Sense of virtual community: A follow up on its measurement

Understanding the dynamics of virtual communities has become an important issue for research. One concept that explains the participation in online communities is a sense of virtual community (SOVC), which is based on the offline equivalent sense of community (SOC) and describes a “spirit of belonging together”. Although these two concepts are similar, their measurement is problematic. Inspired by earlier studies, which investigated whether traditional SOC measures are appropriate for measuring SOVC, we adopted the SOC index 2 (SCI2) recently developed by Chavis et al. in a virtual setting. Our aim was to determine whether the refined SOC measurement is more suitable for virtual communities than their forerunners. We tested the SCI2 in a popular German community on 312 respondents. Our results showed that a thorough measure of SOVC still needs further refinement. We also discuss possibilities for improvement.     

Precursors of trust in virtual health communities: A hierarchical investigation

Lack of trust can have a negative influence on consumers’ willingness to share and adopt information in virtual health communities. However, not much is known about factors that influence the development of trust in such communities. This paper examined precursors of trust in virtual health communities. Data were collected from 361 users of virtual health community sites in South Africa. Structural equation modelling using version 23 of AMOS was used to analyse the data. The findings show that information usefulness, community responsiveness and shared vision have significant influence on consumers’ overall trust in health-related virtual communities. The findings, however, show differences in the extent to which precursor variables influence different dimensions of overall trust. The study provides insights that can help managers of such sites to effectively foster the development of trust in their communities.     

How virtual community participation influences consumer loyalty intentions in online shopping contexts: an investigation of mediating factors

Extant studies generally recognise that virtual community building is an effective marketing programme for forging deep and enduring affective bonds with consumers. This study extends previous research by proposing and testing a model that investigates key mediating processes (via trust, satisfaction and identification) that underlie the relationship between virtual community participation and consumer loyalty intentions. The authors test the hypotheses using data obtained from three large online retailing stores. Virtual community participation significantly enhances loyalty intentions, through both social mechanisms (via community identification) and psychological mechanisms (via trust and satisfaction). Moreover, the findings provide insights into the complex relationship between the two mechanisms in online shopping settings. Community identification is a pivotal factor for enhancing customer loyalty intentions. The results advance understanding of the process by which virtual community building facilitates the development of business-to-consumer relationships in the computer-mediated environment. The authors discuss the managerial implications of the findings, as well as avenues for further research.     

Antecedents of an experienced sense of virtual community

Sense of virtual community (SOVC) reflects the feeling that individual members have of belonging to an online social group. Yet there is a lack of investigation focusing on its individual-level antecedents. We argue that in order to enhance understanding of how SOVC develops we first need to distinguish between the individual expectations, actions, and the resulting community-related feelings. Drawing upon the uses and gratifications approach, we explore the community members’ expected benefits, their linkages with different types of community participation and consequently with the experienced SOVC. We tested the hypotheses on a sample of 395 members of a virtual community hosted by a Finnish business newspaper. The findings suggest that both forms of participation – reading and posting messages – have a positive impact on SOVC, but the expected benefits differ. Participation by reading messages is mainly driven by the expectation of cognitive benefits, while posting messages seems to be largely driven by the anticipation of both social and personal integrative benefits. Our study contributes by providing a refined SOVC conceptualization and operationalization for virtual-community research, and by opening up the individual-level actions that build up a sense of virtual community.     

Exploring knowledge contribution from an OCB perspective

As participation in virtual community becomes popular, it is important to know how to encourage individuals to contribute actively and assist other members share their expertise. Through the lens of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), we explored the factors that facilitate voluntary knowledge sharing in a virtual community. We examined OCB in online gaming communities in which various behaviors can contribute to the community (the team) or to individuals (team members). Our aim was to gain insight into ways of creating an environment that facilitated voluntary sharing of knowledge. Our findings suggested that effective leader–member exchange relationships, the attractiveness of the group to individuals, and affection similarity were important in establishing a virtual environment within which voluntary contributions could be promoted effectively. In addition, our study suggested that better quality leader–member exchange relationships and positive affection toward the virtual team enhanced OCB.     

Dynamic data sharing and security in a collaborative product definition management system

Product definition management (PDM) is a system that supports management of both engineering data and the product development process during the total product life cycle. The formation of a virtual enterprise is becoming a growing trend, and vendors of PDM systems have recently developed a new generation of PDM systems called collaborative product definition management (cPDM). This paper presents the concept of a virtual engineering community (VEC) to support concurrent product development within geographically distributed partners. A previous case study has shown that collaborative engineering design may be modelled from a parameter perspective [1]. Effective implementation of the parameter approach raises the following problems: how to support data sharing and secure that span the partner borders. This paper describes the system architecture, deployed security mechanisms, the prototype developed within cPDM, and the system demonstration using a real test. The implementation of this architecture extends a common commercial PDM system (Axalan™) and utilizes standard software to create a security framework for the involved resources. Collaboration infrastructure, shared team spaces and shared resources are essential to enable virtual teams to work together. Various organizational and technical challenges are implied. The outlined architecture features a federated data approach. These issues are discussed and potential perspectives in the area of collaboration engineering are identified.     

