Virtual agents wear many different names according to their use contexts, functionalities, degrees of anthropomorphism. They can also be visible or incarnated, or not (incarnated agents are called Embodied virtual agents or EVAs). They have been widely used since the 2000's and first generated a...

We investigate two key group-level determinants of virtual community participation - group norms and social identity - and consider their motivational antecedents and mediators. We also introduce a marketing-relevant typology to conceptualize virtual communities, based on the distinction between...