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The Exploration of Consumer Power in Online Brand Communities: A Comparison Case Study in Australia and China

Olivia Zhang QUT Faculty of Business, School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations Submitted for qualification toward Master of Business (Research), August 2008

Statement of Original Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.

Signed: …………………………………………..

Date: …………………………………………….

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Acknowledgements I would like to extend my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Gayle Kerr, a wonderful lady. Without her help, I could not finish this thesis. When I was uncertain about the topic and full of doubt about progress, her positiveness and encouragement gave me confidence and kept me moving forward. My associate supervisor, Judy Drennan also supported me a lot with her precise comments on content and style to ensure the quality of the work.

Thanks to all the participants in my research. Your generous help was very crucial to making this happen. From your sharing of passion and devotion, I learned a lot about the games and gamers. A very special thanks goes to Rhys, who is a gamer and member of the Australian Halo community. He shared a lot of information about the game and provided great assistance on recruiting participants.

Finally, deep gratitude has to be given to my beloved family and all friends, who constantly supported and encouraged me during this journey. My great aunty, Dr. Lin led me into the research field, an unknown but fascinating world. My parents, the most two important people in my life, through their endless love and understanding kept me going. My little lovely new-born niece, Junyi, your coming to this world has given me so much joy and laughter. Although I could not see you and hold you in person right now, only looking at your photos would make me relaxed and forget all the worries and anxieties. Well done, dear sister.

The research and the thesis writing journey have improved my analytical thinking as well as enlarging my circle of friends, whom I value so much. To my best friends, Jimmy, Sharine, Sabrina, Sukie, Robbie…you are the shelter when I feel weary and you will be there whenever I search for help…to the girls in my cubicle – Cheryl, Nadia, Dominique, smart, lovely and caring…also to everyone from our Z701 office, a big but cosy family… with you around, I grow up and grow stronger. Love to all.

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Key Words Consumer power, online brand community, relationship marketing

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Abstract Aided by the development of information technology, the balance of power in the market place is rapidly shifting from marketers towards consumers and nowhere is this more obvious than in the online environment (Denegri-Knott, Zwick, & Schroeder, 2006; Moynagh & Worsley, 2002; Newcomer, 2000; Samli, 2001). From the inception and continuous development of the Internet, consumers are becoming more empowered. They can choose what they want to click on the Internet, they can shop and transact payments, watch and download video, chat with others, be it friends or even total strangers. Especially in online communities, like-minded consumers share and exchange information, ideas and opinions. One form of online community is the online brand community, which gathers specific brand lovers. As with any social unit, people form different roles in the community and exert different effects on each other. Their interaction online can greatly influence the brand and marketers. A comprehensive understanding of the operation of this special group form is essential to advancing marketing thought and practice (Kozinets, 1999).

While online communities have strongly shifted the balance of power from marketers to consumers, the current marketing literature is sparse on power theory (Merlo, Whitwell, & Lukas, 2004). Some studies have been conducted from an economic point of view (Smith, 1987), however their application to marketing has been limited. Denegri-Knott (2006) explored power based on the struggle between consumers and marketers online and identified consumer power formats such as control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation. Her study has built a foundation for future power studies in the online environment.

This research project bridges the limited marketing literature on power theory with the growing recognition of online communities among marketing academics and practitioners. Specifically, this study extends and redefines consumer power by exploring the concept of power in online brand communities, in order to better understand power structure and distribution in this context. This research investigates the applicability of the factors of consumer power identified by Denegri-Knott (2006) to the online brand community. In addition, by acknowledging the model proposed by V

McAlexander, Schouten, & Koenig (2002), which emphasized that community study should focus on the role of consumers and identifying multiple relationships among the community, this research further explores how member role changes will affect power relationships as well as consumer likings of the brand.

As a further extension to the literature, this study also considers cultural differences and their effect on community member roles and power structure. Based on the study of Hofstede (1980), Australia and China were chosen as two distinct samples to represent differences in two cultural dimensions, namely individualism verses collectivism and high power distance verses low power distance. This contribution to the research also helps answer the research gap identified by Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn (2001), who pointed out the lack of cross cultural studies within the online brand community context.

This research adopts a case study methodology to investigate the issues identified above. Case study is an appropriate research strategy to answer “how” and “why” questions of a contemporary phenomenon in real-life context (Yin, 2003). The online brand communities of “Haloforum.net” in Australia and “NGA.cn” in China were selected as two cases. In-depth interviews were used as the primary data collection method. As a result of the geographical dispersion and the preference of a certain number of participants, online synchronic interviews via MSN messenger were utilized along with the face-to-face interviews. As a supplementary approach, online observation was carried over two months, covering a two week period prior to the interviews and a six week period following the interviews. Triangulation techniques were used to strengthen the credibility and validity of the research findings (Yin, 2003).

The findings of this research study suggest a new definition of power in an online brand community. This research also redefines the consumer power types and broadens the brand community model developed by McAlexander et al. (2002) in an online context by extending the various relationships between brand and members. This presents a more complete picture of how the perceived power relationships are structured in the online brand community. A new member role is discovered in the Australian online brand community in addition to the four member roles identified by VI

Kozinets (1999), in contrast however, all four roles do not exist in the Chinese online brand community. The research proposes a model which links the defined power types and identified member roles. Furthermore, given the results of the cross-cultural comparison between Australia and China showed certain discrepancies, the research suggests that power studies in the online brand community should be country-specific.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge on online consumer power, by applying it to the context of an online brand community, as well as considering factors such as cross cultural difference. Importantly, it provides insights for marketing practitioners on how to best leverage consumer power to serve brand objective in online brand communities. This, in turn, should lead to more cost effective and successful communication strategies.

Finally, the study proposes future research directions. The research should be extended to communities of different sizes, to different extents of marketer control over the community, to the connection between online and offline activities within the brand community, and (given the cross-cultural findings) to different countries. In addition, a greater amount of research in this area is recommended to determine the generalizability of this study.

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH ........................................................................................... 1 1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEMS ............................................................................................................3 1.3 JUSTIFICATION FOR THE RESEARCH ......................................................................................... 5 1.4 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................................... 5 1.5 REPORT OUTLINE .................................................................................................................... 7 1.6 LIMITATIONS ............................................................................................................................ 7 1.7 CONTRIBUTION ....................................................................................................................... 8 1.8 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................... 9 2.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 9 2.2 POWER THEORY IN SOCIAL SCIENCE ....................................................................................... 9 2.3 CONSUMER POWER ............................................................................................................... 12 2.3.1 Desire for Control ........................................................................................................ 12 2.3.2 Consumer Power in Marketing ................................................................................... 12 2.4 INTERNET .............................................................................................................................. 16 2.4.1 Internet’s Involving ...................................................................................................... 16 2.4.2 Internet as a Medium .................................................................................................. 16 2.4.3 Interactivity – Speed, Convenience and Efficiency................................................... 18 2.4.4 The Internet Brings Power to Consumers ................................................................. 20 2.5 ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITY .................................................................................................. 23 2.5.1 Community................................................................................................................... 23 2.5.2 Online Community....................................................................................................... 24 2.5.3 Brand Community/ Online Brand Community ........................................................... 26 2.5.4 Power in the Online Brand Community ..................................................................... 31 2.5.5 Member Roles in the Online Brand Community ...................................................... 33 2.5.6 Member with Power in the Online Brand Community............................................... 37 2.6 BRAND AND THE COMMUNITY ................................................................................................ 38 2.6.1 Brand............................................................................................................................ 38 2.6.2 Brand liking .................................................................................................................. 38 2.6.3 Relationship Marketing ............................................................................................... 40 2.7 CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ........................................................................................... 41 2.8 SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THIS RESEARCH ............................................................... 44 2.9 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................................. 47 3.1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 47 3.2 PARADIGM ............................................................................................................................. 48 3.3 METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................................... 50 3.3.1 Case Study .................................................................................................................. 50 3.3.2 Integrity of Case Study................................................................................................ 52 3.3.3 Case Study Design ..................................................................................................... 54 3.3.4 Research Design Overview ........................................................................................ 61 3.4 DATA COLLECTION ................................................................................................................ 62 3.4.1 Interviews..................................................................................................................... 62 3.4.2 FTF Interview and Online Interview ........................................................................... 63 3.4.3 Online Observation ..................................................................................................... 72 3.5 DATA ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................... 74 3.5.1 Coding.......................................................................................................................... 74 3.5.2 Within Case Analysis and Cross Case Analysis ....................................................... 76 3.5.3 Triangulation ................................................................................................................ 76 3.6 LIMITATION OF THE RESEARCH .............................................................................................. 77 3.7 ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ...................................................................................................... 78

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3.8 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 79 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS..................................................................................................... 80 4.1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 80 4.2 SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS ................................................................................................... 81 4.2.1 Halo Online Community in Australia: Halo Forum –(http://haloforum.net/)............. 81 4.2.2 WoW Online Community in China: NGA.cn ) – (http://bbs.ngacn.cc/) .................... 82 4.3 ANALYSIS OF CASE MATERIAL ............................................................................................... 85 4.3 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 120 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS...................................................... 121 5.1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 121 5.2 CONCLUSION ABOUT THE RESEARCH PROBLEM .................................................................. 121 5.3 IMPLICATIONS ...................................................................................................................... 136 5.3.1 Implications for Theory.............................................................................................. 136 5.3.2 Implications for Practice............................................................................................ 137 5.4 LIMITATIONS ........................................................................................................................ 140 5.5 IMPLICATIONS FOR METHODOLOGY...................................................................................... 141 5.6 FUTURE RESEARCH ............................................................................................................. 141 5.7 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 142 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................. 144 APPENDICES.............................................................................................................................. 156 APPENDIX I INTERVIEW PROTOCOL (ENGLISH)........................................................................... 156 APPENDIX Π INTERVIEW PROTOCOL (CHINESE) ......................................................................... 159 APPENDIX Ш RECRUITMENT POSTS ON HALOFORUM AND NGA.CN.......................................... 161 APPENDIX IV GLOSSARY OF TERMS .......................................................................................... 163

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Consumer strategies of power on the Internet ................................. 21 Table 2.2 Main research on online communities/brand communities/online brand communities ............................................................................................... 30 Table 2.3 Online Brand Community Power Strategies ..................................... 33 Table 2.4 The Typology of Online Community Members Roles ...................... 36 Table 3.1 Research Paradigms........................................................................... 49 Table 3.2 Relevant Situations for Different Research Strategies .................... 51 Table 3.3 Case study validity and reliability ....................................................... 52 Table 3.4 Criteria for Case selection .................................................................. 58 Table 3.5 Case Summary (WoW-NGA and Halo-Halo Forum)........................ 60 Table 3.6 Research Design ................................................................................. 62 Table 3.7 Data Collection methods –Face-to-Face Interview and Online Interview via MSN Messenger............................................................................. 66 Table 3.8 Data Collection method –Online Observation .................................. 73 Table 4.1 Respondents Demographic Profile- Australian Halo Forum ........... 81 Table 4.2 Respondents Demographic Profile- Chinese WoW NGA Forum.... 84 Table 4.3 Power Distribution in Australian Online Brand Communities .........100 Table 4.4 Power Distribution in Chinese Online Brand Communities ............101 Table 4.5 Comparison of Member role changes in Australian and Chinese online brand community......................................................................................106 Table 5.1 Consumer power types in online brand community ........................123 Table 5.2 The comparison of the Australian and the Chinese online brand communities .........................................................................................................131

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List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Customer-Centric model of Brand Community................................ 28 Figure 2.2 Type of Virtual Community of Consumption Member ..................... 35 Figure 2.3 The Cultural Dimensions Result between Australia and China ..... 42 Figure 2.4 Consumer-Community-Brand Model................................................ 45 Figure 2.5 Conceptual Framework...................................................................... 46 Figure 3.1 Single vs. Multiple-case Design........................................................ 55 Figure 3.2 Criteria of Selection of Cases............................................................ 56 Figure 3.3 Age structure of people on the Internet in Australia and China ..... 57 Figure 3.4 Data Collection Techniques Combination........................................ 64 Figure 3.5 Interview Protocol Design.................................................................. 68 Figure 5.1 Power & Member Roles Model in the online brand community (Single Direction) .................................................................................................127 Figure 5.2 Power Structure Model in the Online Brand Community...............135

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Chapter One: Introduction

“Businesses have been slow to make use of the Internet’s community-building capabilities.” (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996, p. 134)

1.1 Background of the Research The Internet is a place that has abundant information about online consumer groups’ belief systems, buying behaviors and object relations (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). From the Internet’s debut on the marketing scene, the “online community” which combines consumer and interest groups has become a topic of interest to academics and practitioners alike. An online brand community is a unique form of an online community. That is representing in their homogeneity, consumers aggregate based on a common understanding of shared identity towards the brand in the online brand community (McAlexander et al., 2002; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). A number of extant literature focuses on this aspect of online brand communities. However, since consumers are the core of the community, the acknowledgement of their differences, that is to say, the heterogeneous aspects, needs to be understood as well.

The rapid growth of the Internet has offered consumers significant power (CroninLukas, 2006; Pitt, Berthon, Watson, & Zinkhan, 2002; Zureik & Mowshowitz, 2005). From the very beginning of marketing, marketers have been communicating brand meanings to consumers, dominating the relationship in one-way communication. Nowadays, consumers in turn discover their own brand meanings and communicate these back to marketers and the associated brand community (Brown, Kozinets, & Sherry Jr, 2003; Wipperfürth, 2005). Thanks to the Internet, consumers now have new ways to accomplish many of their tasks. Moreover, consumers have access to huge amounts of information and can choose whether to engage with marketers or not. Consumers can also aggregate together and become activists (Denegri-Knott, 2006). Rising consumer power has driven practitioners to search for answers to two questions; one is how to deal with negative consumer power, while another is how to

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align everything to deliver enhanced customer advocacy. A key question is how to create and maintain a dynamic engaging brand that is true to customers and true to marketers at the same time? What is at the center, the consumers or the brand?

Consumer power and online brand community have been linked together. Brand community is a good way to engage with consumers and create brand loyalty (Reichheld & Schefter, 2000). The Internet can make consumer power stronger and emphasizes the collective aspect. As mentioned earlier, understanding this phenomenon individually and communally is important for practitioners (Simmons, 2008). To do this, understanding the relationship amongst members in the online brand community is necessary.

Despite its increasing importance, there is little understanding of the kind of relationships that exist in the online brand community and how this relationship can potentially contribute to brand management. Therefore, this research project endeavours to explore existing literature and to develop the main constructs upon which a conceptual theory can be founded. Building on Kozinet’s (1999) proposal of four consumer roles in the online community and the online consumer power strategies identified by Denegri-Knott (2006), the research explores their applicability in the online brand community and identifies new themes emerging from the online brand community context to draw implications for theory and practice.

Definitions Power Power originates from the discipline of psychology (Foster-Fishman, Salem, Chibnall, Legler, & Yapchai, 1998; Perkins & Zimmerman, 1995; Zimmerman, 1995). There are many definitions available. In common sense discourse, power is the capacity to do work or generate action (Wrong, 1979). Weber (1968) states that power is the opportunity that an individual in a social relationship can achieve his or her own will even against the resistance of others. In sociology, power is the capacity of some people to produce intended and foreseen effects on others (Wrong, 1979). However, Foucault (1983) suggests that power has to be studied in a particular context. Further discussion of power is given in section 2.2.

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Community Community refers to a group in which individuals come together based on an obligation to one another or as a group in which individuals come together to be one in purpose (Andersen, 2005). Community can be classified based on consumption patterns, such as a grocery community, and classified based on special interests, such as a running club. One format is a brand community, built by the company or one or a number of brand enthusiasts, who have a common admiration of a particular brand (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001), such as Nutella community (Cova & Pace, 2006). A detailed and extended explanation is provided in section 2.5.1.

Brand Brand refers to a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers (Bennett, 1988, p. 18). From a consumer’s point of view, brand is a perception resulting from experiences with, and information about, a company or a line of products. Brand is not only a symbol or perception; it also adds value to people’s life. Ambler (1992) defines brand as the promise of the bundles of attributes that someone buys that provide satisfaction. The attributes that make up a brand may be real or illusory, rational or emotional, tangible or invisible. By measuring people’s brand attitude, brand behavior or brand liking, a company can understand the condition of a brand. Section 2.6 will further discuss brand.

1.2 Research Problems To investigate the variance in consumer power in the online brand community, it was considered important that the cases chosen be based on an established brand with a large number of active consumers in the community. This will ensure that the consumers have interactions with each other and the potential power relationship can be recognized. This research also looks at the cross-cultural perspective, through case studies in Australia and China. A detailed explanation for why these cases were chosen can be found in Section 3.3. An evaluation of pertinent literature was conducted to develop the research questions.

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The main research question is identified as:

How are the perceived power relationships structured in an online brand community? Three sub questions are developed to best address and explore the main research question and provide clear boundaries to the study.

1. Is there any power distribution difference based on roles of members in an online brand community? 2. Do the power relationships have any effect on the consumer’s liking of the brand? 3. Do these relationships differ between the Australian and the Chinese Community members?

