Impact of brand community supportive climates on consumer-to-consumer helping behavior

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to explore whether or not and how brand community supportive climates (information- versus emotion-supportive climates) have an impact on consumer-to-consumer helping behavior.Design/methodology/approachA survey of users of cell phone brand communities was conducted, and data from 413 participants were used to validate the hypotheses of this study.FindingsResults indicated that emotion- and information-supportive climates enhance consumer-to-consumer helping behavior through consumer–community relationships (i.e. brand community identification and brand community commitment).Research limitations/implicationsTo enhance the external validity of this research, future studies could investigate other settings (e.g. social media-based brand communities and brands of other product types) in countries with different religious beliefs.Practical implicationsMarketers should create an environment where consumers feel informationally and emotionally supported within the brand community, thereby enabling the former to enhance their relationships with their brand communities and ultimately increase consumers' helping behavior.Originality/valueBy dividing the supportive climate into two parts, the current study enriched the literature on community climate. Moreover, the authors complemented and expanded the literature on consumer helping behavior.