Abstract:

Based on online interactions, some interpersonal relationships are shaped online to produce benefits. However, little research paid attention to this new area called E-social capital. The purpose of this article is to investigate the formation mechanism of E-social capital in the context of online brand communities. The qualitative method of netnography is employed to explore the existence of the key constructs in the conceptual model and their relationships, and then the quantitative method of partial least square (PLS) is used to testify the hypotheses with the questionnaires collected from online sports shoes forums. The research findings indicate that: (1) E-social capital is composed of online trust, reciprocity norm, obligations and community identification, which are similar with the dimensions of traditional social capital. It can be considered that the traditional social capital theory is also applied to the online settings; (2) online interaction quality influences E-social capital positively, while social presence and sense of Yuan play partially mediating roles simultaneously between them; (3) informational value and member similarity influence online interaction quality positively; (4) E-social capital influences online brand community commitment positively. The research findings enrich the theories of E-social capital and brand community, and then provide some implications for the practice of brand community marketing.

Key words: online brand community, E-social capital, brand community commitment, formation mechanism