Alongside the research questions, nine propositions were developed to form a holistic view to assist in answering the research questions:

P1: Power relationships exist in an online brand community. P2: 4 consumer power types (Control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation) exist in an online brand community. P3: There are different roles in an online brand community, such as tourist, insider, mingler and devotee. P4: Power distribution is based on different roles of the members in an online brand community. P5: Power will change when members’ roles change. P6: Members most involved in exclusivity, rituals and responsibilities to the group have more power in an online brand community. P7: The power relationships members formed in an online brand community will reinforce the consumer’s liking of the brand. P8: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher collectivism while the Australian one demonstrates higher individualism; P9: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher power distance; the Australian one demonstrates lower power distance.

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1.3 Justification for the Research

A number of theoretical and practical reasons justify this research. Power theory is an important area for research; however the related research has undergone fragmentation and most of them are derived from psychology and organisational management perspectives (Merlo et al., 2004). Consumer power in marketing/advertising literature is still in an embryonic stage (Merlo et al., 2004) and few studies have been conducted on the heterogeneous aspects of consumers in the online brand community (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996; Cova & Pace, 2006). This research project looks into the consumer power structure in the online brand community which bridges the two constructs to set up a new platform to understand online brand communities. Furthermore, this study also taps into the cross-cultural perspective which hasn’t been explored (McAlexander et al., 2002; Schouten & McAlexander, 1995) by comparing Australia and China online brand communities, which have significant difference in a few index according to Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensions.

On the practical level, since the online brand community is regarded as an important marketing instrument (Ouwersloot & Odekerken-Schröder, 2008); there is a need to understand fully how the community works. At present, marketers treat the online brand community as another way to generate sales or an approach to gain comments by simple observation. They intend to have more influence on active consumers in the community but are unsure how. One of the purposes of this research is to provide the mapping of the power structures in the online brand community, which will allow marketers to get better understanding of how to facilitate communication to meet the brand objective and maximize benefits for the company. Cross-cultural implications of brand community will grant a more cutting edge advantage for the practitioners to tackle real issues, as this is a particular interest in the global marketplace.

1.4 Methodology The research has adopted a case study methodology which is appropriate to solve “how” and “why” questions of a contemporary phenomenon in real-life context (Yin,

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2003). Case study can take an activity and explore it comprehensively, thus rich description can be gained from a phenomenon (Stark & Torrance, 2005). It allows the researcher to explore a new area in greater detail that other methods could not fulfill, such as by a survey. The main research question for this study is “how are the perceived power relationships structured in an online brand community?” The potential outcome will be the description of the structure of the online brand community using data collection methods like interviews and observation and so on; analysis of rich data helps understand consumers’ thoughts and behaviour in the online brand community to establish general propositions for the power structure (Zikmund, 2003). A comparative case study was designed for this research, choosing a Chinese and an Australian online brand community respectively based on the replication logic ideology (Yin, 2003).

In-depth semi-structured interviews were adopted as the main data collection method to generate a fairer and fuller representation of respondents’ perspectives (Mason, 2002) and to provide the opportunity for the researcher to probe and understand expected information and issues (Cavana, Delahaye, & Sekaran, 2001). In China, nine face-to-face interviews /sixteen online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger1) and in Australia, five face-to-face interviews/five online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger) were conducted respectively. The discrepancy of number is due to different community size and different response rate, which will be described in the data collection section. Respondents were recruited through online invitation and snowball sampling strategy was adopted to assist recruitment. To verify the results derived from the interviews and gain more insights, online observation was also carried out. In addition, internal and external validity and triangulation techniques were used to give research findings credibility (Yin, 2003).

Chapter three gives a detailed description of the methodology used in the research. The justifications of the case study methodology and interview methods as the primary data collection instrument along with online observation are also given.

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A freeware instant messaging client that was developed and distributed by Microsoft in 1999 to 2005 and in 2007 for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system (except Windows Vista), and aimed towards home users.

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1.5 Report Outline The thesis is structured as follows:

Chapter One outlines the background to the research and gives an overview of each subsequent chapter.

Chapter Two reviews the main literature in the body of knowledge concerning power, consumer power and the online brand community. Special attention is directed to bridging the theory of consumer power and online brand community and establishing the theoretical ground for the research to carry out. In addition, the practical importance of the issues is explored. Based on these foundations, research questions, propositions and a conceptual framework are developed to guide this study.

Chapter Three provides an evaluation and justification of the interpretive paradigm and the case study methodology adopted in this study which is appropriate to answer the research questions developed in the earlier chapter. Research design details including data collection method, data sampling and data analysis methodology are introduced before a discussion of the ethical considerations and the methodology limitations for this study.

Chapter Four presents the findings from the collected data in the research. The results are discussed according to each proposition with commentary on the information presented.

Chapter Five applies the findings from chapter four in relation to the research questions and previous studies. Theoretical and practical implications are presented. The limitations of the study are discussed before future research directions are given.

1.6 Limitations One of the limitations of this project is the use of case study methodology and the use of only one online game community in China and Australia correspondingly. The replication of the results across other industries or other communities is needed.

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However, the use of one case in each country provides the focus for the study to explore the unknown areas in a particular setting. In addition, as argued by Carson, Gilmore, Perry, & Gronhaug (2001), the generalisability is not an issue in the qualitative case study.

The second potential limitation is the researcher’s bias when interpreting the results from the data collected. It is hoped that this bias was reduced by recording the interviews, and using another researcher to do the coding to validate the findings.

1.7 Contribution This research adds to the body of knowledge on consumer power in the advertising, marketing and consumer behaviour disciplines. Contributions include the proposal of a new definition of power, identification of member roles and the proposal of a model for power relationships based on member roles in an online brand community. These contributions have major managerial implications by helping marketing practitioners in planning more effective online strategies for approaching and communicating with consumers in brand communities. In terms of methodological contribution, this research adopts a combined data collection method, using face-to-face interviews and online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger) which proved appropriate for the online community research. This successful implementation of data collection methods combination has set a foundation for future endeavors of similar research.

1.8 Conclusion This chapter has laid the grounds for the study. It has introduced the research problems and key definitions were presented. Then the research was justified, the methodology was briefly described and justified, the report was outlined giving an overview of the whole document, and research limitations were given. On this foundation, the report can proceed with a detailed description of this research.

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Chapter Two: Literature Review

“Power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives.” (M. Foucault, 1980, p. 39)

2.1 Introduction This Chapter will present the conceptual framework for the exploration of consumer power in an online brand community. The chapter begins by introducing the area of power theory, and consumer power research in the marketing discipline. Internet characteristics are then explored as the platform to the online brand community. The chapter continues by establishing the background of a cross-cultural study by introducing cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (1980). Finally, the literature review constructs a conceptual framework that forms the foundation of this research. Research propositions are constructed throughout the literature review.

2.2 Power Theory in Social Science Power theory is widely researched in the psychology domain (Foster-Fishman et al., 1998; Perkins & Zimmerman, 1995; Zimmerman, 1995) and organization management (Foster-Fishman et al., 1998; Wilkinson, 1998; Zimmerman, 1995). Here it is recognized as being very hard to define, hence many different concepts and descriptions of power have emerged from the academic world (Drake, 1992). Power is used to indicate differences between abilities (Jordon, 1999); and it exists when there is resistance (Denegri-Knott, 2006). Resistance is implied in the notion that power is a relationship, but is made essential by power’s subtler means of attempting to form subjectivities appropriate to a form of power (Jordan, 1999). Different streams of literature have defined power in different ways. In common sense discourse, power is the capacity to do work or generate action (Wrong, 1979). Weber (1968) states power

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is the opportunity that an individual in a social relationship can achieve his or her own will even against the resistance of others. In sociology, power is the capacity of some people to produce intended and foreseen effects on others, hence it can be defined as a capacity to control or influence others (Wrong, 1979) or the production of intended effects (Russell, 1986). Power is equivalent of capability, potency or mastery (Wrong, 1979).

Power is also the result of collectively held knowledge. Barnes (1988a, pp. 56-57) suggests “(A)ny specific distribution of knowledge confers a generalised capacity for action upon those individuals who carry and constitute it, and that capacity for action is their social power, the power of the society they constitute by bearing and sharing the knowledge in question. Social power is the added capacity for action that accrues to individuals through their constituting a distribution of knowledge and thereby a society.” Jordon (1999) supports this statement by claiming that an individual’s power has its source as knowledge, which is in the individual’s possession.

According to Foucault (1983), the famous French philosopher and sociologist, power is omnipresent and constitutive of human existence; there is no owning, acquiring, escaping or losing it (Shankar, Cherrier, & Canniford, 2006). Foucault explores three constructs of power – disciplinary power, governmentality and technology of self. This construct of power extends Barnes’ in that Foucault conceptualizes power as a relationship, not a possession. Foucault (1980) states that “power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives (p.39). ” He associates power as a capillary form of existence and argues individuals will reshape and transform under power. Given that power is exercised rather than possessed, power study focuses on the relationship. Power not only belongs to the elite or the superior but traverses all social classes. Foucault (1980) suggests it is not necessary to define power in abstract; instead a methodology for studying power is needed. Only then can specific forms of power that exist at particular times and in particular places be analysed (Foucault, 1983). The insight from Foucault’s theory is that the study of power has to proceed in a defined context, thus specific definition can be given and exact structure can be derived. Arendt (1986) argues power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. He suggests that power is not the property 10

of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. This is similar to Foucault’s’ ideas of relationship of context.

In comparing Weber, Foucault, Barnes and Arendt’s power theories, Jordon summarises that power is not a battle between two sides or merely repressive – power is multiple and productive, power circulates and it is distributed throughout society (Jordon, 1999, p. 18; Shankar et al., 2006). Power has more perspectives than just the two conflicting sides and it circulates within the group.

Merlo, Whitwell & Lukas’ (2004) categorisation of power draws on studies of power at the individual, functional and organisational levels. They argue there are four main perspectives on power – the bureaucratic, the critical, the network and the psychological perspectives. Of primary concern to this research is the network perspective, which argues that power is based on the ability to act as a central cohesive source, rather than the ability to demand obedience. Another similar argument is if a subunit scored high on ‘pervasiveness’ and ‘immediacy’, it would obtain power from its capacity to affect flows in the organisation and the termination of its activities would severely impede the company’s workflow (Lachman, 1989). From here, we may assume that the individual with the highest power in a group will affect the decision or movement of the group.

In summary, research on power has undergone fragmentation and limited convergence (Merlo et al., 2004). Most of the studies are derived from psychology and organisational perspectives, and the application to marketing of the concept of power has been limited (Merlo et al., 2004).

The next section addresses this issue by focusing on consumer power, as applied to advertising, marketing and consumer behaviour discipline.

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2.3 Consumer Power To understand consumer power in detail, this section will begin with a psychological perspective that explores the concept of an individual’s desire for control (Burger, 1992).

2.3.1 Desire for Control Control has been studied by many researchers as a psychological notion (Bandura, 1986; Deci, 1980). The commonality across their work is that people are often motivated to control the events in their environment and this motivation plays an important part in human behaviour (Burger, 1992). Control can be understood as primary control and secondary control (Burger, 1992). Primary control is direct and refers to the power people can exert by altering their environment, while secondary control is about how people try to match themselves with the environment to remain in control. In the media environment, for example, primary control occurs when people exert control directly on the environment, such as deciding which websites to visit or which ad banner they want to click on the Internet. Secondary control happens when people do not have direct control over the situation, such as what choosing what is shown on their television set. On the Internet, primary control becomes relevant since consumers are given more choices on how to view and act upon media messages (Hoffman, Novak, & Schlosser, 2000).

Desire for control can be referred to as “the extent to which people generally are motivated to see themselves in control of the events in their lives” (Burger, 1992, p. 6). People with a high desire for control often consider how much control they have over a situation and whether they have primary control or secondary control. They focus on control-relevant information, process the information in greater detail, and tend to obtain control actively during interaction through the situation (Burger, 1984).

2.3.2 Consumer Power in Marketing In marketing, consumer power research, although embryonic, is receiving more attention (Desmond, 2003; Merlo et al., 2004). Perhaps this is, as Denegri-Knott (2006) argues, because marketers still lack a clear understanding of the theoretical

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origins of consumer power. Most definitions in modern consumer culture attempt to explain the nature and origin of consumer demand and to justify the role of marketing in satisfying it (Smith, 1987), with the notion that consumers counteract or balanceout marketers. Consumers, are able to ignore, resist and adapt even the smartest marketing strategy (Denegri-Knott, Zwick, & Schroeder, 2006), and have the ability to control their own choices, including more buying choices as “competition in the market returns power to the consumers” (Peppard, 2000, p. 318). There are also more information choices with the emergence of new media (Chernatony, 2001), which Wathieu et al. (2002) argue is associated with personal empowerment.

Foucault (1980) suggests that consumers obtain pleasure from power and form knowledge that produces power. “Power creates marketers and consumers within discourses of knowledge – economic, political and managerial – through which power circulates” (Shankar et al., 2006, p. 1017). The interpretation is that “marketers” and “consumers” exist within the broader discourse of knowledge through that power circulates, which provides the context for power.

Consumer power has different forms. From an economic point of view, it can be interpreted as a consumer boycott, which is “an attempt by one or more parties to achieve certain objectives by urging individual consumers to refrain from making selected purchases in the marketplace” (Friedman, 1986, p. 97). It can also be interpreted as consumer sovereignty, as the control of purchasers in markets over the production of goods (Smith, 1987). However in marketing, consumer power is more often referred to as the consumers’ control over variables that are conventionally predetermined by marketers, such as redefining brand meaning according to their preference (Wathieu et al., 2002) and other actions that consumers might exert to reappropriate the brand (Muńiz Jr & Schau, 2005). An example of this is “Brand hijack” (Wipperfürth, 2005), described as the phenomenon through which consumers give new meaning to a brand that is different to what marketers intended. There are two kinds of “hijacks”. One is the serendipitous hijack, which is the act of consumers seizing control of a brand’s ideology, use and persona, such as Harley-Davison bikers (Schouten & McAlexander, 1995) and Apple fans (Belk & Tumbat, 2005). The other is the co-created hijack, which is the act of inviting subcultures or a consumer community to co-create a brand’s ideology, use and persona, and pave the way for 13

adoption by mainstream consumers. However, this is not commonly seen in the market place (Cova & Pace, 2006).

In trying to conceptualize consumer power as a marketing phenomenon and provide a clear picture and direction for future research, Denegri-Knott et al. (2006) propose three consumer power models. These models build on the previous power literature and are known as the consumer sovereignty model, the cultural power model and the discursive power model.

The consumer sovereignty model emphasizes the consumer as sovereign of his or her own spending and choice. This is based on Adam Smith’s concepts of the power an individual has within the market. Denegri-Knott et al. (2006, p. 955) describes it as “…self-determined and dispassionate market choices of sovereign consumers are instrumental in directing the market’s so-called invisible hand, which results in more efficient production, better and cheaper products, social progress and increased general welfare”. Some work targeting mechanisms of consumer boycotts, including consumers’ ability to maximize utility over cost and consumers’ potential to countervail marketer power, have been examined within this model (Denegri-Knott et al., 2006).

The second model is the cultural power model which suggests that consumer power resides not so much in the ability of consumers to reject the products of the market, but “in the art of using those imposed” (Denegri-Knott et al., 2006, p. 959). An example of this consumer empowerment is manifested in the creative adaptations and manipulations of the marketer-intended meanings and uses of products and advertising.

The third model is the discursive power model, which focuses on the discursive coproduction of the market, and takes power to be a (co)creative force that structures the possible field of (inter)action and exchange of free agents. This happens when consumers develop deviant behaviours towards marketers, such as setting up an antibrand website, which goes against what the brand promotes. Denegri-Knott et al. (2006) contribute to a more contextualised understanding of consumer power by tracing and categorizing the theories of power, thus providing clear theoretical 14

boundaries for subsequent researchers. However, they also point out that the strength of each model is partly a function of its conceptual and methodological limitations.

Whilst there are different types and models of consumer power, there is a consensus that this power is shifting from marketers to consumers in the marketplace (Moynagh & Worsley, 2002; Newcomer, 2000; Samli, 2001). Some researchers define this as a new construct for consumer power (Shankar et al., 2006). Due to the advances of the Internet, consumers are no longer only accepting messages from marketers, but they have the ability to change other consumers' minds about the content of message and even the product itself (Cronin-Lukas, 2006). Some integrated marketing communication (IMC) literature identified this trend (Duncan, 2005; Madhavaram, Badrinarayanan, & McDonald, 2005; Schultz, 2006b). However, there is dearth of research literature about how this consumer power affects brand liking, which is a crucial part of brand equity, especially in the online environment. This lack of research represents one observable gap in the literature.

To summarize, Denegri-Knott (2006) suggests most power theories exist in four expressions: 1) power occurs within social relationships; 2) power has the ability to affect social activities; 3) power can only exist when there is resistance; and, 4) power can be relatively balanced between parties. Other theorists have not defined the meaning, but have given scope to the study of power, by conceptualizing power as an open construct or defining its meaning based upon a particular context (Zimmerman, 1995).

When viewed in this way, similar to Foucault’s (1983) thinking, different contexts are very important to understand power’s process and outcomes (Foster-Fishman et al., 1998). The context for this study will focus on the online environment. This is justified as the online environment is still a fairly new arena for academics and practitioners to explore, discover and understand. There are a lot of arguments stating that the Internet grants power to consumers (Johnston, 2006; A. Schlosser, 2000; Zureik & Mowshowitz, 2005) and that it has changed the marketing scene significantly (Duncan, 2005; Schultz, 2006a). These are discussed in the following section.

