Effects of humor climate within online brand community

Abstract

PurposeThis study examines the effects of the online brand community's (OBC) humor climate on the value cocreation (VCC) behavior of consumers using the affective events theory. It also evaluates the serial mediating roles of positive emotions and brand engagement and the moderating effect of membership duration.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data from 601 Chinese consumers of OBCs using an online questionnaire survey and applied structural equation modeling to analyze the data.FindingsThe authors found a positive relationship between OBC humor climate and VCC behavior, which was mediated by positive emotions and brand engagement. Additionally, there was a serial mediation effect of these two variables. The influence of the OBC humor climate on positive emotions was stronger for short-term members than long-term ones.Practical implicationsThis research contributes toward OBC management and VCC marketing strategy for constructing brand equity.Originality/valueThis study is among the first to focus on the significance of the OBC humor climate, thus enriching the OBC literature and providing a new perspective on how to facilitate VCC behavior. It also broadens the application of the affective events theory in marketing.

How does the online innovation community climate affect the user’s value co-creation behavior: The mediating role of motivation

“…(2) There is a huge body of literature on online community climate and user’s value co-creation behavior [ 6 , 27 ], but the mechanism whereby the two interact with each other remains unclear. It is found that achievement need motivation plays a suppressing effect between controlling climate and user participation behavior, and power need motivation plays a suppressing effect between supporting climate and user citizenship behavior.…”

“…Since online communities, as an informal organization, are loose and open, community managers seldom intervene directly with users, but subtly influence their perceptions and behaviors by creating different community climates. Existing scholarship categorizes online community climate into humorous climate [ 27 ], social climate [ 28 ], team error management climate [ 29 ], virtual Brand Community’s Innovation climate [ 30 ] etc. Some scholars believe that multiple climates co-exist in the same community, which are related to each other and work together, such as an innovative climate and a social climate [ 8 ], a supportive, fair and ethical climate [ 6 ], and an innovative, interactive and controlling climate [ 26 ], etc.…”

Impact of brand community supportive climates on consumer-to-consumer helping behavior

“…Researchers have established and examined several organizational climate concepts related to a particular aspect of the organizational environment, such as humor climate (Yang et al , 2021), service climate (Hoang, 2022) and supportive climate (Luthans et al , 2008). The authors focus on supportive climate, which social support theory (Shumaker and Brownell, 1984) defines as a multidimensional construct with different components in different contexts (Zhu et al , 2016).…”