Tüketicilerin Online Marka Topluluklarına Katılımları Üzerinde Öz Benlik Uyumunun Rolü
The Role of Self-congruence on Consumers’ Participation in Online Brand Communities

Summary/Abstract: Aim: In order to provide the better communication with their consumers, firms have given more importance to brand communities, especially online brand communities. Successful firms use their brand communities to establish long-term relationships with both existing and potential customers thanks to relationship marketing approach. Relationship marketing provides a better understanding of business and consumer interaction in consumer engagement and brand relationships. Ensuring the participation of consumers in brand communities has been becoming very important for businesses day to day. Besides, in order to understand the market better, identifying the factors that affecting consumer participation is becoming the strategic tool for firms. In literature, many researchers handled the factors that affecting consumer participation. However, there is no study to examine the effect of self-congruence which is becoming more important in the marketing literature on the consumers’ participation in online brand communities. The self-concept is defined as how consumers actually see themselves and consumers tend to prefer the brand that they see closely their self-concept. Self-congruence is the similarity between how consumer sees himself and perceived of the image of the business. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of self-congruence on consumer participation in online brand communities.Method: For this purpose, quantitative research method was selected and the data obtained from 283 participants by the convenient sampling method. We used exploratory, confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation model to test our model and hypotheses. In this research, online brand communities and firms that have the Instagram page are discussed. We aimed to collect data from 350 people. Research data were collected in December 2018 in Ankara. The questionnaire was applied to the participants who followed the pages of brands in Instagram and volunteered to complete the survey. A pre-test was conducted with 15 people and the deficiencies in understanding the questions are solved. In the questionnaire form, there are two main demographic variables questions: gender and age. Likert-type scale was used to measure the main structures. A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed and after some controls, 283 useful questionnaires were analysed. Looking at the demographic structure of the participants, 46% were female (131) and 54% were male (152). The participants’ mean age was 28.32 years. The SPSS and LISREL software programs were used for data analysis.Findings: Approaches of Hair et al. (2006) and Fornel and Larcker (1981) have been adopted as the methods to be used in the evaluation of the research models and hypotheses. It was noted that the variance ratio explained in the results of each explanatory factor analysis for the structures was greater than 50% and the eigenvalue was greater than 1. The calculated values indicated that the structures in the research model were measured reliably. After the explanatory factor analysis, within the framework of Fornel and Larcker's (1981) approach, confirmatory factor analysis was applied in order to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validity of all structures under the title of construct validity. As a result of confirmatory factor analysis, goodness of fit values were as follows: Chi-square: 129.86; DF: 44; Chi-square / DF: 2.95; RMSEA: 0.083; Normed Fit Index (NFI): 0.97; Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI): 0.97; Comparative Fit Index (CFI): 0.98; Incremental Fit Index (IFI): 0.98; Relative Fit Index (RFI): 0.96; Goodness of Fit Index (GFI): 0.93; Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI): 0.87 and Standardized RMR: 0.028. It is seen that the goodness of fit values are quite good. Correlation values, correlation squares, AVE and CR values of the structures were calculated in order to evaluate the structures in terms of validity of discrimination. Structural equation model analysis was used to evaluate the research models and hypotheses. Goodness of fit values obtained as a result of structural equation model are as follows: Chi-square: 144,39; DF: 49; Chi-square / DF: 2.94; RMSEA: 0.083; Normed Fit Index (NFI): 0.97; Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI): 0.97; Comparative Fit Index (CFI): 0.98; Incremental Fit Index (IFI): 0.98; Relative Fit Index (RFI): 0.96; Goodness of Fit Index (GFI): 0.92; Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI): 0.87 and Standardized RMR: 0.049. According to structural equation model results, self-congruence has a positive effect on participation for helping (β = 0.67, t value = 10.62). Self-congruence also has an effect on the participation of consumers due to the importance of brand (β = 0.73, t value = 11.94). Helping has a positive effect on both the hedonistic (β = 0.46, t value = 6.91) and the utilitarian (β = 0.53, t value = 8.94) participation of consumers. Finally, the effect of brand passion on hedonistic participation was determined (β = 0.19, t value = 2.93).Results: According to the findings of the research, self-congruence positively affects the consumers’ participation in online brand communities for helping. Self-congruence also has an impact on participation in online brand communities as a result of consumers' caring or loving the brand, which is expressed as brand passion. In this point, firms should be aware of how they are seen on consumers’ eyes and how it is importance of this fit on their marketing strategies. The effect of receiving helping on both hedonistic and utilitarian participation is also seen in the analysis results. Brand passion also affects participation for entertainment purposes. In short, self-congruence positively affects participation in brand communities both for helping and brand passion. This study has two main contributions for the marketing literature. Firstly, Baldus et al., (2015) stated that all the factors of consumers’ participation in online brand community in their study cannot be handled together and there are cause-effect relations among themselves. In short, there are two main reasons why consumers participate in online brand communities: getting help and brand passion. Hedonic and utilitarian participation comes later as a secondary effect. The second contribution is to reveal the effect of self-congruence on consumer participation in brand communities. Self-congruence and consumer engagement are seen as a valuable predictor of future business performance, both providing and maintaining a competitive advantage. In future studies, it will be beneficial to handle customer participation from a different point of view in terms of consumer behaviour. Especially, examining the socio-psychological factors of consumers as well as self-congruence may contribute.

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