Customers as Co-Creators: Antecedents of Customer Participation in Online Virtual Communities

Yang Yang, Zhongqiu Li, Yingying Su, Shanshan Wu and Boyou Li
Additional contact information
Yang Yang: School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Zhongqiu Li: School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Yingying Su: School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Shanshan Wu: School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Boyou Li: School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: The development of internet technology and the popularity of smartphones has been gradually affecting people’s daily lives, thus causing subtle changes to their health. Manufacturing companies are increasingly establishing virtual communities to motivate customers to participate in new product development. However, the reasons that customers participate in the innovation process and the timing of participation remain under-researched. Hence, using data on 517 customers of 14 manufacturing enterprises, we investigate the reasons behind such participation and the moderating role of perceived ease of use and perceived control based on the social exchange theory. Results show that learning benefits, integrative benefits, and hedonic benefits have positive effects on participation. Perceived ease of use strengthens the positive relationship between integrative benefits and customer participation. Perceived control strengthens the positive relationship between hedonic benefits and customer participation. Theoretical implications and managerial practices are also discussed.

Keywords: customer participation; perceived ease of use; perceived control; online virtual community (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/4998/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/4998/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:24:p:4998-:d:295634

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().