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The development of online brand communities employed by marketers to maintain consumer relationships and brand building is increasing. This study aims to explore how value co-creation practices can cultivate consumers' brand loyalty.

Using partial least squares modeling, the hypotheses testing involves the utilization of and data collection from 599 Chinese consumers who actively engage in brand communities in China.

Value co-creation practices in brand communities cultivate consumers' affective commitment and psychological brand ownership, which in turn can further contribute to consumers' brand loyalty.

By offering a more comprehensive insight into how affective commitment and psychological brand ownership act as intermediaries between value co-creation practices and consumers' brand loyalty, this research enhances the existing knowledge on value co-creation and brand management.

Social media has significantly impacted the value creation processes within the consumer–brand relationship. This study aims to examine value formation processes within a cosmetics social media brand community and to establish the types of value formation associated with different categories of interactions within a social media brand community.

The research adopted a netnographic approach and followed the operational protocols of netnography. Conversations in one large cosmetics social media brand community were observed and downloaded for analysis over a two-month period. Examples of value-creation and formation processes were identified using netnographic interpretative procedures to develop higher-order themes.

The findings supported the creation of a “Consumer and brand value creation and co-creation framework” highlighting disparate value types within the following interactions: consumer-to-consumer; brand-to-consumer; and consumer-to-brand. The identified value types were specific to the actors (i.e. consumers and brands) involved in value formation processes. The analysis also revealed consumers’ ability to independently generate value through direct interaction with a social media brand community and the brands’ role in supporting consumers in value formation through value facilitation.

The pivotal role of disparate actors’ interactions in value formation processes is highlighted, alongside the autonomous ability to form value with the aid of resources stored and shared within the social media brand community. The network of interactions and value-creation processes contribute to a holistic understanding of the interactions in a social media brand community. Furthermore, the research explores and highlights the emerging role of social media brand communities as “value vestiges”.

Researchers, with the widespread acceptance of Web-based technologies by companies, have recently discovered a new type of social capital through these mass communication tools, but there is still limited knowledge about its formation. Therefore, this study specifically aims to conceptualize and validate brand social capital (BSC) by analyzing the role of the online brand community’s social media capital (OBCSC).

Research data was collected using a questionnaire with 39 closed-ended questions. Participants, among the 220 questionnaires distributed, only returned 140 acceptable questionnaires, indicating a response rate of 64%. The statistical population of the study included managers and employees of e-commerce companies active in social media in the field of B2C who introduce and sell their products and services on various types of social networking websites. This study performed data analysis using structural equation modeling with partial least squares.

The results showed that OBCSC has a positive and significant effect on the integration of brand knowledge, branding co-creation and sense of belonging to the brand community, and in addition, using the mediating role of these three variables, it also has a positive effect on BSC. This study rejects only hypothesis 8 among all the hypotheses formulated, which shows that the sense of belonging to the brand community has no significant effect on branding co-creation.

By conceptualizing a new phenomenon called BSC and how its conversion mechanism is, this research defines a specific and formulated path to better identify the results of the organizational use of social media. In addition, it significantly contributes to increasing managers’ understanding of the importance of online brand community activities in internalizing customer brand knowledge within the company and turning it into wealth.

Based on the principles of the social capital theory (SCT), this study aimed to generate hypotheses and evaluate a mediated moderated model that examined the impact of social capital on online brand community happiness (OBCH).

Using 215 online questionnaires from users of private online brand communities (OBCs) , researchers examined the hypothesized connections between variables. The SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 26.0 were applied to fulfill the purpose.

For the goodness of model fit, the authors have applied cut off criteria for fit indexes given by Hu and Bentler (1999) and model-fit measures indicators, i.e. CMIN/DF 1.397, CFI 0.958, SRMR 0.045, RMSEA 0.043 and PCLOSE 0.866, which meet the minimum acceptable criteria. Based on the results, social capital significantly affects psychological well-being (PWB), which, consequently, leads toward increased happiness among OBCs. Furthermore, membership duration moderates the relationship between PWB and OBCs.

The authors have utilized a cross-sectional research design, and it limits the researcher’s ability to generalize the findings. These findings imply how social capital leverages PWB and OBCH. Moreover, the presence of membership duration helps to understand that members who spend more time in the community are happier in the OBCs.

In this age of social media, it provides valuable guidance to the administrators of private Facebook groups dedicated to specific brands, enhancing the definition and development of OBC operations and community interactions.

This research takes a broader look at social capital’s impact on happiness among private OBCs. The current research contributes to the existing body of work by emphasizing the role of PWB in generating happiness. The study is novel in examining the mediating moderating model of PWB and membership duration to explore deep insights for social media platforms.

This research explores the antecedents of tourist satisfaction and revisit intention, especially in light of the post-pandemic environment that pushed tourism to the lowest level in the present decade. A comprehensive conceptual model based on the brand equity theory (BET) is developed, and interrelationships between brand heritage, community support and benefits, hedonism, culture, tourist satisfaction and revisit intention.

The data were collected from 670 tourists visiting one of the heritage destinations in southern India (Kanchipuram). After checking the psychometric properties of the survey instrument, the hypotheses were tested using path analysis and Hayes's PROCESS macros.

The results indicate that heritage brand of destination sites is positively associated with (1) tourist satisfaction and (2) tourist revisit intention. The findings also support the positive effect of attractiveness of products is positively related to tourist satisfaction, which in turn, is a significant predictor of tourist revisit intention. The findings also support that community support benefits moderating the relationship between heritage brand and attractiveness of products in heritage destinations tourist satisfaction.