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2.4 Internet 2.4.1 Internet’s Involving ARPANET was the original form of the Internet, which directly linked computers together as a wide area, packet-switching network, created in 1969. By 1976, other types of networks were proliferating, such as local area networks (LANs) based on shared broadcast cables and wide area networks (WANs) based on shared broadcast satellite channels (Marine, Kirkpatrick, Neou, & Ward, 1994). When APRANET started adopting the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), this set the stage for the very beginning of the Internet (Marine et al., 1994). To meet the demands of research and networking, the fast working NSFNET gradually replaced ARPANET from 1988 till 1990. This marked the starting point of the growth and evolution in the largest operational superset of research-oriented Internets. The current Internet has transferred from a research environment to normal user environment as a daily communication and business tool. As a definition, the Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using. It consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web (Wikipedia, 2008c).

2.4.2 Internet as a Medium About 1.4 billion people across the world use the Internet on a regular basis and the number is still growing (Internet World Stats, 2008; Pickton & Broderick, 2005). Since the Internet gained a public face in the 1990s, its usage soared dramatically. During the 1990s, it was estimated that the Internet grew by 100% per year, with a brief period of explosive growth in 1996 and 1997 (Coffman & Odlyzko, 1998). Consumers are spending more and more time using the Internet in a variety of ways. During the course of an average week, a UK study shows that 21% of 16-24-yearolds spend more than 15 hours using the Internet (Williams, 2006), which presents the largest age group who are actively involving the Internet in their lives. It has taken

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about 70 years for TV to evolve to the point where consumers can engage at the same level as the Internet in such a short time (Hayward, 2006).

According to McLuhan (1964), media can be classified as hot media and cold media. A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in “high definition” which is well filled with data, like television, but is low in participation. A cold medium is one with “low definition”, in which the audience contributes information and hence is high in participation, like the telephone and the Internet. Information is selected as a result of each consumer’s click, active search and posting on the Internet. Consumers are highly involved in the process.

The Internet is usually considered as a new media type and challenges the role and importance of traditional mass media such as television, newspaper and radio. In fact, the Internet has the characteristics in one medium of all the other media that preceded it. Almost all forms of traditional media messages can be transformed and conveyed through the Internet. For example, consumers can watch TV programs, listen to the radio and read news on the Internet (Leckenby, 2005). Likewise, Qvortrup (2006) calls the Internet a “multi-semantic system”. He posits the Internet’s main “quality” is to integrate all known media into one converged multimedia system. The computer and the Internet have an unlimited number of features and can copy any other medium.

According to Mulder (2004), consumers now like to use the same media which make them understand and appreciate each other, which is the media that can connect them. Consumers gather on the Internet and form some kind of relationship, through which they are able to change each other, allowing themselves to be influenced in alike or analogous manner. The Internet as a medium adds value and facilitates more than people intend to use it for (Mulder, 2004). For example, consumers search for information on the Internet; they can limit their selection of information, or navigate through layers of the website, providing many choices to peruse the message. When they engage the message in this way, they are interacting with the message and the medium, thus the Internet works as a source of interaction (Sundar, 2007). Consumers can also aggregate in chat room or forums, interacting with each other to exchange information or get advice. All these are based on the interactivity of the Internet which will be explored in detail next. 17

2.4.3 Interactivity – Speed, Convenience and Efficiency “Interactivity” has often been construed as the primary differentiating factor between the Internet and other media (Leckenby, 2005). Bezjian-Avery, Calder, & Iacobucci (1998, p. 23) define “interactivity” as “a process, which interacts between the firm and the customer, eliciting information from both parties, and attempting to align interests and possibilities.” More importantly, it puts control in the hands of consumers. Consumers can decide what they want to see, when, where, how and in which order (Schlosser, 2000). “Interactivity suggests that the reasons consumers seek, self-select, process, use, and respond to information are critical for understanding responses to communications. Search and self-selection of the sources from which information may be obtained, as well as the way this information is processed, has long been recognized as an important determinant of consumer behaviour” (Stewart & Pavlou, 2002, p. 380).

This process is similar to what Foucault (1983) describes decades earlier as the “web of power”. Foucault believes that the “incitement to discourse”, or the start of discussion about a particular subject, leads to increased knowledge on that subject, which leads to increased power. Power comes from any given person who starts a discussion. The discussion forms a web outward to the discussion group, and weaves its way outwards from there through other conversations (Tapscott, 1998), which captures the main idea of interaction.

Ko, Cho, & Roberts (2005) argue that interactivity has been defined using different underlying dimensions (Rafaeli, 1988; Steuer, 1992; Szuprowicz, 1995). The two most common dimensions are: human-message interaction and human-human interaction. In the Internet context, human-message interaction indicates that users have many choices as well as having control over the messages. They can select, search and edit the form and the content of the messages. Human-Human interaction refers to the two-way, reciprocal communication from senders to receivers and vice versa. On the Internet, consumers can search for information, provide feedback to marketers through forums, survey or participate in other online activities (Ko et al., 2005). Their research also considers that Human-Human interaction includes the interaction amongst consumers. This is the fundamental nature of the online

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environment, as people are receiving and sending messages at the same time, and as earlier described, people influence each other by exchanging messages.

The Internet provides a new playground for consumers to accomplish many tasks, chatting, sharing files, online shopping, and making payments. The Internet’s speed significantly increases the ability of consumers to do these with convenience and efficiency (Hollenbeck & Zinkhan, 2006). The traditional model of marketing, which assumes people move through stages of interest in a brand (sometimes referred to as the AIDA approach (Duncan, 2002), switching a prospect from Awareness, to Interest, to Desire, to Action) is still relevant. However, this movement can take place much more quickly on the Internet since consumers change their emotions instantaneously. For example, due to the real-time interaction with the Internet and fast turn-around, they can move from neutral mood to satisfied and to dissatisfied much more quickly via an Internet experience. Therefore, methods for monitoring satisfaction must match the speed with which consumers are changing their attitude towards the brand (Chiagouris & Wansley, 2000). Attitude is defined as a summary evaluation of an object of thought. The object can be either concrete or abstract, person or groups (Bohner & Wänke, 2002). In the marketing discipline, the attitude especially refers to the evaluation or predisposition to respond favourably or unfavourably to a brand.

From the desire of control perspective, the objective of consumers going online can be interpreted as an external and internal locus of control, according to a study of consumer control on the Internet conducted by Hoffman et al. (2000). The external locus of control causes people to retreat to the Internet for experiential, ritualized activities. On the other hand, the internal locus of control orientation puts people in control using the Internet for work and searching for product information. Therefore, as Hoffman et al’s (2000) study explains, consumer behaviours on the Internet are based on the desire for control of their environment.

Uses and gratification theory views consumers as an active, goal-directed audience that draw on mass media as a resource to satisfy needs (Katz, Haas, & Gurevitch, 1973). From the psychological communication perspective, uses and gratification theory explains the psychological needs that shape why people use the media and what motivates them to engage in certain media-use behaviours for gratifications that 19

fulfil their intrinsic needs. Katz et al. (1973) propose five categories of uses and gratifications. They are cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative and tension release needs. Cognitive needs represent the intrinsic desire for information acquisition for knowledge and understanding while affective needs are related to emotional experiences, and intrinsic desire for pleasure, entertainment and aesthetics (Sangwan, 2005). Personal integrative needs derive from individual’s desire to appear credible, confident with high self-esteem. Social integrative needs are affiliation needs where members want to be part of a group, and want to be recognized as part of the group and is related to sense of belonging. Tension release needs relate to the need for escape and diversion from problems and routines. Consumers use media strategically (Cho, Zúñiga, Rojas, & Shah, 2003). They use the Internet as the channel to fulfil different motivations (Ko et al., 2005) and meet different needs. They enjoy the speed, convenience, efficacy and the interactivity that the Internet can offer, thus they are empowered to do a lot of things fast, easily and successfully. The power that the Internet provides to consumers will be explored in the next section.

2.4.4 The Internet Brings Power to Consumers Consumers have the desire for control over their environment (Burger, 1992). Through using the Internet as an interactive platform, consumers obtain the control which they could not get from traditional media (Cho et al., 2003; Hoffman et al., 2000). The Internet is regarded perhaps as the most powerful instrument yet devised for the actualization of consumer power (Zureik & Mowshowitz, 2005). Moynagh & Worsley (2002) consider that the Internet epitomizes every change happening in the consumers’ life as a tailor-made method.

Denegri-Knott (2006) derives four consumer strategies of power on the Internet: control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation. These strategies are summarised in Table 2.1.

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Table 2.1 Consumer strategies of power on the Internet Power

Characteristics

Effect to Marketers

Control over the relationship

Consumers can decide if they want to engage with marketers.

Message hard to deliver unless consumers opt-in.

Information

Consumers can use information as a way to improve decision-making skills. For example, consumers search all product information, and compare quality and price.

Marketers can’t control or monitor every message that appears online, becoming passive

Aggregation

Consumers can interact with other likeminded consumers to enhance benefits gained or to engage in anti-marketer activities.

Anti-marketer activities can be very negative to brand.

Participation

Consumers can participate in the creation of content. For example, they can co-create an advertisement or new product development ideas.

Marketer’s dilemma since open space to consumers has both pros and cons

Strategies

Source: Adapted from Denegri-Knott (2006)

Control over the relationship As introduced in last section, consumers can come or leave the Internet whenever they like, thus they can decide if they want to engage with the information that marketers put on the Internet or not. Consumers also use firewalls, cookie control or junk-email filters to block unwanted information from marketers (Denegri-Knott, 2006). They can also be proactive. For example, in the online community, consumers can bond together and express their likes or dislikes to certain organizations, brands or products. Therefore, marketers need to understand that they are sharing the brand with consumers openly if they want to engage with consumers and even continue to influence them in a rich online dialogue (Brown, Broderick, & Lee, 2007).

Information One of the major changes in the marketplace is the increased communication between marketers and consumers (Ouwersloot & Duncan, 2008). Consumers gain a lot of power by obtaining the information from the Internet, instead of waiting for the marketers to inform them passively. When they are planning a potential purchase, 21

they would go online and compare the price from different sources, ignoring the fancy advertisement and superficial attractions, but trying to find out the real deal themselves. Consumers also tend to listen to peers’ comments and suggestions, which are supported by the Internet functions as identified by numerous studies of Word-ofMouth communications (Brown et al., 2007a; Fong & Burton, 2006; Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, & Gremler, 2004; Patrick, 2007; Thorson & Rodgers, 2006; Wangenheim & Bayon, 2004).

Aggregation Consumers can interact with other like-minded consumers to enhance their knowledge of the product or to engage in anti-marketer activities, for example in online communities. An online community can exert some behaviours like boycotts, antibrand, anti-commercial and anti-marketing actions. Among them, the emerging antibrand communities, such as “anti-McDonald’s”, “anti-Starbucks” “anti-Wal-Mart” (Hollenbeck & Zinkhan, 2006), have created many controversial discussions both online and offline. The more online members interact with each other, the stronger they feel about challenging marketers and marketing claims and the more active or aggressive their activities become (Kozinets, 1999).

Participation Consumers can participate in the co-creation of content which is made easier by the Internet. For example, they can co-create an advertising campaign (like Mercedes Benz, Mazda, Coca-Cola) or contribute to new product development ideas (Füller, Jawecki, & Mühlbacher, 2007). Marketers can use this to gather more relevant ideas from consumers in order to better understand and communicate with them. It is easy to participate, by just logging onto the website and uploading your ideas. For example, Procter & Gamble’s “Connect + Develop” program and other innovation projects now produce more than 35% of the company’s innovations. In fact, R&D productivity at Procter & Gamble has increased by nearly 60%. In the past two years, Procter & Gamble launched more than 100 new products, from which some aspect of development came from outside the company (Huston & Sakkab, 2006).

Online consumers are more active, discerning and can provide rich valuable cultural information (Brown et al., 2007). Some may shepherd others in a way which 22

marketers can leverage to influence the target groups. Based on the consumer power strategies discussed above, Internet communication may foster more honest and insightful online friendship and enable different people to share information, interest and support (Rice, Shepherd, Dutt, & Katz, 2007). To understand consumer power more thoroughly in a given context, this research introduces another construct, the community, which brings consumers together on the Internet.

2.5 Online Brand Community 2.5.1 Community Community as a term comes from two Latin derivations, the trisyllabic comunete, (Oxford English Dictionary, 2000) which means “common fellowship, society” and the 4-syllabic co(m)munité, meaning “fellowship, community of relations or feelings”. Some general meanings of this term refer to a group of people living together in one place or a group of people with a common religion, race, or profession, and the holding of attitudes or interest in common (Oxford Dictionary Thesaurus, 2001).

The term evolves to deliver some unique insight through shared meaning, not geography or other structural elements that creates community (Cohen, 1985). Bender (1978, p. 145) defines it as “a network of social relations marked by mutuality and emotional bonds.” The fast development of technologies, such as the Internet, gives geographically dispersed individuals a cohesion of purpose and identity (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001), creating the new idea of “online community” or “virtual community” (Rheingold, 1993). In academic literature, community is categorised as “community of interest” and “community of practice” by Pitta & Fowler (2005). The prior one refers to the group of people who have common interests or values; the latter one refers to the community informally bound by what people do together and by what they have learned through their mutual engagement in these activities.

Consumer power needs expression, dialogue and the sharing of experience (Hamelink, 1995). All humans have strong needs for human association and sense of belonging;

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which they can build through communities of common interest. The Internet makes this much easier.

2.5.2 Online Community Rheingold (1993) defines virtual or online communities as “social aggregations that emerge from the net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.” In this definition, “enough people” is interpreted as a group action, and “human feeling” translates into the individual’s personal feeling in a group setting. He introduced his experience with WELL, an economical public online service, how it was used and experienced by its members. Members could join the conference whenever they like and discuss a specific topic of interest. Members also met in real life from time to time (Rheingold, 1993). WELL still exist now and attracts a lot of members. However, a fee is charged for the membership, and different fee scales are available depending on the privileges that one would like to get.

There are 400,000 online communities (Le Beau, 2000) and the number is still increasing. Different formats of online communities are identified: 1) boards, based around specific products, activities or interests, 2) independent web pages, providing an opportunity for consumers to exchange ideas, 3) listserv, like email lists which are based around certain topics of common interest, 4) multi-user dungeons (MUD) where people can play fantasy computer games, and 5) chat rooms, where people can chat on various topic simultaneously (Kozinets, 1999). Szmigin, Canning, & Reppel (2005) also summarize four types of online communities, based on the objective of the development – for dialogue and conversation or for imparting information and if profit maximisation plays a crucial role there. They are the help group, the fan club, value exchange sites or defence organisation. Based on consumer needs, Armstrong & Hage (1996) propose another four types of community as community of transaction, community of interest, community of fantasy and community of relationship. However, these four types are not exclusive. Some communities have overlaps in meeting some or even all the needs Armstrong & Hage (1996) described. For example, a brand community like Apple supports the online shopping function which meets the need of transaction, but it also has a forum where fans can talk to each other, which meets the need of relationship, et cetera. In recent years, however, new formats of 24

online communities have emerged, like forums set up purposefully by firms to collect information (e.g. Procter & Gamble, Dell) and monitor consumers, who express their thoughts about different products and brands (Vranica, 2007; Womma website, 2007). Blog also has become a popular format of communication which is well accepted by large numbers of consumers (Jarvis, 2007). Consumers like to use the medium to explore and display other selves as well as use multiple strategies to portray their own digital collage on the Internet (Schau & Gilly, 2003).

Ideologically, online communities share a belief in the principles of free speech, individualism, equality and open access (Fernback, 1997). The Internet is an active socialisation agent of consumption, members in the community who are heterogeneous in social characteristics, different backgrounds, now holding homogeneous attitudes (Lee & Conroy, 2005). Liu and Shrum (2005) compare the seven most popular online marketing tools, finding the “online community” was the most interactive form. Consumers are able to come together, regardless of geographical proximity, identifying with a common need, goal or identity (Hollenbeck & Zinkhan, 2006). Sangwan (2005) applies uses and gratification theory in studying the online community. She explains that members in the online brand community search for information to fulfill different needs, such as the cognitive need for information, affective needs for entertainment and social integrative needs for sense of belonging. She also states that the successful online community relies on content building and tries to fulfill members’ needs and engage in preemptive actions to create value for the host party, either companies or brand enthusiasts.

As described before, since many communities would have mixed characteristics based on Hagel & Armstrong’s (1996) typology, a few scholars just name the online communities due to their causes. For example, community of consumption (e.g. Kozinets 1999), the brand community (e.g., Muniz & O’Guinn 2001) et cetera. Kozinets (1999, p. 254) defines online community of consumption as “affiliate groups whose online interactions are based upon shared enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, a specific consumption activity or related group of activities”. Here the “specific consumption activity or related group of activities” is not limited to a specific brand, but a general consumption activity – examples being the appreciation of wines or collecting stamps as general categories. Based on reference group and word-of-mouth 25

theory, Valck (2005) researched systematically into one community of consumption – culinary – and discovered: 1) the community acts as a reference group for its members, and although the quality of the information is not guaranteed, members value this information better than other sources in terms of quantity and accessibility, 2) the community influences consumer decision-making, 3) core members, functionalists, opportunists, informationalists, conversationalists and hobbyists are identified as six member categories in the community based on participation habits, 4) four frames of discussion in the forum as: sharing knowledge, negotiating norms, opposing values and celebrating similarities. Valck’s study demonstrates that online communities serve as reference groups in their heterogeneous character and members face diverse opinions and behaviours (Valck, 2005, p. 239).