Sustainable virtual communities: suggestions from the colonial model

While virtual community research has contributed to the understanding of the virtual community sustainability, a need for a systematic model exists. In this paper, we propose a model of sustainable virtual communities based on the sustainability properties of animal colonies in nature. The premise of our model is that if we manage to replicate the sustainability properties of colonial systems in virtual communities, they can become longer lasting. We also present the results of an exploratory case study. The study shows that colonial properties form a construct that predicts member perceptions of their community being sustainable. While our primary objective is the conceptual introduction of the colonial principles of sustainability, the case study provides some early indications that these principles may help design systems that can bind virtual communities more permanently.

Living in the Hutt Space: Immersive process in the Star Wars Role-Play community of Second Life

Immersive virtual settings are evolving to become new “spaces of life”. Humans inhabit these different virtual worlds through their avatars, and tend to gather into communities. However, the behavioral factors underlying the cognitive process of immersion in virtual worlds are still far to be understood. We here investigated these factors using the Star Wars Role-Play community of the virtual setting of Second Life as a model. More specifically, our studies focused on the immersion process in the “Hutt Space”, a portion of the Star Wars Galaxy ruled by the alien species of the Hutts, which combines the trademark aspects of Star Wars universe. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we identified some of the factors which favor the immersion process. Our results suggest that the different behavioral factors contributing to the immersion process can be organized in three structuring dimensions: commitment, cohesion, and coherence. We also unveil a compensatory mechanism between appearance and behavioral factors in creation and maintenance of social groups in virtual worlds. Finally, we point out some of the behavioral aspects of the evolution from passive media engagement (spectators), to active media engagement (actors), and suggest a theoretical framework to investigate how human inhabit immersive virtual spaces.     

Avatar-based innovation: Consequences of the virtual co-creation experience

Virtual worlds, such as the prominent Second Life (SL), offer unprecedented opportunities for companies to tap the innovative potential of consumers and consumer communities. Despite the potential, the studied corporate open innovation initiatives fail to attract sustained engagement among co-creating participants. The underdeveloped state of these islands in terms of innovation tasks and the lack of knowledge about how to attract innovative avatars raise key concerns about the nature of the experience avatars have on corporate sites. In a quantitative study we examine the importance of the experience in encouraging active participation in the innovation tasks. When participants experience an inspiring, intrinsically motivating, involving and fun co-creation experience, they participate more intensely. Prior research on virtual new product development is extended to the virtual world context and insights of the virtual co-creation experience serve as guidelines for the conception of avatar-based innovation initiatives.     

Collaboration,connectedness, and community: An examination of the factors influencing student persistence in virtual communities

Institutions of higher education are being called upon to provide a more robust pathway to a college degree and improve upon the advanced workforce for the needs of the 21st century. While active collaborative learning environments have been encouraged in higher education to improve student engagement, there is a gap in the literature when it comes to connecting the two research areas of collaborative learning and student intention to persist. This research fills this gap by creating and conducting research to examine a model that measures the factors that significantly influence a student's persistence in a virtual collaborative learning environment. The model examines how collaborative learning, campus connectedness, sense of community, organizational commitment, and turnover intention influence student persistence. The model was tested using a sample of students who participated in a virtual learning community (VLC) and the results suggest that all but one of the factors were found to significantly influence student persistence, with the final factor dependent on the number of hours of system usage. We discuss the implications of the research and the model for team-based theory and organizational practice in education and teamwork.     

An internet retailing data framework for supporting consumers and business processes

Abstract. This paper describes an action research case study dealing with the development of an internet retail store with advanced capabilities. The research focuses on the exploitation of information generated through consumer–system interaction by the virtual retailer (i.e. sales, navigation and personal consumer data). The results effectively support the business processes, consumers and product suppliers. To that end, an internet retailing data framework was developed during the user requirements capturing phase of the ACTIVE (Advertising and Commerce Through the Internet in the context of the Virtual Enterprise) project, as a means of structuring the system's information requirements and data processing mechanisms. The purpose of this framework is to describe in detail what consumer information the system needs to collect and to advise the virtual retailer (i.e. ACTIVE's administrator) how to use the available software components to exploit this information in order to effectively support consumers and business processes. Despite the fact that the proposed framework is tailored to the ACTIVE characteristics and needs, it can also be utilized by other virtual retailers to effectively support their key stakeholders (i.e. customers and suppliers).     

The immersive impact of meta-media in a virtual world

With the increasing importance of virtual settings, we observe a complexification of the media used by members of the virtual communities. Using as the model the Star Wars Role-Play community of the virtual environment of Second Life, and a related news-styled blog, the “Galactic News Network”, we analysed here the impact of this media complexification on immersion process. Specifically, we analysed how meta-media can act on virtual community behavior, and on the immersive potential of the virtual world. We combined “out-of-world” analysis of the blog, and “in-world” qualitative and quantitative evaluation of meta-media-related social activities. Our results demonstrate that meta-media strongly contribute to reinforce the immersive potential of the virtual setting via several mechanisms: by increasing three parameters of the virtual world (cohesion, coherence, and commitment), by increasing the social density of the virtual community, and by acting on the perceived time factor. The combined “in-world” and “out-of-world” action of the meta-media increases the possibilities of inter-individual connections. The combination of 2D asynchronous media and 3D instantaneous virtual settings in a homogeneous and coherent immersive environment reinforces the immersive potential of the virtual world. Thus, meta-media seem to be a factor of long-term stabilization of social structures in virtual environments.     