This study has several implications for practicing managers engaged in maintaining heritage destinations. As this research highlights the importance of heritage brands of destinations in influencing tourist satisfaction, local communities and policymakers need to provide the necessary infrastructure and facilities at these destinations. Further, local entrepreneurs are motivated to invest in delivering products that attract tourists.

The conceptual model developed in this study, is first of its kind, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, that investigates the effect of hedonism (second moderator) moderating the relationship between tourist satisfaction and culture (first moderator) in influencing tourists to revisit their intention. In addition to direct relationships, the moderating role of community support and benefits, culture and hedonism makes a unique contribution to the bourgeoning literature on tourism especially in Indian context.

Triggered by the extensive use of social media brand communities (SMBCs) in interactive marketing, this article aims to explore how brand connectedness (BC) affects consumer engagement behavior (CEB) in SMBCs.

The research model was verified with the partial least squares structural equation modeling applied to the actual data collected from the web crawling largest microblogging platform in China (Sina Weibo).

Results indicate that BC may positively influence consumer emotions (CEs), eventually leading to engagement behavior in SMBCs. In addition, gender and duration of membership act as vital moderators in the model. One of the most interesting findings is the differences between posting and commenting, although both are CEBs. BC has a more significant effect on commenting than posting, and the mediating effect of CEs between BC and posting behavior is not significant.

This research contributes to the literature on interactive marketing by examining BC in the context of SMBCs, which is under-researched in the literature but is highly pertinent to social media contexts. Moreover, we measure BC through social network analysis for the first time, which not only supports the empirical work but also expands the social network theory and social capital theory. This research also extends the body of knowledge on consumer engagement by investigating the differences between posting and commenting behaviors.

Global brands have become increasingly vulnerable to external disruptions that have negative spillover effects on consumers, business and brands. This research area has recently garnered interest post-pandemic yet remains fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the most impactful exogenous brand crisis (EBC) and its affective and behavioural impact on consumers.

In Study 1, we applied repertory grid technique (RGT), photo elicitation method and ANOVA comparisons, to identify the most significant EBC, in terms of repercussions on consumer purchases. In Study 2, we performed collage construction and content analysis to ascertain the impact of the identified significant crisis (from Study 1) on consumer behaviour in terms of affective and behavioural changes.

Study 1 results reveal Spread-of-diseases and Natural disaster to be the most impactful EBC based on consumer’s purchase decisions. Study 2 findings uncover three distinct themes, namely, deviant demand, emotional upheaval and community bonding that throws light on the affective and behavioural changes in consumer behaviour during the two significant EBC events.

The collated results of the two studies draw insights towards understanding the largely unexplored conceptualisation of EBC from a multi-level (micro-meso-macro) perspective. The integrated framework drawn, highlight the roles and influences of different players in exogenous brand crisis management and suggests future research agendas based on theoretical underpinnings.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which identifies the most important EBC and explicates its profound impact on consumer purchase behaviour, providing critical insights to brand managers and practitioners to take an inclusive approach towards exogenous crises.

Consumers nowadays are no longer bystanders in the process of production but are proactive collaborators with the power to co-create value with brands. This study aims to explore the impact of social commerce on the co-creation process of brand value in a social commerce setting.

A questionnaire survey was conducted online to gather 300 eligible responses. The data were empirically validated using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) method.

The results indicated that brand engagement (BEN) is vital to brand co-creation (BCC) in social commerce, which could be driven by social-hedonic value (SHV) and social information sharing (SIS).

This study stresses the influence of consumer autonomy in the process of BCC by probing the role of SIS. Moreover, by considering the prevailing trend in social media, this study offers a nuanced perspective on the values of social commerce from the viewpoint of SHV.

This study may serve as a useful guide for practitioners to improve their digital outreach strategy on social commerce to forge stronger relationships, encourage further engagements and promote value co-creation within their brand community.

This examines the effect of relationship quality (RQU) and BEN on BCC through a relational viewpoint.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the suitability of Botschen et al.’s (2017) Brand-driven Identity Development of Places (BIDP) framework to support places in developing their brand-driven identity and offering sustainable tourism models.

This paper applies design science research (DSR) to evaluate the BIDP-framework. A qualitative methodology is used, bringing together findings from four different case studies and from existing academic literature to make relevant suggestions for the improvement of the framework.

The findings indicate that the BIDP-model represents a valid artifact for the development of a brand-driven place identity, but that there is room for improvement.

This paper adopts a DSR approach in a managerial context and shows its validity for evaluating a place branding framework. Moreover, it provides implications not only for managers directly involved in place branding, who can benefit from the model assessment and its suggestions for improvement, but also for tourists and local communities, who will take advantage of more sustainable branding models that better integrate the needs of local actors.

This study identifies factors affecting brand building for academic libraries affiliated with the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) in Iran.

This research applied the grounded theory method based on the three open, axial and selective coding steps (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). The research tool was interviews conducted with 20 experts in librarianship, marketing and branding.

Library building architecture, library information resources and services, librarians' branding, marketing activities and library management are the causal conditions affecting brand building. The national economic situation, the digital publishing situation in the country and different characteristics of the new library community are the intervening conditions affecting brand building. The role of other libraries in society in the scientific education of the new generation provides contextual conditions for brand building. The higher education system and the library parent organization play a part in the operative actions/interactions for brand building. The consequences of brand building are brand image development, brand excellence and brand behavioral loyalty for libraries. Library brand identity is also a core category in brand building.

Facing steep challenges by emergent services, academic libraries are ill-prepared to meet the needs of the new information society solely with traditional services and functions. Academic libraries are required to rebrand themselves to be more successful at delivering a strong performance within a changing information environment by enhancing their brand image and establishing a more effective relationship with users.