identity, whose members engage jointly in group actions to accomplish collective goals and/or to express mutual sentiments and commitments. Group activities centered on the brand intermingle with other social activities in these brand communities. A comprehensive model is proposed based on a broadening and deepening of the theory of planned behavior to incorporate social intentions, three aspects of social identity (cognitive self-awareness of membership in the brand community, affective commitment, and evaluative significance of membership), anticipated positive and negative emotions toward achieving or failing to achieve group participation goals, and desire as a transformative mechanism translating reasons for acting into social intentions to do so. The proposed theoretical framework is tested on a sample of 154 members of Harley-Davidson Motorcycle small group brand communities and another sample of 255 members of motorcycle riding groups not organized around specific brands.