Antecedences and Consequences of Customer Engagement in Online Brand Communities: Multi-national Perspective

摘要

Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences, University of Bradford,Richmond Road, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK; 5 School of Business, Department of Management Information Systems,The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan; This paper aims to look at the importance of online brand communities on the customer experience in terms of customer brand loyalty and information capital. Thus, the proposed conceptual model was based on the information exchange theory. The current model was also expanded by proposing for main factors (social trust, interactivity, hedonic motivation, and perceived involvement) as key drivers of customers' engagement with online brand communities. Two main consequences of customers' engagement were also proposed in the current study model, namely: information capital and brand loyalty. The empirical part of the current study will be conducted within two main countries: one developed (United Kingdom) and one developing (Jordan). This study will adopt online questionnaire survey to collect the required data. Structural equation modelling will be adopted as a statistical technique to test the current model and validate the main research hypotheses. This study will expand the theoretical understanding regarding very important phenomenon (online brand communities), which requests more exploration and examination. This is in light of the fact that, this phenomenon has not yet studied and examined over the Middle-East countries.