Investigating virtual community participation and promotion from a social influence perspective

Purpose: Understanding how to develop users’ word of mouth to promote a virtual community (VC) is an important issue in VC management. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that lead to VC participation and promotion from a social influence perspective. Design/methodology/approach: This research recruited 368 VC (i.e., Fashion Guide) members in Taiwan and used structural equation model to test research hypotheses. Findings: The results showed that both shared vision and language positively influenced norm of reciprocity and social identity, respectively. Norm of reciprocity and social identity influenced VC participation intentions, and subsequently resulted in VC promotion intentions. Originality/value: Prior studies neglect investigating the relationships between the three social influence processes (internalization, compliance and identification). This study contributes to the literature by proposing that internalization affects VC participation and promotion via compliance and identification.