Brand community integration, participation and commitment: A comparison between consumer-run and company-managed communities

Abstract

In the past two decades there has been a growth in the rate at which consumers join, companies use, and researchers study brand communities. Given the expansion of brand communities, scholars insistently analyze why individuals join and stay in them. However, no study concurrently examines the links among the members’ integration, participation and commitment to a brand community. Furthermore, research conceive brand communities as homogenous. Whether the feelings and behaviors of members of different kinds of communities, and specifically consumer-run and company-managed brand communities, are comparable is unknown. Using a sample of 2167 consumers of a leading motorcycle brand, this study examines the members’ integration, participation and commitment to consumer-run and company-managed communities. The findings reveal that consumer-run communities stimulate higher levels of integration, participation and commitment than the company-managed communities, but that the mechanisms connecting integration, participation and commitment are invariant across the two types of community.