Influence of Value Co-Creation on Virtual Community Brand Equity for Unichannel vs. Multichannel Users

Value co-creation by users in a virtual community is a key element to encouraging the community’s brand equity. This study analyzes the effect of the functional value provided by the virtual community on the two value-co-creation behaviors that occur within it: (1) self-value co-creation and (2) communal value co-creation. Through self-value co-creation, participants co-create value to their own benefit by becoming involved in co-designing their experience. By communal value co-creation, participants co-create value through evaluations, recommendations, and ideas that benefit others. This study also asks whether multichannelity—using various channels to access the virtual community (website and mobile app), as opposed to using a single channel (website or mobile app)—has a moderating effect on the relationships proposed between value co-creation and brand equity of the virtual community. The analysis is contrasted empirically for the virtual community Tripadvisor with data collected by a research institute via telephone interview. Confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group structural equation modeling techniques were used to assess the proposed model. The study enriches two significant lines of scholarly research, value co-creation and brand equity. It does so in multi-brand virtual contexts in which variety of service brands coexists with the brand of the virtual community, and with users who access the virtual community through one or various channels. The study also contributes to the formulation of business strategies oriented to increasing the brand equity of virtual communities.