Impacts of Peer Identity and Peer Relationship on Online Brand Community Identification and Value Co-creation—A Structured Abstract

Abstract

Although researchers have recently advocated that brand communities should be customer centered rather than brand centered, literature on community identification focuses heavily on customer–brand relationships. Adopting the neglected customer–customer relationship perspective, this study instead reclaims the importance of (impersonal) peer identities and (personal) peer relationships in shaping brand–community identification. Adopting a structural equation modeling approach, this study empirically examines, in an online setting, how a brand community’s identity attractiveness and peer relational identification jointly influence brand community identification, which subsequently leads to members’ value co-creation behavior (manifested by co-consumption and co-production). The findings have important theoretical and managerial implications; communal leader enthusiasm might negatively influence peer relational identification.