An online community which is built on a shared allegiance to a specific brand, from Harley-Davidson bikes to Palm Pilots (Solomon, 2005), is called an online brand community. An online brand community is chosen as the environment for this research because it is a significant phenomenon on the Internet (Ouwersloot & Duncan, 2008). Secondly, it facilitates the study of power from both individual and group level and from homogeneous and heterogonous perspectives. Thirdly, “brand community” has become a hot topic in marketing research (Belk & Tumbat, 2005; McAlexander et al., 2002; Schau & Muńiz Jr, 2002; A. E. Schlosser, 2003). Therefore, tying the construct of consumer power with the online brand community will open a new window for marketing communication research. Before continuing any further, this research will review the literature on brand communities and online brand communities.

2.5.3 Brand Community/ Online Brand Community Brand communities and the online brand communities have been studied by many researchers in recent years (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006; Cova & Pace, 2006; Hoeffler & Keller, 2002; Kim, 2006; McAlexander, Schouten, & Koening, 2002; McAlexander, Koenig, & Schouten, 2004; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001; Muńiz Jr & Schau, 2005; Prykop & Heitmann, 2006; Wipperfürth, 2005). Muniz Jr & O'Guinn (2001, p. 412) define a brand community as “a specialized, non-geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand”.

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The first in-depth study of a brand community was conducted with Harley-Davison owners group (HOG) by Schouten & McAlexander (1995). They discovered that brand communities are a good way for a company to socialize with new members and build brand loyalty. However, HOG may be regarded as a special case or a subculture with a very strong individual-centred approach (Holt, 1997) with a significant degree of marginality as an outlaw culture (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). This subculture differs from the brand communities, having active interpretive function, with brand meaning being socially negotiated, rather than delivered unaltered and as whole from context to context, consumers to consumers (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001, p. 414). Consumer-initiated innovation, such as ideas of designing for clothing and accessories was identified. A hierarchical structure based on status was also discussed in their findings.

Muniz Jr & O'Guinn (2001) interviewed members from Ford Bronco, Saab, Apple Macintosh brand communities in a U.S. neighbourhood, offline and online. They confirmed the existence of three components or markers of a brand community – consciousness of a kind, shared rituals and traditions and sense of moral responsibility. Consciousness of kind refers to the intrinsic connection among members and a collective sense of belonging from outsiders. Shared rituals and traditions propagate the shared history and stories of the community and brand. Moral responsibility is sense of duty to the community as a whole, and to individual members of the community (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). They suggested that marketers’ thinking of brand should move from traditional consumer-brand dyad to the consumer-brandconsumer triad. This model takes into consideration more relationships that could happen within the brand community, like consumer to consumer, consumer to brand and give more emphasis on the active role that consumers play. This point was also supported by Cross & Smith (1995) who explained that the community has widened the relationship with the brand to include the role of other consumers. As a brand community affects brand equity (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001), and influences more consumer behaviour than mere repurchase, it is a crucial part of relationship marketing for consumers’ commitment and loyalty (McAlexander, Kim, & Roberts, 2003; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). Brand communities furnish the platform for consumers to share information about brands, learn from others’ experience about brands and search help or assistance from others. It is no doubt that the experience in 27

the community would compose a major part of the consumer experience of the brand (Shang, Chen, & Liao, 2006). Companies adopt this strategy to encourage consumer feedback and build brand relationships (McAlexander et al., 2002). McAlexander & Schouten (1998) studied “Brandfest” which was a corporate-sponsored, brandcentered 7-day event. Although these events and activities about brands seem effective in increasing consumers’ loyalty, they are costly and need consumers to be present in person. More constant (perhaps even daily) immersion in the brand by consumers is suggested to be facilitated by brand communities in an online environment (Shang et al., 2006).

McAlexander et al. (2002) through the study of company held Camp Jeep Brandfest, broadened the brand community triad concept to another level. They wove various relationships such as focal customer with product, with marketer, with brand and with fellow customers into the model, which is illustrated in Figure 2.1. In this project, marketers have played proactive role to facilitate the customer-orientated relationships (McAlexander et al., 2002). They also point out the research from customers’ point of view can be one future research direction.

This figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

Figure 2.1 Customer-Centric model of Brand Community Source: McAlexander, Schouten, & Koening (2002)

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Based on McAlexander et al.’s (2002) model, Ouwersloot & Odekerken-Schröde (2008) tried to segment the community population on the basis of the importance the members attach to the four relationships, which are brand, product, company and other customers. They acknowledged a large part of the community displayed some homogeneity and found evidence of heterogeneity among community members. However, their intention to seek the motives to join the community that lead to heterogeneity was not successful.

Cova & Pace (2006) conducted the first study on a convenience product---the Nutella online brand community. They found that consumer empowerment is based more on personal self-exhibition, than through the characteristics of the brand. They suggested companies should act as “non-intrusive enabler” to minimize its control over the meanings of the brand and empower consumers by giving greater control of their beloved brand. Among the three brand community components (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001), however, they found that the “sense of moral responsibility” was not evident. Members on “my Nutella The Community” site cared more about self-exposure, than in helping others or establishing social relationships (Cova & Pace, 2006). This is possibly influenced by the community website content, which is more about personal page and blogs.

Table 2.2 summarizes the main research on online brand communities.

29

Table 2.2 Main research on online communities/brand communities/online brand communities Brand

Findings

Brand Communities ( Ford Bronco,



Saab, Apple Macintosh)

 

Consciousness of a kind, sense of belonging to an in-group, thanks to a brand this is patronized by all of the group members—and they feel the strong connection to the brand and toward each other. (Oppositional brand loyalty) Power toward competitor Shared rituals and traditions Sense of moral responsibility

Harley Davidson Harley Owners Group (HOG)



A subculture of consumption exhibits a homogeneous ethos of core values and expressions and it displays a hierarchical social structure based on authenticity and commitments to a well-accepted ideology of consumption.

Camp Jeep BrandFest



Integrated brand community is a function of the customers’ perceived relationships with their own products, the brand, the company, and other members

Nutella



A new form of sociality and customer empowerment on convenience product; Personal page or blog format—good for produce sub-cultural components, para-social relationship; Tips for developing convenience product-oriented brand communities are proposed.

www.mynutella.com

 

Macintosh



Brand Cult—led by extreme brand activists with brand-focused devotion, provide a view to understand the phenomenon of extreme belief in a brand & for appreciating the potentially all-encompassing role that a brand can play

European Car Clubs

  

Brand community is good for customer retention, not acquisition Brand community can influence consumer in negative ways Brand community elicit consumers’ various behaviour intentions.

Culinary site



Besides the collective site of the online community, there are competitions, conflicts and clashes too. Community members vary greatly in their passion, preferences and practices.



The reasons why these anti-brand communities emerge, and pros and cons to the marketers were pointed out.

www.smulweb.nl

Spoof site Anti-Wal-Mart Anti-McDonald’s Anti-Starbuck’s

Source: Developed for this research (Algesheimer, Dholakia, & Herrmann, 2005; Belk & Tumbat, 2005; Cova & Pace, 2006; Hollenbeck & Zinkhan, 2006; McAlexander et al., 2002; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001; Pitt et al., 2002; Schouten & McAlexander, 1995; Valck, 2005, 2007)

30

From a marketer’s perspective, a brand with a powerful sense of community would generally have greater value than a brand with weaker sense of community, because of the positive information circulating amongst the members in the group (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). However, a strong brand community can be a threat to marketers should the community collectively reject an advertising campaign, product change or any marketing efforts, and using communal communication channels to spread the word and create anti-brand activities, especially through computer mediated communication (Hollenbeck & Zinkhan, 2006; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001), such as the online environment. As mentioned earlier, the Internet brings power to the consumers; an online brand community makes their power even more targeted and stronger, being either positive or negative to marketers. There are two main formats of an online brand community: the first is set up by the company (www.nutella.it, www.Jonessoda.com), which are defined by Wiertz & Ruyter (2007, p. 349) as “firm-hosted online aggregations of customers who collectively co-produce and consume content about a commercial activity that is central to their interest by exchanging intangible resources”. The second type is initiated by consumers (bbs.ngacn.cc, haloforum.net), mostly fans of the brand or the consumption activity. This research explores consumer power in the online brand community established by consumers, which will be discussed in Chapter Three.

2.5.4 Power in the Online Brand Community An online brand community is an important format on the Internet. If consumer power exists on the Internet as the literature suggests, it then follows with the proposition.

P1: Power relationships exist in an online brand community. This knowledge gap has not been tested in previous research.

From the prior literature on consumer power strategies online – control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation – we derive the proposition that they should also exist in an online brand community. However, the power strategies raised by Denegri-Knott (2006) are based on her study of consumers’ power struggle with marketers on the Internet, which refers to the worldwide network system (Encarta Dictionary, 2007), so the power is applied to the overall action that happened

31

on the Internet in general. It is likely there will be some variances when being applied to the online brand community. The assumptions are as follows:

Control over the relationship In the online brand community, consumers bond together and express their likes or dislikes of certain organizations, brands or products. As McAlexander et al.’s (2002) model indicates, consumers might have a relationship with the brand, product, community and amongst consumers themselves. However, whether they have control over this type of relationship is not certain.

Information In online brand communities, members search and share information, communicate opinions and consumption experiences (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, 2004) and even try to persuade others who hold different views. Information is the most important thing that consumers try to get out of the online community (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996). Members with different information levels might tend to act differently by discussing, evaluating and recommending.

Aggregation Online brand communities are already an aggregated format for people’s alliance based on common interest (love or hate) in a brand on the Internet. Due to the collective nature of the brand community, members will share opinions about the brand or consumption activities. Depending on the intrinsic nature of the community, the outcome might be supportive or detrimental to the company or the brand.

Participation In online brand communities, members would co-create brand-related content. By this kind of contribution, members might increase self-esteem, get recognition from other members (Wellman & Gulia, 1998). Toffler (1980) invented the term “Prosumer” over 20 years ago and predicted that the role of producers (a.k.a. marketers) and consumers would blur and merge. Consumers would take part in the process of production and marketing. Members see this behaviour as the connection with the brand and want to get more involved.

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Some suggestions are listed in Table 2.3 to define the adjusted aspects this research is going to pursue. Table 2.3 Online Brand Community Power Strategies Power Strategies

Internet

Online brand community

Control over the relationship

Consumers can decide if they want to engage with marketers.

Consumers’ willingness of participation, commitment and loyalty.

Information

Consumers can use information as a way to improve decision-making skills.

Consumers share information with each other by posting, discussing, evaluating, recommending.

Aggregation

Consumers can interact with other like-minded consumers to enhance benefits gained or to engage in antimarketer activities.

Consumers can form online or offline activities based on their common love for the brand. Activities can be supportive or detrimental to the brand.

Participation

Consumers can participate in the creation of content. For example, they can co-create an Advertisement or new product development ideas.

Consumers’ contribution on sharing new ideas or creation of brand/product related content.

Source: developed for this research

This suggests the proposition: P2: 4 consumer power types (Control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation) exist in an online brand community.

2.5.5 Member Roles in the Online Brand Community The literature describes the different roles of members in communities. The universally used typology is the lurkers and posters dichotomy (Brown, Tilton, & Woodside, 2002; Reid, 1993; Rheingold, 1993). The difference between lurkers and posters is if they contribute to the community’s content. Preece (2000a) called members in the community as moderators and mediators, professional commentators, provocateurs, general participants and lurkers. Kim (2000) proposed five member roles based on members’ progressive stages of community involvement, they are visitors, novices, regulars, leaders and elders. Visitors are the ones who just browse without clear role in the community; novices are new members who just join the community and have a lot to learn; regulars are the group who have been around for a while and comfortably participate in discussion and activities in the community; 33

leaders are volunteers, contractors, and staff who keep the community running; finally the elders are long-time regulars and leaders who do a lot of knowledge and community culture sharing. Kim’s idea of typology has broadened the lurker and poster dichotomy; however, he assumed that the member roles will change overtime from visitors to elders without empirical testing.

Kozinets (1999) summarized four different roles in the online community based on different scales of two non-independent factors – the relationship that members have with the consumption activity and the intensity of the social relationships that members have with other members. Hence, he identified tourists, insiders, minglers and devotees. As illustrated in Figure 2.2, the tourist has low social ties and visits the community randomly without much involvement, having only a passing interest in the brand or consumption activity; the mingler has strong social ties, but is only superficially interested in the brand or consumption activity; the devotee is the type of member with strong interest and enthusiasm in the brand or consumption activity, yet lacks the social attachments to the community; while the insider has strong social ties and strong personal ties to the brand or consumption activity (Kozinets, 1999).

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This figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

Source: Kozinets (1999)

Figure 2.2 Type of Virtual Community of Consumption Member Valck (2005) raises a new classification of member roles as core members, functionalists, opportunists, informationalists, conversationalists and hobbyists after conducting the study in a culinary online community.

Looking at these five typologies together, the lurker versus poster dichotomy tends to be very narrow by ignoring the dynamics of the online community. There are similarities among the Kim, Preece, Kozinets and even Valck typologies. A lurker or visitor or opportunist is much like a tourist, a participant or regular or core member like an insider. However, Kozinets’ grid also underpins the relationship of different members with the community (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001) and the consumption activity or the brand experience. This supports McAlexander et al.’s (2002) recommendation that the brand community research needs to look at the customers’ perspective, considering focal customers’ relationship with brand, product, community and other customers. Despite that Kozinet’s typology is based on the study of online communities of consumption, since the classification criteria are quite generic (Valck, 2005), by leveraging the key concept of sharing the same enthusiasm 35

for the consumption or group activity, we propose that the online brand community also consists of four member types. It then follows with the proposition: P3: There are different roles in an online brand community, such as tourist, insider, mingler and devotee.

Table 2.4 shows the studies of member roles in the online communities.

Table 2.4 The Typology of Online Community Members Roles A few authors

Kim (2000)

Preece (2000)

--- Brown et

Kozinets

Valck (2005)

(1999)

al. 2002; Reid, 1993; Rheingold, 1993

Classification

behaviour

Dimension

Involvement

Behaviour and

Consumption

overtime

function

activity and

Participation habit

social involvement Typology

Posters,

Visitors,

Moderators

Tourists,

core members,

lurkers

novices,

and mediators,

insiders,

functionalists,

regulars,

commentators,

minglers,

opportunists,

leaders,

provocateurs,

devotees

informationalists,

elders

participants

conversationalists

lurkers

and hobbyists

Perceived

Limited

Assumption of

The

Only based on one

Limitations

attention on

linear member

classification

community which

the

role change

tends to be

has little

participation,

over time

general

generalizability

ignoring the

without

without clear

dynamics of

empirical

dimensions

the community

testing

Source: Developed for this research

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2.5.6 Member with Power in the Online Brand Community Power circulates in the group (Shankar et al., 2006), thus we assume that each role in the online brand community has power, but the nature of the power is likely to be different according to their roles. It follows: P4: Power distribution is based on different roles of the members in an online brand community.

Member roles change. Some new members may move from tourist without any contribution, to the first post to regular and even frequent contributions, then become a devotee (Fox & Roberts, 1999; A. J. Kim, 2000; Kozinets, 1999). As proposition 3 points out, different roles have different power and power circulates (Shankar et al., 2006). Therefore, when member roles change, their power also changes. This suggests: P5: Power will change when members’ roles change in an online brand community. A huge number of people can use the Internet these days and this universal access could suggest an equality online. Denegri-Knott (2006) describes the Internet as antihierarchical in nature. Jordon (1999) also suggests that the Internet provides the free spaces and acts as a tool of liberation that disrupts offline hierarchies. However, a few researchers mentioned the presence of online hierarchies (Cova & Pace, 2006; Denegri-Knott, 2006; Jordon, 1999; McWilliam, 2000), stating that online community is the same as offline ones. What exists offline would be reflected in the online environment too. Schouten & McAlexander (1995) spent three years immersing themselves in Harley-Davidson subculture group offline, reporting the informal hierarchy that existed based on in-group status. Rituals, participation in activities and contribution to the group are reflected in the hierarchy. The status also reflects individual’s commitment to the community’s ideology of consumption. In the online environment, members post on the community site, but not everybody receives an equal response. Some members are more popular than others (McWilliam, 2000).

Lovaglia et al. (2003) define status as a person’s position in a group’s prestige hierarchy. An individual’s status determines their influence. Higher status increases the value of one’s resources (Thye, 2000), and their information is more accepted by others. From the sociological point of view, the higher status group members generate,

37

the more influence they have in the group’s work (Troyer, 2003). The relationship between power and status is thought to be reciprocal status may also produce power (Lovaglia et al., 2003). Therefore, we assume that the members who reflect higher community attributes will have higher status. Then it follows: P6: Members most involved in exclusivity, rituals and responsibilities to the group have more power in an online brand community.

This research aims to identify what effect consumer power will exert on the brand in an online brand community. To achieve this, we now turn to a literature review of branding.

2.6 Brand and the Community 2.6.1 Brand Brand refers to a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers (Bennett, 1988, p. 18). From the point of view of consumers, brand is a perception resulting from experiences with, and information about, a company or a line of products. Brand not only is a symbol or perception, it also adds value to people’s life. Ambler (1992) defines brand as the promise of the bundles of attributes that someone buys to provide satisfaction. The attributes that make up a brand may be real or illusory, rational or emotional, tangible or invisible.

