Understanding how consumers navigate relationships within communities: Two essays

Arias, Robert Alfonso

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105671 Copy

Description

Title

Understanding how consumers navigate relationships within communities: Two essays

Author(s)

Arias, Robert Alfonso

Issue Date

2019-07-12

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Otnes, Cele C

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Otnes, Cele C

Committee Member(s)

• Viswanathan, Madhubalan
• Rindfleisch, Aric
• Torelli, Carlos
• Wooten, David

Department of Study

Business Administration

Discipline

Business Administration

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• consumer behavior
• community
• brand community
• brand communities
• brand community conflict
• belonging

Abstract

In this dissertation, I explore the spectrum of positive and negative consumer experiences within brand communities. Specifically, I study how consumers proactively pursue positive experiences, and how they reactively manage negative experiences in this social marketspace. In Essay 1, I offer an integrative perspective with which to study belonging in consumption. Specifically, I utilize qualitative data from written narratives and an 11-month ethnography to illustrate a belonging process within an established brand community. I investigate how individuals navigate this process, and how people deliberately control what and how they consume to belong. In so doing, I specifically demarcate belonging-laden constructs, and describe their interrelationships. In my second essay, I draw from theory regarding the management of organizational conflict to illuminate tensions between focal consumers and the firm. Importantly, I illustrate how the firm’s relationship with other brand community members (i.e., other consumers, marketing agents, service providers) influence the focal consumer’s experience. I advance scholars’ conceptualization of the brand community, and I argue that in addition to examining positive consumer experiences within this social context, academics should also investigate the negative experiences that occur in such a community. Specifically, I contend that conflict is a pervasive force in this marketplace context which requires rigorous study. Utilizing interviews, observation, and archival data, I contribute to extant theory by delineating how conflict emerges within a brand community. I explain consumers’ emotional and cognitive reactions to such conflict, and I illuminate how consumers choose to navigate it. I conclude explicating theoretical and practical implications.

Graduation Semester

2019-08

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105671

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2019 Robert Arias

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