Relationship Marketing in Virtual Community: Antecedents and Consequences

Abstract

This study propounds a theoretical model of relationship marketing in virtual community in China and the authors testify the model through structural equation modeling. The authors find that the sponsor?s effort to foster member embeddedness has a significantly positive effect on community members? trust in the sponsor and loyalty to the sponsor. Meanwhile, the sponsor's efforts to provide quality content and keep the community website safe have a significantly positive effect on community members' trust in the sponsor, but the effort to encourage member interaction does not. The hypotheses that member loyalty and cooperation are outcomes of trust are also supported, and meanwhile, member loyalty has positive effect on member cooperation in virtual community. Marketing implications and further research directions are also discussed in the last section.