Testing a model of sense of virtual community

A distinguishing feature of virtual communities is their sense of community, i.e., their participants’ feelings of membership, identity, influence, and attachment with each other. This study tests a model in which members’ perceptions of the group’s norms mediate the relationships between supporting each other and identifying each other with the members’ sense of virtual community. Two studies were conducted providing partial support for the model. The results show that the perception of norms mediate the relationship between SOVC and (a) observing and publicly exchanging support, (b) perceiving that others know one’s identity, and (c) using technical features to learn and create identity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

India network-the first case study of a virtual community

In this paper, we describe the historical development of a virtual community of Asian Indians and how the Internet helped create such a network. The Indian Network is the oldest e-mail network serving the Asian Indian community around the world. Although it is physically located in the United States, it serves members in more than 75 countries, providing them with news, information and advice. A detailed discussion on problems and issues in establishing an Internet-based network is provided in the paper. In addition, the advantages of the Internet in building a virtual community of immigrant populations separated by thousands of miles physically, but just an e-mail away are outlined. This paper will be of use to those interested in developing community networks for other communities. It will also help experts in computer science and information technology develop software tools to meet the challenges in aiding development of virtual communities. Another important contribution of these specialized lists is our ability to reach the community for research purposes which otherwise would be impossible. The credit card usage study and membership survey results are discussed towards the end of the paper.     

Product Marketing and Channel Management in Electronic Commerce

Marketing managers developing strategies to market products on the Internet are faced with important issues. We suggest that the use of Web advertising, virtual store-fronts and virtual communities provides innovative opportunities for marketers to communicate with consumers, understand their preferences and personalize the marketing offers at far lesser costs and far more effectively than through traditional means. The Web can also extend to fulfill the transaction and distribution needs of the consumers through new consumer processes, and thus becomes a new marketing channel. Considering the unique characteristics of the Web and traditional channels, we suggest the use of product and market characteristics in identifying the right channel for the right product. Further, we present a new framework of channel management strategies to help organizations effectively integrate the Web channel into their marketing strategy.     

What drives consumer knowledge sharing in online travel communities?: Personal attributes or e-service factors?

Consumer voluntary sharing of e-service knowledge in an online community is of great value to both business and consumers. This study develops and tests a research model integrating two personal attributes (consumer innovativeness and subjective knowledge) and two e-service factors (perceived ease of use and usefulness) in predicting consumer voluntary knowledge sharing in an online community. Data were collected using a web-based survey of 364 airline travelers recruited through an online travel community in China. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to analyze the data. The results reveal that personal factors are stronger drivers of knowledge sharing than e-service factors. This study advances consumer knowledge sharing in online communities, and has implications for enhancing a firm’s e-service strategies.     

Geology explorer: virtual geologic mapping and interpretation

We are developing internet-based freeware for virtual mapping and geologic interpretation. This takes the form of a synthetic, virtual world, Planet Oit, where students are given the means and the equipment to carry out geologic investigation and interpretation as a geologist would in the field. The environment is designed to give students an authentic experience that includes elements of: (1) exploration of a spatially oriented, virtual, world; (2) practical, field oriented, expedition planning and decision-making; and (3) scientific problem solving (i.e. a “hands on” approach to mapping, geologic investigation, data acquisition, and interpretation). The game-like environment is networked, multi-player, and simulation-based. Planet Oit can be visited on the Internet at http://oit.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu/     

Virtual goods,real goals: Exploring means-end goal structures of consumers in social virtual worlds

The aim of this study is to understand consumer goals for virtual consumption in social virtual worlds. Using a means-end chain approach, interviews with 93 users were analyzed to produce a hierarchical goal map, revealing that virtual consumption enables a diversity of goals beyond the previously identified experiential goals. The article's theoretical contributions include: (1) extending our understanding of user goals/goal relationships for virtual activities and (2) developing virtual liminoid theory, which describes transitions between users’ real-world and virtual identities and virtual consumption as a transition catalyst. The study illustrates the value of a goal focus for future research on user behavior in virtual worlds.     

Determinants of successful virtual communities: Contributions from system characteristics and social factors

Although there is growing interest in virtual communities, few studies have examined them from an integrated viewpoint including technical and social perspectives. By expanding on DeLone and McLean’s IS success model, the author constructed a model of the impact of system characteristics (e.g., information and system quality) and social factors (e.g., trust and social usefulness) in implementing successful virtual communities. Data collected from 198 community members provided support for the model. Results showed that both member satisfaction and a sense of belonging were determinants of member loyalty in the community. Additionally, information and system quality were found to affect member satisfaction, while trust influenced the members’ sense of belonging to the community. Finally, the findings provided understanding of the factors that measured virtual community success. Implications of my study are discussed.