2.6.2 Brand liking Brand liking is the likeability of the brand and is a vital and central component of brand equity (Ye & Van Raaij, 2004). Brand equity is a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to the brand’s name and symbols, which add to or subtract from the value provided by the product to a firm and/or to customers (Aaker, 1991). Brand equity can be assessed from three aspects; they are the customer mind set, product market outcomes and financial market outcomes. Customer mindset can be measured from awareness, attitude, association, attachment and loyalty (Aaker, 1991). The favourability of brand association will form the positive or negative of brand likability. Brand association reflects the strategic position of the brand; it is anything that is

38

directly or indirectly linked in the consumer’s memory to a brand (Aaker, 2008). As mentioned earlier, there are a number of studies that pinpoint that an online brand community can affect brand equity and assist with brand loyalty (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Belk & Tumbat, 2005; Floyd, 2003; Jang, Ko, & J.Koh, 2007; McAlexander et al., 2003). However, little research has been conducted on brand association or brand liking (Aaker, 1991; Ye & Van Raaij, 2004).

In an online brand community setting, members get to know each other, gain trust and form a kind of bond or relationships. As many empirical studies demonstrate, viewers like familiar faces more and perceive familiar people as more trustworthy (Kollock, 1994). On the Internet, it is not about familiar faces, but familiar names and familiar writing styles since people communicate with each other by posting and sharing ideas. People experience feelings of intimacy and comfort when they gain a sense of familiarity which enhances their liking of the brand (Monin, 2003). Therefore, personality is reflected by what someone writes and the quality of the posts and the personality displayed, which gains the respect and trust of others. According to Shneiderman (2000), trust is the positive expectation a person has for another person, organization, tool, or process that is based on past performance and truthful future guarantees made by a responsible person or organization. This can be applied to cognitive trust, which is represented by the quality of the posts and emotional trust, which in turn is represented by the desirable personality or good behavior in the community (Qiu & Benbasat, 2005).

Consumers may choose to define the brand themselves no matter how the marketer has positioned and communicated the brand. Consumers may talk about the terms through which they will accept, adopt and make the brand part of their lives (Deighton, 2002; Wipperfürth, 2005). Wipperfurth (2005) comments that individuals need to be defined in terms of their peer groups and their communities. Consumers define themselves in contrast to other people (Douglas, 1997), and they are driven by desire to make a statement about themselves in relation to others. The online brand community provides a natural environment for consumers to share their thoughts about the brand that they like or dislike and use consumption to establish a sense of belonging and affinity with others (Moynagh & Worsley, 2002). Consumers’ attitude toward brands/products will change in online brand communities (Shang et al., 2006) 39

since the customers can easily develop identification with the brand as well as a strong corporate feeling (Hoppe, Matzler, & Terlutter, 2007).

From the product consumption perspective, consumers have underlying needs for an emotional bond with high-involvement products like computer games that they purchase and use (Palmer, 1996), since they devote a lot of time and effort which leads to an emotional attachment. The bond between consumer and brand can be described as the relationship among consumers who consume the same brand. In an online brand community, members will reference to their peers, adjusting their liking of the brand.

2.6.3 Relationship Marketing The term “relationship marketing” was first introduced by Berry in a services marketing context (Berry, 1983). From then, scholars started to point out that the company’s focus should transfer from “short-term transaction-oriented” to “long-term relationship-building oriented” (Kotler, 1991; Webster, 1992). The relationship marketing concept has been used in network and interactive approaches, marketing as long-term interactive relationships, and interactive marketing (Gummesson, 1997). The acknowledgement of the relationship between the company and all the parties involved (Grönroos, 1997) is the signage for relationship marketing. Consumer relations with a company is just one of many relationships, however the most important. Due to economic reasons, customer retention could create a competitive advantage for the company (Morgan, 2000). Together with technological development, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which helps the company deal with customer relationships in mass markets, has become an increasingly important part of business (Mitussis, O'Malley, & Patterson, 2006). Apart from the main database management, other technologies such as the Internet, emails and online communities also assist in opening up new channels to boost the company-consumer dialogue (Mitussis et al., 2006). Companies are realizing the importance and advantages of online brand communities as a component for relationship marketing communication (Andersen, 2005; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). The possible outcome from a brand community is always increasing brand loyalty as consumers act as brand advocates (McAlexander et al., 2003). Through this kind of bonding, which is termed by some scholars as “E-loyalty” (Reichheld & Schefter, 2000), members develop 40

loyalty to the community which can be transferred to the brand. Similar assumptions were derived for brand liking. It then follows: P7: The power relationships members form in an online brand community will reinforce the consumer’s liking of the brand.

2.7 Cross-cultural Perspective Most brand community studies are based on communities in western countries (Belk & Tumbat, 2005; Cova & Pace, 2006; McAlexander et al., 2002; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). Cross-cultural implications of brand community have not yet been explored, but would be a particular interest in the global marketplace (McAlexander et al., 2002; Schouten & McAlexander, 1995). This study tries to fill above described gap by studying online brand communities in Australia and China. Given the main objective is to identify the power structures in the online brand community, cross-cultural perspective is expected to add more insight to the findings.

Culture plays important role in influencing how people think, feel and view the world (Li, Kirkup, & Hodgson, 2001). This study draws upon Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimension framework on individualism versus collectivism and power distance to explore the latent consumer power distribution difference between Australia and China online brand communities.

Many definitions have been formulated for culture (Hofstede, 1980; Usunier & Lee, 2005). Hofstede (1980, p. 21) draws from Kluckhohn’s (1951) definition of culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another” as his basis to develop cultural dimensions. He then undertook the survey of the values of the employees of the multinational business organisation IBM in 72 countries (Hill, 1998; Hofstede & Usunier, 2003), from 1967 to 1973 and collected data from more than 100,000 individuals. He developed four cultural dimensions. They are Individualism versus Collectivism, Masculinity versus Femininity, Power distance and Uncertainty Avoidance. His work was universally endorsed since; however, it also received many critiques. Roberts and Boyacigiller (1984) argued that measurement validity was the main weakness of the IBM project;

41

hence the quality of Hofstede’s evidence was challenged (Smith, 2002). McSweeney (2002) claimed that Hofstede made a few assumptions during the collection of data, as he tried to ignore the difference of organizational culture, only emphasising on national culture. In spite of these critiques, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are still broadly used in cross-cultural studies as the benchmark for their own studies. So will this research.

Among all the cultural dimensions that Hofstede developed, this study adopts two of them, perceived to be relevant to Australia and China. These are individualism versus collectivism and power distance. A comparison between Australia and China on these different dimensions is shown in Figure 2.3. We can see that Australia is much higher on individualism, but much lower on power distance than China. The two countries show a big difference in these two dimensions, thus the study assumes that some differences will be identified in the online brand communities of two countries accordingly.

This figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

Figure 2.3 The Cultural Dimensions Result between Australia and China Source: online Geert Hofstede™ Cultural Dimensions at http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php?culture1=18&culture2=6

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Collectivism vs. Individualism This is degree to which members within a society are integrated into groups (Hofstede, 2001). Collectivism or individualism can be identified depending on whether group goals or personal goals have priority (Triandis, 1995). In individualistic societies, such as Australia, the ties between individuals are loose and individual achievement and freedom is highly valued, and speaking one’s mind is a virtue. Telling the truth about how one feels is seen as characteristic of a sincere and honest person and confrontation can be salutary. A clash of opinion is believed to lead to a higher truth (Hofstede, 2001). In societies such as China where collectivism is emphasized, the bond between individuals is tight. In such societies, people are born into collectives, such as extended families, with everyone looking after the interest of his or her collectively (Hill, 1998). Maintenance of “harmony” is the key virtue that extends to all the spheres (Hofstede, 2001). Figure 2.3 demonstrates that Australia is much higher on “individualism” than China. Then it leads to: P8: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher collectivism while the Australian one demonstrates higher individualism.

Power Distance Power distance measures the extent to which the less powerful members of organisations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. As Hofstede & Usunier (2003, p. 140) comment, “all society are unequal, but some are more unequal than others.” Mulder (1977, p. 90) also suggests that there exists a “degree of inequality in power between a less powerful Individual and a more powerful other, in which individual and other belong to the same (loosely or tightly knit) social system.” Then it follows with the proposition: P9: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher power distance; the Australian one demonstrates lower power distance.

The literature reviewed so far has outlined key theories and constructs used across power, the Internet and brand communities. Along the way, nine propositions have been developed which inject some new perspectives of power in the online brand community. The aim of the research is to explore consumer power in the online brand communities. To fulfil this objective; the main research question is developed as: 43

How are perceived power relationships structured in an online brand community? It is underpinned by three sub questions: 1. Is there any power distribution difference based on roles of members in an online brand community? 2. Do the power relationships have any effect on the consumer’s liking of the brand? 3. Do these relationships differ between the Australia and Chinese Community members?

2.8 Summary and Implications for this Research Consumer power is gaining imminence in the literature on advertising, marketing, consumer behaviour and other social science areas. This has been propelled by the rise of the Internet as a communication platform. The Internet has given consumers unprecedented choice and the ability to express their opinions, meet their inner desire for control and seek power to control their environment.

For many consumers (especially younger generations), brands have largely replaced social structures such as neighbourhoods or religion as the building blocks of identity (Solomon, 2005), since consumers grow up surrounded by brands and the online communities. Identifying how consumers view themselves, others, their attitudes and behaviours and their interrelationship in the online communities is crucial to understanding their attitude and behaviour. The Internet has been shaped by the consumer-marketer interaction, while at the same time, influencing the nature of this interaction. This interaction also has an impact on Internet features and future Internet capabilities. As Stewart & Pavlou (2002) emphasize, when evaluating the interaction between consumer and marketer, it is important to account for the structure that media characteristics impose on the interaction. Similarly, when studying the interaction between consumers in the online community, the media characteristics should also be taken into account, which is the “interactivity” in this research.

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This research adopts case study methodology, detailed in the next Chapter. The chosen cases are the communities set up by the consumers, with little marketer involvement. This is different from existing literature, which has focussed more on company created communities (McAlexander et al., 2002; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001; Muńiz Jr & Schau, 2005). We look at the case from the consumers’ point of view. Therefore, this research adapts the customer-centric model of brand community developed by McAlexander, Schouten, & Koening (2002). The brand community is customer centric, and consumers have relationships with other customers, brand/ consumption activity and the community as a whole, mitigated by the interactive power offered by the Internet, as shown in Figure 2.4.

Focal Consumer

Internet

Consumer

Internet

Brand/ Consumption Activity

Internet

Community

Figure 2.4 Consumer-Community-Brand Model Source: Adapted from McAlexander, Schouten, & Koening (2002) and developed for the research In summary, based on the research of Kozinets (1999) and Denegri-Knott (2006), a framework for the study is developed in Figure 2.5. This research attempts to explore how consumer power is structured by looking at different member roles in online brand communities, their standard characteristics (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001), and how this might affect power relationships and ultimately their relationship with the brand. Cultural elements will be considered through Australia and China as the two samples drawn from Hofstede’s study (1980).

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Power format

Community Characteristics

Consciousness of kind

Control over relationship Australia

Shared rituals & traditions

Information Brand Aggregation

Sense of moral responsibility China

Devotee

Insider

Tourist

Mingler

Participation

Figure 2.5 Conceptual Framework Source: Developed for this research

As the conceptual framework indicates, the research bridges the precedent theories of online consumer power, brand community characters and the typology of community member roles via the cross-cultural perspective. This framework and previously developed propositions will be the guide to answering the research questions proposed.

2.9 Conclusion This chapter presents literature review that provides the theoretical foundation for this research. Research questions and propositions haven been developed. A conceptual framework is derived from existing literature and extended into the under-researched domains of consumer power in the online brand community. This provides the framework for subsequent research investigation. Chapter three will present the methodology used for investigating the research questions through a case study strategy and details of data collection, analysis and ethical considerations.

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Chapter Three: Research Methodology

“It is worth noting that computer-mediated communication research has often floundered in the real world, and therefore more qualitative research carried out on the Internet is needed.” (Wood, Griffiths, & Eatough, 2004, p. 511)

3.1 Introduction In Chapter two, a comprehensive literature review has highlighted research questions as: How are the perceived power relationships structured in an online brand community? Three sub questions are: 1. Is there any power distribution difference based on roles of members in an online brand community? 2. Do the power relationships have any effect on the consumer’s liking of the brand? 3. Do these relationships differ between the Australian and the Chinese Community members?

Alongside the research questions, nine propositions were developed: P1: Power relationships exist in an online brand community. P2: 4 consumer power types (Control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation) exist in an online brand community. P3: There are different roles in an online brand community, such as tourist, insider, mingler and devotee. P4: Power distribution is based on different roles of the members in an online brand community. P5: Power will change when members’ roles change. P6: Members most involved in exclusivity, rituals and responsibilities to the group have more power in an online brand community.

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P7: The power relationships members formed in an online brand community will reinforce the consumer’s liking of the brand. P8: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher collectivism while the Australian one demonstrates higher individualism; P9: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher power distance; the Australian one demonstrates lower power distance.

A conceptual framework also was developed to guide this research project. Chapter three will explore the appropriate research design to answer the research questions and provide the rationale of how this research is to be conducted. The first part of chapter justifies the pertinent paradigm and the choice of case study methodology. The second part explains data collection methods and how the data will be analyzed. The final part outlines some limitations of this research and ethical considerations.

3.2 Paradigm The paradigm is posited as the basic belief system or worldview that guides the investigator in choices of method both in ontologically and epistemologically fundamental ways (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 10). Table 3.1 presents a summary of the key paradigms.

48

Table 3.1 Research Paradigms Ontology

Positivism

Interpretivism

Critical theory

Naïve realism—

Relativism—local

Historical realism—virtual

reality is “real” and

and specific co-

reality shaped

apprehensible

constructed realities

by social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender values; crystallized over time

Epistemology

Dualist/objectivist;

Transactional/

Transactional/

findings true

subjectivist

subjectivist; valuemediated findings

Methodology

Experimental/

Hermeneutical/dialectic

manipulative;

al Mainly qualitative

verification of

research; case

hypotheses; chiefly

studies/Interviews;

quantitative

observation

Dialogic/dialectical

methods

Source: Lincoln & Guba (2000), Gephart(1999), Cavana et al.(2001)

Positivistism has been prevailing paradigm and is rooted in the natural sciences, which have a longer history than the social sciences (Cavana et al., 2001; Gephart, 1999). Thus, positivistic concerns to uncover the truths and facts of the world using mainly quantitative measures, which always be criticized losing the members’ meanings and interpretations from data which are collected. The statistical analysis of data often could not represent specific social groups which do not support generalization or understanding of individual cases (Cavana et al., 2001; Gephart, 1999). This study is going to identify the power structure in online brand community which are consisted by members, how they think, feel and act are subjected to be gathered and analysed, so positivistic paradigm is not applicable.

Interpretivist research sees people experience physical and social reality in different ways and try to describe different meanings as well as understand members’ definitions of the situation since interpretivism assumes the world is largely what people perceive it to be and the reality and socially and intersubjectively structured (Cavana et al., 2001; Gephart,

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1999). The objective of this study is to investigate how consumer power is structured in the online brand community, and what might be the influence to the brand. To identify the social world that people have produced and to uncover socially constructed meaning by understanding of individual or a group of individuals (Blaikie, 2000; Cavana et al., 2001; Lincoln & Guba, 2000), an interpretive paradigm is regarded to be the most appropriate basic assumptions underpin the research.

Critical theory aims to empower people to create a better world by uncovering and going beyond surface illusion (Cavana et al., 2001). Different from Interpetivist research which tends to describe different meanings, Critical theory research tries to uncover myths and revealing hidden meanings (Cavana et al., 2001). This could be the next step facing this study, when the power structure is identified in the online brand community, to better utilize the finding and continuous value to both the academics and the practitioners, Critical theory can support the further studies trying to explore more, for example, the origin of power or the reason that people act in different power format in the community.

As compared above, because this study is aiming to investigate how consumer power is structured in the online brand community which is to see the social interactions between people, interpretivist paradigm is underlying the study and as the guidance for the overall research design which will be discussed later.

3.3 Methodology 3.3.1 Case Study As justified in last section, Interpretivism paradigm is underpinning this research. This section will explain why the case study methodology is adopted. As Table 3.2 shows, case study methodology is appropriate to solve “how” and “why” questions (Yin, 2003). Case study can take an activity and explore it comprehensively, thus rich description can be gained from a phenomenon (Stark & Torrance, 2005). The main research question for this research is “how are the perceived power relationships structured in an online brand community?” The potential outcome of the study will be the description of the structure of the online brand community using data collection

50

methods like interviews and observation and so on; analysis of rich data helps understand consumers’ thoughts and behaviour in the online brand community to establish general propositions for the power structure (Zikmund, 2003). Table 3.2 Relevant Situations for Different Research Strategies

This table is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

Source: Yin (2003)

Another reason for using case study is due to lack of previous research conducted on the exploration of power in the online environment in marketing discipline (Desmond, 2003; Merlo et al., 2004). Using the empirical case study research helps to describe this defined phenomenon and build theory. Case study is particular (single case or multiple-cases), inductive (theory building) research and it seeks to ‘illuminate’ an understanding of an issue (Stark & Torrance, 2005) which is ideal to meet the objective of this research and answer research questions.

