Testing the moderating effects of toolkits and user communities in personalization: The case of social networking service

Abstract

Firms are increasingly seen to provide customization tools for customers to personalize products and service tailored to the customers' specific needs. How to attract and empower customers into the personalization process and how to improve the effectiveness of personalization are important for firms. The current study examines the moderating effects of two popular enabling approaches implemented by firms, customization toolkits and user communities, on the relationship between the effectiveness of personalization and two innovative customer characteristics, of leading edge status and user knowledge. Using data collected from 308 Chinese customers who participate in the personalization of social networking service, we found that toolkits had a marginal but positive moderating effect, and user communities had no significant moderating effect on the relationship between leading edge status and personalization effectiveness. However, both toolkits and user communities had significant and positive moderating effects on the relationship between user knowledge and personalization effectiveness. The implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.