earticle

영어

Unlike company created OBCs, Member created online brand communities (OBCs), are characterised by stronger social activities and more diverse topics that may not be directly linked to the brands. This raises the question of whether active participation in member initiated OBCs leads to stronger brand loyalty. This paper applies the commitment-trust theory to test if users participation in member-initiated OBCs increases the loyalty of brand within community members. The commitment-trust theory indicates that correspondence bonds and reliability are key factors of significant relational variables in relationship marketing. We identify information quality and social usefulness as antecedents of correspondence bonds and reliability and brand loyalty as outcomes of the relationships. The model is verified through data obtained from 530 users of IT related online brand communities in South Korea. The observations of this work indicates the increase of brand bonds through sense of belongings and information quality that lead to improved trust and commitment on the OBCs. In particular, sense of belonging is an important factor for member initiated OBCs due to the higher level of independence from the brand companies. Also,we test the Direct, Indirect, and Total Effects of Trust on Brand bonds via OBC Commitment. The results highlight partial mediation between Trust and Brand Loyalty through OBC Commitment. The bootstrapping analysis also supports the robustness of the indirect effect, providing further evidence of the mediation process and relaiablity plays a critical role in influencing Brand Bonds.