The third reason for choosing case study methodology is the investigation of consumer power structure in the online brand community as a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context. When the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident, case study is the preferred methodology (Yin, 2003). Brand community study, especially in the online environment is still a new area which attracts increasing interest from researchers. Past brand community research has examined a few perspectives based on a variety of community cases and produced valuable findings (Belk & Tumbat, 2005; Cova & Pace, 2006; Muńiz Jr &

51

O'Guinn, 2001; Muńiz Jr & Schau, 2005). This proved successful in delivering insights based on different scenarios, filling the gaps of online brand community research.

3.3.2 Integrity of Case Study This section will look at the case study in terms of validity and reliability. Case study methodology has received criticism for its lack of rigor (Yin, 2003) and bias from interpretivist researchers who acknowledge their own subjectivity as part of the investigation process (Darke, Shanks, & Broadbent, 1998). Yin (2003) posits there are four tests which are commonly used, when doing any empirical social research, to establish and improve the quality and credibility. They are construct validity, internal validity, external validity and reliability which are listed in Table 3.3 below. Table 3.3 Case study validity and reliability

This table is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

Source: Yin (2003)

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Construct validity concerns the development of sufficient operational measures in the research design, establishing correct operational measures for the concepts being studied (kidder & Judd, 1986; Yin, 2003). The researcher must identify the possible pertinent issues relevant to the research problems. In this study “consumer power structure in online brand community”, consumer power theory, the Internet and brand community literature have been triangulated to set up the scene for further exploration. As the Table 3.3 suggests, a few tactics can help to increase the construct validity, including multiple sources of evidence, establishing a chain of evidence and key informant reviewing draft case study report. This research tries to increase the construct validity by using multiple sources of evidence, by incorporating evidence from interviews and online observation for the convergent line of inquiry (Yin, 2003).

Internal validity focuses on the causal relationship, where certain variables may influence other variables in the research study (Christie, Rowe, Perry, & Chamard, 2000). If the researcher incorrectly concludes causal relationship does not exist then the constructed theory is spurious (Yin, 2003). However, this internal validity is only a concern for the exploratory nature of case studies (Yin, 2003). To establish internal validity in case study research, the tactics of pattern-matching, explanation-building, addressing rival explanations and using logic models can be considered. This research is a multiple case study, when doing the cross case analysis, pattern-matching logic is adopted to compare the result with the propositions proposed in the research project. If the pattern is matched or contradicted, then the conclusion can be derived or new theme will emerge, hence internal validity is strengthened (Yin, 2003).

External validity addresses the generalisibility of the case study in the external environment (Parkhe, 1993; Yin, 2003). Case study is generally perceived to be weaker in terms of external validity (Gerring, 2007), as relevance rather than representativeness is the criterion for case selection (Stake, 1994). Stark & Torrance (2005) also argue that readers would generalize from a good case study themselves by relating to it intuitively, rather than the sample being statically representative. “Analytic generalization” should be the focus rather than statistical generalization. In multiple cases studies, replication logic can be used to increase the external validity (Yin, 2003). Replication logic includes literal replication and theoretical replication. Literal replication is the assumption that similar results will be produced for predicted 53

reasons and theoretical replication is the assumption of contrasting result for predicted reasons (Yin, 2003). Replication logic is also applied to the selection of the cases for this research project which will be discussed in next section.

Reliability is about the dependability of the case study result through the minimization of the errors and biases in the study (Yin, 2003). The objective of the reliability test is to assure that a later investigator can achieve the same findings if he/she followed the same procedures as described by the previous investigator. The tactics of the reliability test are to establish case study protocol and case study database in the data collection stage. This research used the case study protocol of in-depth interviews which is suggested by Yin (2003) as a strategy for increasing the reliability. The study also employed online observation as a second data collection method. Online observation was applied to the study after the result drawn from the interviews. Through the verification and maximization of the data gathered, thus the reliability of the study has been strengthened (Yin, 2003).

3.3.3 Case Study Design This research incorporates a multiple case study design to give a more holistic view of the issue. Yin (2003) proposed that research should only use a single case study when the case is critical, or extreme or unique, or highly representative or revelatory case or a longitudinal case. Based on the objective of this research, and research questions exploring members’ different roles, culture difference and the possible effect on brand liking, these issues are best addressed by conducting an embedded multiple-case study, which Yin (2003) refers to as Type 4 case study in Figure 3.1. This research will identify the member’s relationship amongst each other in the community as well as their relationship with the community, and their relationship with the brand and community, individually and collectively. Therefore, the unit of analysis are multiple: individual and the community as a whole.

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This figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

Figure 3.1 Single vs. Multiple-case Design Source: Yin (2003) p.40

Based on proposition 8 and 9 which will explore issues regarding the cross-cultural comparison between Australia and China, the study requires at least one case from each country (Yin, 2003). The widest accepted range of cases falls between 2 to 4 as the minimum (Carson et al., 2001). Considering 1) restraining timeframe and budget for a Master’s project; 2) the exploratory nature of the study and the result does not require a high degree of certainty related to high statistical significance (Yin, 2003), the study was designed as a comparative two-case study. Although there is only one case for each country, as Patton (1990, p. 185) notes: The validity, meaningfulness and insights generated from qualitative inquiry have more to do with the information-richness of the cases selected and the observational/analytical capabilities of the researcher than with sample size.

Yin (2003) argues that with two cases, the analytic conclusions will be more powerful than those that come from a single case. He also mentions that the contexts of the two cases are likely to be different to some extent. Thus if the research result under these varied conditions still reach certain common conclusions from both cases, the external generalizability of the findings is demonstrated and the external validity of the whole study will be strengthened.

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Selection of Cases There are a few criteria included in the planning stage of selection the appropriate cases for the study as shown in Figure 3.2:

Criteria of selection of cases to be studied

Research question and objective

Literature review for previous research done

Replication logic

Figure 3.2 Criteria of Selection of Cases Source: Developed for this research

Based on the research questions and objective, this research tries to identify the similarities and potential differences of consumer power structure in online brand communities in Australia and China. Therefore, the case has to be a brand which has an online community; the community needs to have certain number of members who are actively involved (Cova & Pace, 2006). In terms of the cultural element, the choice of Australia and China is representative of eastern and western countries, as well as two different cases based on the study of Hofstede (1980) which was described in Chapter two. Australia had more than 15 million Internet users by March 2007 or 70.4% of the population (Internet Usage Stats and Telecommunications, 2007) and it is a good example of western culture, as having high individualism and low power distance. China is a strong example of eastern culture with high collectivism and high power distance. Furthermore, China has a huge population on the Internet. According to the latest report, total Internet users in China has jumped to number one in the world with 253 million (News.com.au, 2008), surpassed the United States with 223 million Internet users. Wide Internet usage set up a good background to study the consumer behaviour in the online environment.

The literature review in Chapter two has listed many characteristics of existing brand communities and online brand communities. Previous research has mostly focused on luxury brands or niche market (for example, Harley-Davison, Saab, Mercedes-Benz,

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Apple), despite a couple of studies started pursuing consumer product brand communities in very recent years, for example, Nutella and basketball shoes (Cova & Pace, 2006; Füller et al., 2007). Dwyer (2007) suggests that the findings of community study will vary based on different product category. A new category will inject new knowledge to online community research arena. According to the Internet usage statistics shown in Figure 3.3, age group 18-34 in Australia and age group 1830 in China constitute the major online population. In investigating this age group, 54% use the Internet for online games in Australia (Bond University, 2007), with a similar high penetration rate of 59.3% in China (CNNIC, 2008). Thus the online game community, active in both countries within the chosen age group was proposed as the chosen category for this study.

This figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

This figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis available from the QUT Library

Figure 3.3 Age structure of people on the Internet in Australia and China Source (left hand): the Multi-purpose Household Survey for 2005/06 and the 2006 Children's Participation in Cultural and Leisure Activities Survey conducted by ABS. Source (right hand): the Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in China Survey conducted by CNNIC.

Multiple case study design is regarded to be more robust with more compelling evidence (Yin, 2003). Selection of each case should be accordingly to the objective of: -

predicts similar results for predictable reasons bringing literal replication, hence the online-game category; or/and

-

produces contrary results for predictable reasons which is theoretical replication, so that the study selects cases both in Australia and China with obvious cultural difference (Yin, 2003)

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The researcher predicts similar power structures in the communities of both countries because both are similar online game communities. Different results or contrasting results are also predicted based on the different cultural elements.

Summarization of all the criteria discussed above can be found in Table 3.4.

Table 3.4 Criteria for Case selection No.

Criteria for Case Selection

1

The online community is based on one brand in both countries

2

The online brand community has sufficient pools of participants in both countries

3

Replication logic ideology applied

Source: Developed for this research

With every criterion considered, online game communities were chosen as the sample for this multiple case study. In addition to satisfying criteria listed in Table 3.4, online game is ideal for cross-cultural comparisons (Wood et al., 2004) since it has a large pool of participants online while no geographic restrictions. Furthermore, all the online gamers are computer/Internet literate, making them ideal candidates for the online research method which we will talk about more in section 3.4. After the thorough investigation and comparison, one World of Warcraft (a.k.a. WoW) online brand community in China and one Halo online brand community in Australia were chosen as the cases for this research.

The justifications of two different game brands in two countries are: 1. Typical case sampling strategy: as mentioned before, since the entire community is also the unit of analysis, sampling typical cases is possible as long as the selected case is not atypical, extreme, deviant, or intensely unusual (Patton, 1990). 2. Literature: studies of various European car communities by Algesheimer, Dholakia, & Herrmann (2005) demonstrate common learning can be drawn from different brands in the same category. 3. Reality: WoW is extremely popular in China, as Halo is in Australia, but not vice versa. There are not many people play Halo in China, and there is not a goodsized community for WoW in Australia. Therefore, the choice of different online games but similar attributes is justified.

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These two communities are online game community. Both of them were created by the brand enthusiasts, not by the company. Members play the game separately or collectively but will come to the community to share tips, ask questions about the game or related information. All these activities contribute to the dynamics of the community which makes the community a great and significant pool for potential member relationships’ identification. The details of the games and communities chosen are described next.

Case in Australia Game: Halo Halo is a science fiction video game series created by Bungie Studios (US company, part of Microsoft Game Division). There have been three Halo series so far which are extremely popular in gaming world. The video games have been praised as the Microsoft Xbox's "killer app". The cultural impact of the Halo series has been compared to that of the Star Wars franchise, with those who enjoy the series being dubbed the "Halo Nation" (Wikipedia, 2008b). From the date of release, it has since obtained almost sport-like status in the eye of several thousand dedicated players, who spend up to eight hours a day playing. Halo is also famous for the Major League Gaming tournaments across America. Tournaments are also happening in Australia, attracting huge number of fans participating each year.

Halo online community: Halo Forum –Australia and New Zealand Halo Forum (http://haloforum.net/) Halo Forum was established by Halo fan Matt who is also the administrator of the community. Haloforum.net is regarded as the premium Halo site in Australia attracting good players and is the most competitive site in Australia and New Zealand region. The forum has about 1500 registered members. Everyone can view the posts without registration, however if want to post, need to register to get user name and password.

Case in China Game: World of Warcraft World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It is Blizzard Entertainment's (US company) fourth game set in the fantasy Warcraft 59

universe. It is currently the world's largest and most popular MMORPG in terms of monthly subscribers, with 9 million online users in total (Wikipedia, 2008d) out of which there is 7 million in China.

WoW online community: NGA.cn (National Geographic Azeroth) – (http://bbs.ngacn.cc/) NGA is the first and biggest fan site of WoW in China and regarded as the professional WoW fan community. It is the first thematic website authorized by Blizzard Fansite Program in China, enabling it to receive the test account for all new games and internal released news of the company. NGA.cn was created in 2002 by Mr. Tian Jian who is an enthusiastic Blizzard fan and WoW player, as well as the administrator of the online community. NGA has about 60,000 registered members, having stopped the registration service by mid 2007 because of concern with burdening the server. Everyone can view the posts without registration, however if he/she want to post, registration to get user name and pass word is required. The forum has sticked to the objective to be high-end and professional among numerous WoW forums in China, with comparatively strict rules, regulations and high-quality posts.

Table 3.5 lists some facts of the comparison of two cases and the replication logic. Table 3.5 Case Summary (WoW-NGA and Halo-Halo Forum) Game

WoW-NGA

Halo Forum

Replication Logic

Country

China

Australia

Theoretical

Creator

Fan

Fan

Literal

No. of

60,000 (approximately)

1500 (approximately)

Theoretical

MMORPG (Massively

FPS (First Person

Theoretical

Multiplayer

Shooting)

Members Game Type

Online Role-Playing Game) Majority Age

18-30

15-25

Literal

scope

Source: Developed for this research

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3.3.4 Research Design Overview This research is an exploratory multiple-case study, in order to better comprehend the nature of the problem which has not been addressed by other studies. Cavana et al. (2001, p.108) comment that “exploratory studies are important for obtaining a good grasp of the phenomena of interest and for advancing knowledge through good theory building and hypothesis testing.” This research aims to generate additional knowledge of consumer power in online brand community and gain greater understanding, potentially uncovering unforeseen problems or identifying new learning (Zikmund, 2003). As previously stated, the case study approach is appropriate to discover the not-well-studied contemporary issue and generate new knowledge. It is a clarification investigation since the researcher is trying to gain a clearer understanding of the power structure in online brand communities via different country settings and try to answer the research questions proposed for the study (Cavana, Delahaye, & Sekaran, 2001).

The extent of researcher interference in this research will be minimal because the research will be conducted face-to-face in a comfortable environment (for example, cafés or tea house), excluded from the respondents’ studying or working environment. The study also involves online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger), where again the respondents are in their familiar or natural environment, so the research setting is non-contrived (Cavana et al., 2001).

Another crucial decision is the unit of analysis (Gerring, 2007; Yin, 2003). This research looks into online brand community as a whole, because they were set up based around a particular brand; yet grew as a community based on the individual consumers’ love and likings of the brand. Moreover, in trying to find out the power structure in online brand communities, the study also seeks to identify the power relationship among members. Thus, in this research, the unit of analysis is the community, as well as the individual.

In terms of time horizon, the study is cross-sectional study, because it is carried out as one-off data collection (Cavana et al., 2001).

The overview of the research design of this research is presented in Table 3.6. 61

Table 3.6 Research Design Item

Design

Purpose of the study

Case study

Types of investigation

Exploratory

Extent of researcher interference

Minimal

Study setting

Non-contrived

Unit of analysis

Community & Individual

Time horizon

Cross-sectional

Source: Developed for this research

3.4 Data Collection Most case studies use qualitative research techniques (Cavana et al., 2001; Punch, 2005) because their common goal is to uncover the in-depth meaning of the proposed subjects being researched. Based on the objective of this research, qualitative data with the emphasis on people’s “lived experience”, searching for the meanings people place on the events, processes and structure of their lives are needed (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The criterion of choosing appropriate data collection methods is to measure if they can help in better answering the research questions and achieving the research objective. Thus the interview which is more likely to generate a fairer and fuller representation of the respondents’ perspectives (Mason, 2002) is mainly adopted. To increase the validity of the result, online observation is used as a secondary source of evidence to strengthen the construct validity and reliability (Yin, 2003). Interviews and online observation are justified respectively in the following sections.

3.4.1 Interviews Interviews are a very important data collection method for the case study (Stake, 1994, 1995; Yin, 2003). Interviews are ideally suited for extracting information from an individual (Cavana et al., 2001), offering an insight into respondents’ memories and explanations of why things have come to be what they are, as well as descriptions of current problems (Stark & Torrance, 2005). As this research intends to explore consumer power structure in online brand communities, the researcher gathers people’s situated or contextual accounts and experiences by talking to them, eliciting

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rich data to achieve depth and roundedness of understanding about what is happening in the selected online brand communities (Mason, 2002).

A semi-structured design allows the researcher to listen to the respondents’ answers and probe when necessary any relevant information, grasping unexpected insights and issues (Barbour & Schostak, 2005), as well as concentrating on the questions the researcher wants to ask (Cavana, 2001). The researcher plans to explore the power relationship in the online brand community based on the propositions and framework developed in Chapter two, from the perspectives of existing power types and community characteristics and so on. The strategy is to draw from questions structured from researcher’s current understanding beforehand; then throughout the interviews, obtain feedback from respondents based on pre-prepared questions, while using probing technique to elicit more detailed, complex responses that out of the scope of researcher’s knowing (Cavana et al., 2001; Yin, 2003).

Dick (1990) indicates researchers report that “stability” can occur with as few as six in-depth interviews; this research is planned to conduct 10 interviews in both Australia and China, as this is the typical point of saturation (Rubin & Rubin, 2005).

3.4.2 FTF Interview and Online Interview At the beginning of the study, only face-to-face (also know as FTF) interviews are planned, giving the researcher more flexibility to control the situation and clarify or rephrase the questions, and more opportunity to probe further (Cavana et al., 2001). However, due to the nature of online community, many members are from diverse geographic locations. As a result of time and budget limitations, the researcher could not travel to all these locations to interview respondents face-to-face. Therefore, online synchronic interview (via MSN Messenger) approach is used along with faceto-face interviews for this research.

