Identity and Community Citizenship Behavior

6.4.1.1 Moral Identification & Community Citizenship Behavior

Identification refers to the level of perception by which brand community members share the same defining attributes with the community (Ahearne et al., 2005). The members’ identification and attachment to the community are enhanced when they participate more actively in the group activities and interact more with the members and community (Algesheimer et al., 2005b, Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003).

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Moral identification in the research is defined as a “mental representation that a consumer may hold about his or her moral character” (p.180) (Reed II et al., 2007). In the contemporary consumer research about altruistic consumer behavior, there has been evidence found regarding the links between moral identification and voluntary community behavior such as donation and pro-social motives in social topic online community participation (Shao et al. 2008).

A person’s moral identification is made up of two dimensions, these being private and public moral self-schema (Aquino and Reed, 2002). The private dimension is called internalization, which focuses on an individual’s “degree to which the moral traits are central to the self-concept” (p.515). The public dimension of moral dimension is called symbolization, which explains the level of moral self-schema projected outwardly through his or her explicit actions (Shao et al. 2008).

For community citizenship behavior, it is considered as community member-direct extra- role behavior. In Yi et al.’s (2011) concept of community citizenship behavior, it is defined as the voluntary or non-explicit behavior that benefits and goes beyond community members’ role expectations to influence positively and effective functioning of an online brand community. For the purpose of this research, community citizenship behavior is defined as the voluntary and discretionary behavior that directly promotes the effective functioning of a community in the online community context. The outcome factors of community participation are categorized into a collective concept called community citizenship behavior.

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In addition to the dimensions of (1) helping others, (2) recommendation and (3) feedback from Groth’s (2005) research about customer voluntary citizenship behavior, another two detrimental online extra-role behavior: 4) knowledge sharing and 5) willingness to moderate were added to become the concept of community citizenship behavior.

Moral responsibility is one of the three key characteristics of brand community. Community members have “a felt sense of duty or obligation to the brand community as a whole, and to its individual members” (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001). As a good citizen of a community, they are believed to have good moral integrity and recognition to the community (Kim et al., 2012). It is believed that members with high moral identification in internalization and symbolisation to the online brand community are more likely to have higher level of voluntary community citizenship behavior to become a good solider of an organization (Organ, 1988). Voluntary commitment to non-profit making organization is a result of a drive to internationalization and symbolization (Kim et al., 2012). The qualitative research findings have revealed that members are assuming a moral and voluntary role to maintain the sustainability of the community and make the voice of the like-minded people be heard in online anti-brand community.

H1a1: Internalization is positively related to community citizenship behavior in online brand community.

H1b1: Symbolization is positively related to community citizenship behavior in online brand community.

H1a2: Internalization is positively related to community citizenship behavior in online anti-brand community.

H1b2: Symbolization is positively related to community citizenship behavior in online anti-brand community.

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6.4.1.2 Brand Identification & Community Citizenship Behavior

Brand community is set up for fans of a brand to gather together for the ‘we-ness’ and ‘consciousness of kind’ with the like-minded people (Bender, 1982, Kim et al., 2012, Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001, Szmigin and Reppel, 2004). In online brand communities, members can share the same tastes and preferences about the brand in order to support each other with knowledge sharing in relation to the brand. As a result, members form a close bond amongst each other (McWilliam, 2012).

Previous research has found that people’s identification with a brand community has a positive effect on both customers’ in-role behavior, namely willingness to pay, loyalty (Ahearne et al., 2005, Homburg et al., 2009) as well as extra-role behavior, such as helping the in-group members and knowledge sharing (Wiertz and de Ruyer, 2007).

In this survey, brand identity is defined as people’s perceived identity from enduring and distinctive characteristics of the brand, namely satisfaction with the brand and the reputation of the brand (Kuenzel and Halliday, 2008).

On the contrary, as a result of consumerism and collective action, many online anti-brand communities are set up mainly to discourage adoption of a brand and reveal the negative practice of the brand and brand owner (Krishnamurthy and Kucuk, 2009). People with strong identity to a brand are less likely to join an anti-brand community for that brand. Therefore, it is believed that brand identification will have negative association with community citizenship behavior in online anti-brand community participation.

H1c1: Brand identification is positively related to community citizenship behavior in online brand community.

H1c2: Brand identification is negatively related to community citizenship behavior in online anti-brand community

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6.4.1.3 Brand Disidentification & Community Citizenship Behavior

Bhattacharya and Elsbach’s (2002) interpretation of brand dis-identification is adopted in this research to refer to “a self-perception based on (1) a cognitive separation between a person’s identity and his or her perception of the identity of an organization and (2) a negative relational categorization of the self and the organization” (p. 28).

According to the above definition, people with strong dis-identification to a certain brand will try to dis-associate themselves from the brand to demonstrate its independence from it. As such, people with high brand dis-identification to a brand would not contribute to the extra-role behavior in the online brand community, or may behave negatively to the extra- role in the community.

H1d1: Brand dis-identification is negatively related to community citizenship behavior in online brand community.

Past research in the management field has illustrated the fact that people with high dis- identification to an organization would criticize the organization publicly and contests the organization individually (Elsbach and Bhattacharya, 2001, Jreiner and Ashforth, 2004). To apply this logic to the online anti-brand community, participants with high brand dis- identification would contribute positively to CCB, such as through the co-creation of negative feedback and word-of-mouth to the online anti-brand community.

H1d2: Brand dis-identification is positively related to community citizenship behavior in online anti-brand community

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