Community Network And Fans’ Consumer Behavior

There are many attention has been paid on the big success of Apple Inc. in recent years. When we think of the reason on its rapid development, in addition to the technical advantage of the company itself, apple fans also play a crucial role in the process. Therefore, based on apple fans as the research object, this paper aims to recognize this particularly active and the most autonomous consumer group.Fan research has traditionally been considered to be the topic of communication studies and marketing; while in sociology, especially in economic sociology, the related researches are very limited. In existing discussions, fan’s main consumer motivation is divided into three types:one is about the cultural symbol, the second refers to their emotion and identity, the third is about the social status competition among fan community. However, although these theories largely emphasize the autonomy of fans, the three consumer motives are still considered as the content of homogeneity, and the influence of community network on fans’consumer behavior is ignored.The paper amends the tendency of excessive emphasis on consumer motivation in the fan studies and takes the network structure, network positions and tie strength into the analysis framework. On the one side, the paper admits fan actors have behavior autonomy and multiple motives rather than single economic self-interest motive; on the other side, multiple motives are molded by the community network. Besides, fans’ individual networks can act directly on their consumer behavior and strategy choice.At the experience level, this paper takes apple fans and their important virtual community "WeiPhone" BBS as an example, and tries to show how community network significantly works on fans’consumer strategy choice. This paper will provide a new perspective to think over Hirschman’s theory about "exit and voice" in consumer behavior and answers a question in the view of economic sociology:If we take apple fans in the same virtual community as different network nodes, which can spread information one by one, and can provide emotional support; then why some fans are more loyal than others? And why some fans are more inclined to exit than others?Based on the questionnaire data, this research uses OLS regression analysis to construct three models, including "fan motives" model, "individual network" model and the integrated "motive-network" model, to respectively investigate their explanatory power on fans’consumer behavior. The statistical results show that apple fans’choice on consumer strategy is affected by the degree of consumer motivation they satisfy. Firstly, the recognition of Apple’s symbolic meaning stimulates their loyalty on Apple Company and products. Secondly, having a higher degree of identity is easier for fans to remain loyal. Thirdly, the fans having a lower status in the community will be more likely to exit.However, after taking the network factors into analysis model, it shows that such variables about fans’motivation are quite insufficient in explaining fans’strategy choices. Network relations with potential resources among fan community have stronger and more direct influences to it. Specifically,1) Fans who have a bigger scale of community network, it is more likely for them to keep loyal or add their voice whereas they may choose to exit; 2) Fans who have a dense network in community are more likely to be loyal while who with loose network have more tendency to voice or even quit; 3) Thirdly, Internal-oriented fans have a higher chance of loyalty; the other way around, export-oriented relationship is more conducive to spread voice and emotions, which may leads to collective action or a directly exit; 4) Fourthly, fans in the active network are more likely to keep loyalty whereas the fans in the passive network have a higher chance of conducting a voice or exit to other brand and fans group; 5) Finally refers to the degree of tie strength. It shows that fans having a strong relationship among community networks are more likely to choose to stay loyal or call for a positive voice; on the contrary, having a weak relationship between fans will show the tendency to exit.