To justify using online method, Cho & Khang (2006) stated that for Internet related research, online method usage surpasses offline with 53.3% verses 46.7%. Although this result was based on a content analysis of only 15 journal articles on communication, marketing and advertising studies, the pattern is noticeable. The online research approach can be advantageous to explore consumers’ attitudes and 63

behaviour on the Internet because consumers tend to open up more (Heckman, 2000) which matches the objective of this research. In addition, it is good to get as close as possible to the real-life situation where consumers can sit in their familiar environment, avoiding the distraction from other factors (Barbour & Schostak, 2005; Cavana et al., 2001) and they feel at ease which makes information gathering less obtrusive. Previous researchers used online and offline data-collection methods in combination to achieve their various objectives (Correll, 1995; Kendall, 1999). Therefore, online interviewing as a supplement to face-to-face interviews is justified in this research.

Figure 3.4 illustrates the data collection techniques combination.

Verify interviews Interviews

Observation

Identify new themes

Richer information

F-T-F Interviews

Geography limitation, less intrusive

Online Interviews

Figure 3.4 Data Collection Techniques Combination Source: Developed for this research

The details of the face-to-face interview and online interview techniques are introduced next.

Face-to-face Interview The face-to-face interview has many advantages. Firstly it allows the researcher to establish rapport quickly via chatting and observing non-verbal cues from respondents. It allows the researcher to clarify the questions in case of respondent misunderstanding and it is easier for the researcher to probe promptly. The disadvantages of face-to-face interviews involve the time to transcribe, the cost 64

involved, and the chance that respondents might become uneasy disclosing their information in front of the researcher (Carson et al., 2001; Cavana et al., 2001; Patton, 1990).

In face-to-face interviews, a tape recorder is used in combination with note taking to make sure that interviewer has accurately covered everything and give a more precise representation of the evidence (Cavana et al., 2001; Patton, 1990).

Online Interview There are asynchronous and synchronous approaches in the online interview techniques. The asynchronous interview, as the name implies, does not happen instantly. Email is the most widely known and used tool for this approach (Mann & Stewart, 2000) and happens over a period of time from initial contact, to asking prepared questions, to the follow-up. Synchronous online interviews depend on using online “chatting” facilities, such as MSN Messenger, online chat room, ICQ, Yahoo messenger, et cetera which allow more flowing dialogue (Hewson, 2007). Because of the time restriction of this research and the discussion of method preference with recruited respondents, online synchronous interview approach (MSN Messenger) is adopted. Fortunately, thanks to the advancement of high speed Internet, the research can proceed as high bandwidth online interviews generate greater agreement with FTF interviews than low bandwidth ones (Yoshino et al., 2001).

The main advantages of online interview are the applicability to the online research, elimination of travel costs and time, respondents can stay in their comfortable environment, the ready-to-go transcript and the “depth of information yielded” (Bowers, 1998). One disadvantage of it is the lack of emotion and body language (Heckman, 2000). However, some “emoticons” such as , , and acronyms (e.g. “rotfl” : roll on the floor laughing) can be used to express respondents’ emotions and these are tools commonly used by the respondents in this research.

The information and comparison of face-to-face interview and online interview is described thoroughly in Table 3.7.

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Table 3.7 Data Collection methods –Face-to-Face Interview and Online Interview via MSN Messenger Data Collection Methods Face-toFace Interview

Nature Advantage -Researcher can be flexible about the questions -Pick up non-verbal cues

-Transportation & facility rental cost - Transcription time & cost -Respondents might feel uncomfortable about talking of certain questions face-t-face

-Easy to establish rapport - Researcher can explain the questions and probe when opportunities arise

- Need to transcribe - Respondents might feel uncertain to fully open up and disclose the information

Online Interview (MSN Messenger)

-No cost for facility rental or transport. -No limitation for geography reach -Participants are in a comfortable, familiar environment -Enhance candour and self-disclosure -Suitable for sensitive topic research -Interpersonal perceptual biases reduced -Faster turnaround, furious and highly interactive

-Respondents need to be familiar with the software and good at typing -Compared to asynchronous interview online, instant messaging such as approach as MSN Messenger will be weaker on eliciting deeper , reflective, detailed and rich response -Lose the data transferred by non-verbal cues

-Transportation cost will be saved -Study is Internet attitude genre, participants will be in the very natural setting -It’s easier for respondents to participate without many negative sentiment, can be more open up, information given will be more accurate -Transcription time saved

-Researcher has to be experienced and a fast typist -Participants’ typing speed might affect their activity in the focus group -Multi-task group, might do something else when they are chatting with the researcher, not giving full attention

Disadvantage

Applicability to the study Strength Limitation

Source: Adapted from Mann, C., & Stewart, F. (2000). Internet communication and qualitative research. Ilieva Et.al (2002). Email questionnaire in marketing research: pros and cons. Hewson (2007). Gathering data on the Internet.

Interview Protocol The Interview protocol design aims to cover all the relevant aspects to generate insights from respondents and increase the completeness of the data while making the data collection more systematic for each respondent (Patton, 1990). The details of the interview protocol design and the justification is described next.

The interview protocol starts with part A as welcome talk and clarification of the research, helping the interviewer to establish rapport with respondents and create a relaxing environment, as well as lowering the barrier and setting the tone of the whole

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interview (Cavana et al., 2001). In addition, it outlines ethical considerations and gets the consent from respondents of participating the interview as well as the request of the interviews to be tape-recorded. It then turns to preliminary questions inviting the respondents to tell the story of their experiences related to the research (Dick, 1990b; Patton, 1990; Perry, 1998), encouraging them to disclose their experience without restriction (Dick, 1990b). Part B and C probe issues relating general games and the specific brands and how respondents consume the product and brand which relates to brand association and likings (Spears & Singh, 2004; Ye & Van Raaij, 2004) which relate to sub research question three. Part D begins to investigate members’ behaviour in participating in the online brand community, indentifying the interactivity amongst all the members (Ko et al., 2005), exploring what the community is like in their minds and how they behave in the community. The questions also tap into the hierarchy aspect from the existent literature (Cova & Pace, 2006; Kozinets, 1999; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001; Schouten & McAlexander, 1995), focusing on the sub research question one, trying to identify the different roles of the respondents play in the chosen online brand community.

Still exploring sub research question one, parts E, F, G, H intend to discover the power types from “control over the relationship”, “information”, “aggregation” and “participation” perspectives identified in the literature (Denegri-Knott, 2006). Bearing in mind that the term “power” is an abstract word, different people have different interpretations. Therefore, certain questions are designed to be more concrete to direct respondents to give specific answers (Cova & Pace, 2006; Denegri-Knott, 2006; Kozinets, 1999; Schlosser, 2003; Wipperfürth, 2005). There is no particular question to explore sub research question two regarding the cultural difference, however, from the questions exploring the community interaction, member relationship and internal hierarchy, the protocol tries to cover the perspective of “individualism vs. collectivism” and “power distance” (Hofstede, 1980).

Part I concludes the whole interview with “cool down” questions, asking about respondents’ overall feeling about the community, experience with the parent company and questions about this research project. The last section of the interview protocol is used to identify the demographic information about the respondents which gives further idea about the participants in both communities chosen for comparison 67

to increase the validity of the research study. Figure 3.5 illustrates the outline of the Interview Protocol design and the full interview protocol is shown in Appendix I (English for Haloforum) and II (Chinese for WoW).

Research Questions: How are perceived power relationships structured in an online brand community?

SRQ1: Is there any power distribution difference based on roles of members in an online brand community?

SRQ2: Do these relationships differ between the Australian and Chinese Community members?

SRQ3: Do the power relationships have any effect on the consumer’s liking of the brand?

Part D (Q 8-12) Part E, F, G, H (Q13-33)

Part D (Q 8-12) Part E, F, G, H (Q13-33)

Part B, C (Q1-7)

Figure 3.5 Interview Protocol Design Source: Developed for this research

Special attention was given to make sure the questions are mostly open-ended, since the objective is not get “yes” or “no” answers but a description of the episode, linkage or explanation (Stake, 1995). Probing techniques were used in the interviewing process, trying to elicit the unexpected answers out of researcher’s anticipation (Stake, 1995). The research started with a pilot study to test the feasibility of the designed interview protocol, which is introduced next.

Pilot Testing Pilot case study is used to provide the considerable insight into the basic issues being studied by the research project and refine the research issues to explore the research problem as well as giving reference to the data collection methods finalization (Perry, 1998; Yin, 2003). However, depending on the specific inquiry, the research project can adopt it in varying degrees (Yin, 2003). In this research, pilot testing of the

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interview protocol was employed as a necessary step before undertaking the full interview. An Australia participant from Haloforum (http://halo.net) was recruited to test the interview protocol, helping to filter the inadequacies within the research design (Yin, 2003). Some inadequacies were identified, mostly academic jargon about branding and consumer behaviour. The tester also found a couple of questions very similar to each other. Therefore, researcher adjusted the protocol by simplifying the jargon without altering the meaning, and removed the repetitive questions without sacrificing the original purpose.

Interview protocol translation As suggested by Hofstede (1980), the translator should be bilingual or speak multiple languages, and it is preferable that they are translating into his/her preferred familiar language, thus shades of meaning can be expressed clearly. In this research, the English interview protocol for Haloforum was developed first. The researcher bilingual herself, translated the English interview protocol to Chinese. She then tested the translated interview protocol with two Chinese friends, who are familiar with WoW game, to check if they would find any difficulties or ambiguities when reading and understanding the questions. The translation was accepted by the two Chinese testers without change.

Approach to the respondents An email was sent to the administrators of both forums for their permission to conduct the study on the forums. Consent from both forums was collected by email. The researcher then posted the invitation to participate in the forum, including details about the researcher and the research project (As shown in Appendix III). The criteria of qualified members were made clear: this research is to indentify the power structure relationship in the online brand community, thus requires the members have certain period of involvement in the community in order for the researcher to get insightful feedback. The invitation also included a statement of confidentiality, advising participants they can remove themselves from the interview at any time, and informing them of the clearance by the Queensland University of Technology Ethics Committee. Special care was given to the draft of invitation to members in two communities which basically are same however with varied tone given the cultural consideration. Many community members expressed their interest in the project and 69

replied to the researcher’s post for clarification or requirement for further information. However, some were more interested in making jokes than in participating in the study. All the enthusiastic respondents expressed their interest to participate by sending emails to the researcher or left email address on the forum. The researcher then sent a follow-up email to discuss the interview format with individual member. If a FTF interview was considered most appropriate, then location and time was discussed subsequently. If the interview was to use MSN Messenger, then a time was set accordingly.

The study also adopted a snowball sampling strategy (Cavana et al., 2001; Mann & Stewart, 2000). When one respondent was confirmed, the researcher sent an invitation for him/her to introduce some other like-minded friends to the research study. Informed consent was obtained from all who agreed to participate in the research. Informed consent involves giving participants thorough and correct information about the research study, making sure they understand what their participation would entail, before they take part (Mann & Stewart, 2000).

An incentive scheme was used as a tool to increase response rate (StatPac, 2008). In the invitation post published on both forums, incentives were mentioned briefly as a lure to potential respondents (Mann & Stewart, 2000). Souvenirs from Australia (for example, key rings and small mugs) were given to Chinese respondents and movie tickets were given to Australian respondents.

Due to the apparent size of two communities (HaloForum 1500 vs. WoW-Nga 60,000), different response rate was received as expected. After filtering with set criteria, nine face-to-face interviews /sixteen online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger2) were set up while in Australia, five face-to-face interviews/five online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger) were scheduled.

2

A freeware instant messaging client that was developed and distributed by Microsoft in 1999 to 2005 and in 2007 for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system (except Windows Vista), and aimed towards home users.

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Conduct of Interview For face-to-face interviews, the researcher chose quiet places after discussion with the respondents, i.e. café and quiet restaurant, trying to minimize the personal interference as much as possible (Cavana et al., 2001). To encourage a level of trust from participants and help to establish rapport (Hewson, 2007), the researcher used self-disclosure technique as a strategy. She clearly introduced herself, for example her identity, role, purpose, and intention (Sharf, 1999). For online interviews, preliminary contact (posting on the forum or by email) was made to help build the connection between the researcher and respondents (Hewson, 2007). As Bowker & Tuffin (2004) suggest that communication style may also play a role in the way an online interview progress. Therefore, the researcher remained open and jovial in both the talking and writing style, since all the respondents are teens or young adults who are tend to be light-hearted and laid-back.

The interviews in China were conducted first. After each FTF interview, there was insufficient time to do the full transcription, so the researcher listened to the audio tape and read the notes to prepare for the next interview (Rubin & Rubin, 2005). The same process occurred with online interviews. While there is no need to transcribe an online interview, the record would be read in preparation for the next one. The researcher completed 9 face-to-face interviews and 15 online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger). After all the interviews finished in China, they were transcribed, compared and summarized. This resulted in additional questions being added to the interviews in Australia. This adjustment allows the researcher to probe emergent themes (Eisenhardt, 1989) and discover more out of the initial scope of thinking.

After the interviews in Australia were accomplished, a few points were sought to be double confirmed with Chinese respondents like member checking (Stake, 1994, 1995; Yin, 2003). Based on the personal relationship formed during the interviews, the researcher was able to ask follow-up questions and send transcribed files through MSN Messenger. This process elicited clarification and additional insight from respondents, which also helped increase the research validity (Yin, 2003).

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There is a lack of literature about the length of an interview, one to 1.5 hours appears typical in FTF interview (Carson et al., 2001; Dick, 1990a). Considering the equivalent typing time will cause fatigue, 40 mins to 1 hour length was controlled for MSN Messenger synchronous interview.

One of the risks of online synchronous interview is that respondents on the other side of the computer can leave whenever they want, since they are not controlled by any rules. To avert this, the researcher tried to make the interview lively and stimulating, giving positive feedback to the respondents from time to time, implying that they are making an important contribution to the research project (Mann & Stewart, 2000). Considering these idiosyncrasies of the online interview, techniques used to generate rich, elaborate data via MSN Messenger include: 1) use pre-prepared text to cut and paste, which is a good way to keep the conversation flow (Hewson, 2007); 2) emoticon use (Hewson, 2007; Mann & Stewart, 2000) to adjust the tone of the conversation; 3) rapport establishment to enhance candidness and self-disclosure (Mann & Stewart, 2000). 4) maintain and demonstrate a respectful sensitivity toward the psychological boundaries, purposes, vulnerabilities, and privacy of the individuals (Sharf, 1999).

In spite of these techniques being used, there were still accidents in the data collection process. One member in Australian Haloforum experienced an emergency when approaching the end of the MSN Messenger interviews and he had to leave. The researcher sent the email to him containing the rest of the questions. The respondent replied after a few days, closing that interview with success.

3.4.3 Online Observation To increase the construct validity of using multiple sources of evidence, direct online observation was also utilized to add to the chain of evidence (Yin, 2003). Observational evidence is regarded as a useful source in furnishing additional information about the topic being studied (Yin, 2003). The researcher also treats the observation as an approving step to verify the results collected from the interviews. 72

Nevertheless, the research questions are still the objective to guide the online observation, as suggested by case study methodology (Yin, 2003).

The online observation took about two weeks intensively after all interviews had been completed. The researcher logged on the forums to track all the threads posted, read the previous thread up to a six month limit. Online observation is an unobtrusive approach (Cavana et al., 2001; Mann & Stewart, 2000). The researcher logged into the forum to “lurk” without disclosing her presence. All records are in the forum archive, thus there is no need to download or save the pages. In this way, it is easier for the researcher to get access to large volumes of data anytime without any disturbance or harm to anyone in the community (Hewson, 2007; Kozinets, 2002). The search engine is regarded as invaluable to online observation (Kozinets, 2002), hence in the online brand communities, the search function is proved to be useful when the researcher needs to sort out posts from specific members, accurately and fast. The researcher basically checked the two forums every two days to see if there was anything new as a routine practice.

Table 3.8 gives out the information about the online observation method in detail.

Table 3.8 Data Collection method –Online Observation Data Collection Method Online Observation

Nature Advantage -Good for providing additional information for the study - Patterns and regularities in the environment can be detected - Noting features that respondents might not be able to see

Disadvantage -Observer bias -Time consuming

Applicability to the study Strength Limitation -Offers more information for the study - Match with interview result to validate the data

- Observer bias

Source: Adapted from Mann, C., & Stewart, F. (2000).

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3.5 Data Analysis The findings are based on the convergence of information from two sources, which are interviews and online observation. During the face-to-face interview process, a tape recorder is used to ensure the accuracy of the data collected. Notes are also taken during the interviews to help the researcher formulate new questions and locate important quotations from the tape when doing the transcription (Patton, 1990). The other benefit of note taking is to show the respondents that they are communicating something really important (Patton, 1990), thus maintain interest and be more open to the researcher. After each interview, if time allows, the researcher transcribes the tape by listening to it carefully or just listen to the tape and comparing it to the notes. For the online synchronic interview, the verbatim record is available immediately the discussion finishes (Bowers, 1998). This strategy can help to treat the data in a fair manner, produce compelling analytic conclusions and rule out alternative interpretations (Yin, 2003).

The computerized support software, such as Nvivo, is not adopted for data analysis. Cavana et.al., (2001) states that the computer program can only support the decision making processes in the data analysis, the mind of the researcher is the analytic tool in qualitative research. The computer-aid software can help researchers deal with huge amount of data and it help develop networks which provide power tool for qualitative theory building (Kelle, Prein & Bird, 1995), however, given the data collected in this study was comparatively small and not complex, tracking with computer program is not necessary. In addition, the time to transcribe Chinese interviews word-by-word was time-consuming; therefore, the researcher chose to process the data analysis in Excel format manually, without utilizing Nvivo program.

