Understanding community citizenship behavior in social networking sites : An extension of the social identification theory

Purpose – Social media platforms established social relationship between the consumer and the brand community. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model to understand how dual-identification impact on the community citizenship behavior (CCB). Specifically, the authors propose perceived community-brand similarity (PCBS) influence CCB via dual-identification and brand passion (BP). Design/methodology/approach – The research sample consists of 323 members who have used Apple product and used Apple fan page for more than one year, and structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypotheses. Findings – The results indicated that PCBS directly influenced brand identification (BI) and community identification (CI), respectively. BI directly influenced CI. CI directly influenced BP, but BI not directly influenced BP. In the mediation effects, both the dual-identification factors and BP play important mediating roles. Practical implications – From a managerial standpoint, this research provides implications for social network sites management. Originality/value – This research fills a void in the BI and CI are coexisting but distinct aspects of virtual communities. In addition, the mediating role of dual-identification factors and BP in the online community consumer-brand relationship has not been fully investigated.