Dark Side of Online Brand Communities : A Scoping Review of the Literature

Online brand communities are a double-edged sword; providing marketing managers with numerous opportunities to engage with their customers as well as pose serious threats that arise from online consumer empowerment. However, scholars seem to review only the positive aspects; thus, its lesser attended side or dark side deserves consolidation in the form of a literature review. The purpose of the study sets out to examine how has the dark side been defined in the extant literature of online brand communities? This study adopts a scoping review methodology to synthesize 69 scholarly articles from peer-reviewed journals, considering a review period from 2009-2021. Thematic analysis revealed six themes, defining the dark side: information credibility and information overload, likelihood to punish the brand, in-group favoritism and out-group hate, dis-engagement, routinized and transgressive conflicts, and incivility and trolling discourses. Operationalization of gaps in each theme provided directions for future research