Becoming Friends in Online Brand Communities: Evidence From China
研究在线品牌社区中陌生人如何通过互动成为朋友，发现即时通讯技术驱动的互动性是关键，社会临场感和缘分感起中介作用，友谊进而增强社区承诺。
With the aid of information technology, consumers have increasingly engaged in social interaction in online brand communities. How can these strangers make friends online? Drawing on embeddedness theory and media richness theory, we examine the antecedents and intermediate mechanisms of online friendship. We theorize that online brand community interactivity aided by instant messaging technology is the main driving force of online friendship, whereas social presence and a sense of yuan (a Chinese concept describing predetermined relations) mediate online friendship development. Online friendship in turn enhances consumer online brand community commitment. We test our conceptual model with a sample of consumers from Chinese online sporting goods forums. The results support our hypotheses and inform online brand community research and practice.