Enhancing loyalty and e-WOM in virtual brand communities: a multi-country study

Purpose Extant works on virtual brand community (VBC) engagement are limited to engagement with the community or the brand, without comprehensively investigating the antecedents and consequences of both. Additionally, most works have remained restricted to one country in their investigation, despite VBCs’ global reach. To fill these gaps, the work investigates the relationships amongst self-congruence with the brand (SCB), VBC satisfaction, affective brand engagement (ABE), VBC Engagement (VBCE), brand loyalty and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). Design/methodology/approach About 600 respondents, 150 each from the US, the UK, India and Tunisia, provided the necessary data, which was analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) in SmartPLS4 to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings SCB was a critical factor influencing VBC satisfaction and ABE. The study validated the effect of ABE on VBCE and the positive impact of VBCE and ABE on brand loyalty and e-WOM. The model remained robust across the countries as well. Practical implications The findings of the work guide brand managers on leveraging the congruence between the brand that owns the VBC and the consumer as the “building block” to create satisfaction and engagement with the VBC. Originality/value The work adds value by evoking a unique mechanism through which SCB and resultant engagement can drive loyalty and e-WOM. A primary novelty of the work is the bifurcation of the affective and social dimensions of consumer-brand engagement to propose two separate constructs in the VBC context, referred to as ABE and VBCE.