| Abstract [eng] |
With 5.3 billion internet users worldwide, 4.48 billion of whom have social media accounts and spend a third of their time on social media, virtual brand communities have become the focus of attention for researchers and practitioners, with the main construct - customer engagement. Multidimensional and unidimensional engagement perspectives are widely discussed in the academic literature, but researchers believe there is still a need for a holistic understanding of the phenomenon, its antecedents and outcomes in different contexts, and the studies in different markets, brand communities and social media platforms are necessary. Wide ammount of research confirms the critical role of customer engagement in virtual brand communities for customer loyalty, which is crucial for any business. However, there is still a dearth of research on the links between customer engagement in virtual brand communities and post-purchase intentions. Especially in the daily growing category of e-commerce brands. The aim of this study is to find out the relationships between customer engagement in virtual brand communities and post-purchase intentions - repurchase, brand recommendation and spreading positive e-wom about the brand. This master thesis consists of three main parts - the analysis of the academic literature, the research methodology and the results section. The thesis is concluded with conclusions and recommendations. The academic literature review highlights the role of brand communities, the phenomenal construct of customer engagement, its antecedents, cosequences and its dimensionality. After the literature review, the author decided to investigate the influence of customer engagement as a multidimensional construct consisting of cognitive, emotional and behavioural dimensions, as recommended by a broad majority of researchers, on customer post-purchase intentions. Communities of natural cosmetics brand on "Instagram" and "Facebook" were selected for the empirical study. After a quantitative online survey with 410 suitable completed questionnaires, the results were analysed and showed significant findings. All hypotheses were confirmed. The results showed that customer engagement in the virtual brand communities has an impact on customers' post-purchase intentions – to repurchase, recommend and the spread of positive e-wom about the brand. Additional tested links between customer satisfaction with online shopping experience and customer engagement showed that satisfaction has a significant impact on customer engagement in virtual brand community. Furthermore, analysis revealed that the "Instagram" brand community was more engaged overall, emotionally, cognitively and behaviourally and had a stronger tendency to repurchase, spread positive e-wom about the brand in the future than the “Facebook” community. The relationships between intention to spread positive e-wom, to recommend the brand and repurchase intention were also tested. The results showed that both constructs had a positive influence on repurchase intention, with positive e-wom intention having a stronger influence. It is recommended to continue the research in other virtual brand categories, on other growing social media platforms, s-commerce context. |
