The impact of small business B2B virtual community commitment on brand loyalty

Lakisha L. Simmons and Russell W. Clayton

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2010, vol. 4, issue 4, 451-468

Abstract: In effort to focus research attention on emerging business-to-business (B2B) virtual communities (VCs), we review and extend business-to-consumer (B2C) literature, resource-advantage theory and relationship marketing to describe how community-hosting organisations build brand loyalty in B2B markets. We explain how functional usefulness, system quality, business opportunity, dialogue initiation and response frequency impact B2B VC commitment and brand loyalty towards the community-hosting organisation. Results of this study support hypotheses that B2B VCs critically impact relationship marketing. Further, functional usefulness, system quality, business opportunity, dialogue initiation and response frequency impact B2B community commitment and brand loyalty.

Keywords: relationship marketing; social networking; small business; small firms; virtual communities; web based communities; online communities; brand loyalty; business-to-business; B2B markets; resource-advantage theory; business-to-consumer; B2C; branding; functional usefulness; system quality; business opportunities; dialogue initiation; response frequency impact; commitment. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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