| Online communities formed around brands are called online brand communities. Over the past few years, rapid advancements in information technology, especially the Internet, have facilitated the formation of numerous online brand communities. Members' participation is said to be essential for the success of online brand communities. However, there are no existing frameworks that have identified the antecedents of members' participation in online brand communities. Further, active participation shapes what participants do, how they perceive fellow members and non-members and how they view the focal brand and competing brands. Thus knowledge about brand community participation is very important for marketers. However, the existing literature does not contain substantive information on these issues.; This dissertation explores purposive value, entertainment, self discovery, maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, and social enhancement as the antecedents of online brand community participation and investigates the relationship between online brand community participation and consciousness of kind, moral responsibility, and shared rituals and traditions---the three characteristics found among members of traditional communities and how these characteristics are further related to sustainable brand loyalty, oppositional brand loyalty and brand recommendations.; Using a sample of 470 members from six different online brand communities, the study found purposive value, maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, and social enhancement as the antecedents of online brand community participation. Online brand community participation was found to be significantly related to consciousness of kind, moral responsibility, and shared rituals and traditions. Consciousness of kind was significantly related to sustainable brand loyalty and oppositional brand loyalty, while moral responsibility was significantly related to brand recommendations. Managerial implications, future research directions and limitations are also discussed. |