The details of data analysis are introduced next.

3.5.1 Coding After all the interviews were completed, the researcher started content analysis to discover themes (Cavana et al., 2001). Theoretical propositions are the guidelines which the researcher followed to analyze the data gathered from the interviews and

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observations (Yin, 2003). An open coding technique was adopted. The researcher tabulated the transcription into Excel form based on the interview questions and analysed the data word by word and line by line in order to identify concepts and categories (Grbich, 2007). Later the data was sorted and matched to a number of constructs from the literature review and new conceptual concepts are drawn. A common rule of thumb is that a minimum of three occurrences of something can be considered a pattern (Berg, 2004). The data were compared constantly (Cavana et al., 2001; Grbich, 2007) according to these constructs and concepts until a point of saturation is achieved and no new theme is emerging from the data. In this way the researcher can focus on the relevant information for this research, amongst the large amount of information collected (Yin, 2003). After the open coding, the data was analysed again for axial coding (Cavana et al., 2001). New themes and ideas were captured during this process (Cavana et al., 2001). By looking at the themes and subthemes again, the relationship between themes and sub-themes were identified.

To improve the validity of the research, one of the triangulation techniques used in the coding process is multiple coders. The objective is to ensure the plausibility of the main researcher’s interpretations, together with the adequacy of the data for addressing the research objectives (Wallendorf & Belk, 1989). Two coders were involved in the coding process. To assure the intercoder reliability, two coders independently coded all interviews under the same condition (Lombard, Snyde-Duch, & Bracken, 2002), then presented to each other with a summary of coding instruction and a description of themes. The main thematic analysis which contained all the themes identified and examples of quotes which corresponded to each theme. After this comparison, the coders discussed and resolved the disagreement and the discovery of new themes which had not been identified by one another. New themes were included where appropriate (Lee & Conroy, 2005). As acknowledged widely that intercoder reliability is needed in content analysis because it measures “the extent to which the different judges tend to assign exactly the same rating to each object” (Tinsley & Weiss, 2000, p. 98). It is paramount because besides it is treated as the standard measure of research quality (Neuendorf, 2002) and also helps prevent bad managerial decisions result from using the data (Rust & Cooil, 1994).

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3.5.2 Within Case Analysis and Cross Case Analysis Within case analysis is via detailed case study write-ups to generate insight for each case as a stand-alone entity. It is a good experience for the researcher to deal with the huge amount of data in this early stage (Eisenhardt, 1989). This process helps to establish the platform for later cross case analysis by: 1) allowing the unique patterns/themes of each case to emerge; 2) allowing the researcher to be intimately familiar with each case, facilitating cross case comparison (Eisenhardt, 1989).

While case study analysis provides detailed case description, cross case analysis aims to search for patterns. This step via a different, divergent way of analysing data also helps to eliminate possible researcher bias, which might occur while conducting within case analysis and jumping to conclusions based on a premature understanding of the single case (Eisenhardt, 1989). Because this project is a cross-culture case study, cross case analysis provides a platform not only verify the analysis from inwithin case studies, but also examine the similarity and differences between two cases in two different countries.

The analysis of online observation data is based on the research questions. With the aim of trying to verify the result from the analysis of the interview data, all of the content was coded based on the constructs from the literature review, themes were categorised compared with the data from interviews.

After identifying all the themes and new constructs, the analysis report was written based on the propositions developed in Chapter two. The findings are presented in the next Chapter.

3.5.3 Triangulation Triangulation of the data collection enriches the data set and increases the emic (how respondents views the phenomenon of interest) potential of the inquiry (Yin, 2003). This research used two methods to ensure the triangulation: 1) Multiple sources of evidence. This research employs interviews and online observation to collect data. In this way the study could investigate in a broader range of source based on research questions. Hence the result is likely to be much more convincing and accurate (Yin, 2003). 76

2) Multiple researchers involved in the coding process. As described in detail earlier, this process enabled the plausibility of the study and defend the adequacy of the data to achieve the research objectives (Wallendorf & Belk, 1989; Yin, 2003).

3.6 Limitation of the Research This research is a comparative multiple-case study which involves one case in Australia and one case in China. Although it is a two case study, the result produces less external generalisibility than if more cases had been selected otherwise (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). Nevertheless, this research explores a new area and seeks to add new in-depth meaning to the subject matter; Carson et al. (2001) argues generalisability is not an issue in qualitative exploratory case study.

Two online data collection methods are used for this research project. Online synchronous interview via MSN Messenger and online observation are comparatively new methods and have inherent problems: for example, it is difficult to verify the identity of the participants, that they are who they say they are (Mann & Stewart, 2000). Participants might also misunderstand what the researcher is trying to ask and they tend to be less responsible than meeting in person (Mann & Stewart, 2000). Realtime interaction can also lead to the risk that the data might be superficial without face-to-face interaction (Mann & Stewart, 2000).

Irrespective of the methodology, every researcher brings preconceptions and interpretations to the problem being studied (Patton, 1990). This is especially true when doing the observation after the interviews. The researcher is prone to have already formed certain ideas that might make it easy to ignore the real circumstance in the online communities.

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3.7 Ethical Consideration The researcher abides by the ethical standards and principles of conduct set forth by the professional organizations (Kimmel, 1988). Ethical clearance has been obtained from Ethics Committee of Queensland University of Technology.

The study is defined as Level 1 – a low risk study and oral informed consent is requested as enough for ethical purposes. Before starting any research move, the researcher obtained consent from two community administrators to conduct interviews with members and perform an online observation on the websites. For the face-to-face interviews, the researcher showed a copy of the “Participant Information for QUT Research Project” and explained the key items like what the research project is, how information collected from them would be used and how the confidentiality and anonymity would be guaranteed (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). All the respondents have given oral consent of participation. For online synchronic interview, there is not a sufficient, consistent and officially recognized set of ethical guidelines or even and little agreement about how to conduct research in a virtual world (Hewson, 2007; Mann & Stewart, 2000). Some ethical rules can be developed by referencing conventional qualitative research. Mann & Stewart (2000) propose informed consent, confidentiality and netiquette as very important for online research. Informed consent is obtained immediately after the respondent and researcher log into the online instant messenger software—MSN Messenger, right before the real interviews start.

Ensuring participant confidentiality is problematic in the online context. The researchers note that every measure will be taken to act ethically in the research undertakings (Mann & Stewart, 2000). Researchers get permission to quote any respondents, ensuring their identities will not be revealed if they wish to remain anonymous, using pseudonyms or and special code in the citation. Understanding there is difference between eastern and western counties in terms of privacy issues (Ess, 2007), the researcher always double-checks with respondents to get their consent to use the information processed in the study, thereby avoiding any possible future ethical issues.

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3.8 Conclusion Chapter Three has justified the research methodology applied in this study. The case study methodology was adopted as the best answer to the proposed research questions. It provides an opportunity for the researcher to understand the issue in depth in the contemporary context (Yin, 2003). Interviews and online observations were employed as the data collection methods strengthening the validity and reliability. Multiple coders provided triangulation of the study with more validity achieved.

The following chapter details the findings from the interviews and online observations.

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Chapter Four: Findings

“Participants react to a world stripped of nonverbal context by recreating the context that has been lost. They do this by using written words to describe how they would act and how the environment would appear in a shared mental model of a wholly constructed world. ” (Rheingold, 1993, p. 181)

4.1 Introduction The previous chapter justified the case study methodology adopted in this research. It described the data collected via face-to-face interviews, online synchronic interviews and online observation, as well as data analysis strategies including within case analysis and cross case analysis. This chapter presents the findings from the analysis, exploring how perceived power relationships are structured in an online brand community, in relation to three research questions and nine propositions. Propositions 1-6 explore Research Question 1, while Proposition 7 addresses Research Question 2. Research Question 3 is answered by examining data related to Propositions 8 and 9.

The main research question and three sub research questions for this study are:

RQ: How are perceived power relationships structured in an online brand community?

SRQ1: Is there any power distribution difference based on the roles of members in an online brand community?

SRQ2: Do the power relationships have any effect on the consumer’s liking of the brand?

SRQ3: Do these relationships differ between the Australian and Chinese Community members?

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We begin this data analysis by identifying the sample studied.

4.2 Sample Characteristics 4.2.1 Halo Online Community in Australia: Halo Forum –(http://haloforum.net/) Halo Forum was established by Halo fan Matt who is also the administrator of the community. Haloforum.net is regarded as the premium and the most competitive site in Australia and New Zealand region which attract good players. There are 1500 registered members in HaloForum community.

Table 4.1 lists the respondents demographic from HaloForum. From the history figures, we can see that all members are between 15-20 age range. They played the game for a long time before joining the community. One reason was this community did not exist that long, and also as described by some respondents they either had belonged to other Halo online communities before joining this one, or joined after they became a bit serious about playing the game.

Table 4.1 Respondents Demographic Profile- Australian Halo Forum Interview No.

Interview type

Age

Gender

Halo playing

Community

history

history

A1

FtF

18

Male

5 years

10 months

A2

MSN

19

Male

2 years

18 months

A3

MSN

17

Male

4 years

6 months

A4

MSN

16

Male

7 years

3 months

A5

MSN

19

Male

7 years

36 months

A6

MSN

19

Male

7 years

9 months

A7

FtF

15

Male

6 years

3 months

A8

FtF

18

Male

7 years

2 months

A9

FtF

15

Male

5 years

5 months

A10

FtF

19

Male

7 years

36 months

Source: Developed for this research

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The design of the website is not complicated but very clearly organized. The website sectioned by 1) different Halo series, Halo1, Halo2 and Halo3. 2) tournament information, 3) off-topic where members can introduce themselves and post anything that they want. The community is basically a forum format, with the administrators are in charge of the infrastructure for the functionalities of the forum, all the contents are provided by the members. Members can read the post without joining the community; however, if anyone wants to reply or start a thread, he has to register and becomes a member. For registration, one needs to provide the information of username and password as well as email address. The real name and birthday are not compulsory; however, a lot of members would provide their birthday information as the community will send the birthday wishes to the member whenever his birthday is around. New members are encouraged to introduce themselves upon joining in “Introduce Yourself” section, where a lot of members would welcome them. The community has a few big sections as “Announcement”, “Halo3”, “Halo2”, “Halo1”, “Halo PC” and “Other”. The newest series Halo3 discussion in “Halo3” section, tournament information in “Announcement” section and “Off-Topic” in “Other” section are most popular gathering with apparent most threads and posts than other sections. The forum also provides the online live information about who is online hence members can facilitate chatting if they get any urgent questions. Another live update information is “Top 5 Stats”, including “Top posters”, “Top thread starters”, “Most viewed threads”, “Newest members” and “Latest posts” which provide useful information for members.

4.2.2 WoW Online Community in China: NGA.cn ) – (http://bbs.ngacn.cc/) NGA is the first and biggest fan site of WoW in China and is regarded as the professional WOW fan community. It is the first thematic website authorized by Blizzard Fansite Program, enabling it to receive the test account of all new games and internal released news of the company in China. Created in 2002, NGA today has almost 60,000 registered members. The forum has been famous for professional image, with good information and comparatively strict rules. Table 4.2 lists the respondents demographic from NGA community. Majority of the members fall to age range 20-30, comparatively older than their Australian counterparts. Another interesting difference is almost everyone here joined the community at the same time they started playing the game. This because WoW is always played online and other 82

players may reference the community in this environment. NGA also provides a good source of information for the members to play the game better. Apparent fact is the forum is male dominated, among all the interview participants, there are only two female samples. The researcher has compared these two female samples with the rest male respondents; there is no conflict existent that against the main samples. Because this study is an exploratory in nature, thus female samples, although very small, are added to the whole sample pool to indentify any possible insights.

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Table 4.2 Respondents Demographic Profile- Chinese WoW NGA Forum WoW Playing

NGA community

History

History

Male

3 years

3 years

20

Male

3 years

3 years

C3

25

Male

3 years

3 years

C4

24

Male

4 years

4 years

C5

29

Male

3 years

3 years

C6

27

Male

3 years

3 years

C7

23

Male

3 years

3 years

C8

27

Male

3 years

3 years

C9

30

Male

3 years

3 years

Age

Gender

WoW Playing

NGA Community

History

History

C10

24

Male

3 years

3 years

C11

20

Male

3 years

3 years

C12

20-30

Male

4 years

4 years

C13

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

C14

18

Male

3 years

3 years

C15

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

C16

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

C17

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

C18

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

C19

20-30

Male

2.5 years

2.5 years

C20

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

C21

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

C22

20-30

Female

3 years

3 years

C23

20-30

Female

1.5 years

1.5 years

C24

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

C25

20-30

Male

3 years

3 years

Face-to-Face

Age

Gender

C1

24

C2

MSN Messenger

Source: Developed for this research

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The design of the NGA community website is closely connected to the content of the game –WoW. It has two main sections: “Game Learning Discussion” and “Hall of Azeroth”. In “Game Learning Discussion”, there are sub-section “Game Learning profession discussion” and “Azeroth Adventure”, more small sections under these two, mainly discussion based on professions in the game and different task, different location et cetera. “Hall of Azeroth” is the main information and idea-sharing place in the community, and includes “Hall of Azeroth” and “Tower of Medivh”. In “Hall of Azeroth”, members discuss almost any topic, share videos and complain about any misbehaviour they find in the community. In “Tower of Medivh”, members who are interested in the history and storyline of WoW game, will share and discuss their created novels, posters, paintings and so on. The whole website is neatly organized with very comprehensive structure.

4.3 Analysis of Case Material Data analysis is structured around the research propositions. Within case analysis and cross case analysis provided the platform for thorough examination of each case as well as the comparison of the two cases. This reporting sequence will review Haloforum as Australian case, then NGA.cn as Chinese case, followed by a comparison and summary.

P1: Power relationships exist in an online brand community. Power relationships were detected in both Australian and Chinese online brand communities. Evidence of these power relationships is described in the subsequent analysis and Proposition 1 is supported.

P2: 4 consumer power types (Control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation) exist in an online brand community.

Consumer power types in Australia All four power types, proposed in the literature are evident in the Australian Halo online community. However, the size of the online community in Australia may be a moderating factor in consumer power. The forum participants realise that the size of

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the Australia market is much smaller than the US or the UK, rendering their power less than that of larger markets, even if they aggregate together.

Information is an important type of power, especially information about competitions and the exchange of advice and playing tips. The participation of members in generating and sharing new consumer generated content, and even adapting and adding to that content, is another empowerment of the online community.

The four consumer power types in Australia Halo online community are discussed in turn in the following section.

Power type 1: Control over relationship a) Brand – Australia Halo players feel that the company focuses more on the larger markets of the US and the UK customers. However, some members did try to post on Bungie (the developer of Halo series) community (www.bungie.com) and had their requests answered or problem solved, which made them feel they had some power in their relationship with the company. (A6, “being an apparently ‘small, out of the way back country’ the views expressed by the users would little doubt Microsoft in general as of course America is the be all and end all. However, Bungie, the developers of the games have always had an active role in their community, but I am still unsure whether or not they would bother acknowledging an Australian gaming forum.”) (A6, “I had no money at the time and was going through a tough time in my life, I wrote to them, noting that I had logged over 10000 games of Halo2 online and they saw fit to give me the code, then I can continue to play…I have nothing to say but praise them.”)

b) Community – Within the community, having power relies on game playing skills and post contributions. Control and power are mostly in the hands of best players and administrators. They are either help to regulate the community, deleting poor quality posts, or help to promote the community. (A3, “yeah there are heaps of people with more power than me, some who are more known in the community, and the moderators and the administrator.”)

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(A10, “two of our team members own that site. They have a lot of power over everything… They have power—they can block people’s IP, ban the whole computer from doing...but most of the time, it’s pretty casual.”)

c) Over other members – Some members think that they have certain “control” over other members. (A5, “I would say I have a fair bit of control because I’m well known and really experienced in the game a lot of players come to me for advice because I’m well known, the more people who know you the more control you have because people listen to you…”) (A6, “to an extent I have some sort of control over the friends I have made through the community, however as a whole I can claim no such authority; I’m not sure anyone else can either. ok I suppose, its not so much as control its rather that through friendship they are willing to back my viewpoint/insight as I have proven myself to them, I do not directly manipulate them, however through friendship they stick by me”) (A10, “I have certain control in the community, since we are the best team, people might value our comments more than others.”)

Power type 2: Information Information is valued as the most important thing that people can get out of the community, especially the information about competitions. This forum is regarded as the main channel for Australian and New Zealand Halo players to find information on local competitions or online competitions. All respondents believe they get good information from the community. Useful information also comes from the discussion amongst members. They exchange their experience and tips about playing the game and discuss everything they are interested in about the game and other off-topics. Offtopic section is another important factor that almost every member enjoys about the community. It is a fun experience and they derive a lot of entertainment from it. (A5, “yeah really useful information for what I’m looking for...the information comes from either the administrators or other websites; other useful information comes from the members who just post their thoughts and information. It’s really up to date and really useful for why I go to the site.”)

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(A5, ‘I visit once a day, just to keep updated on tournaments and sometimes its got some pretty funny comments posted…”) (A3, “I get heaps of good information, anyone from the forums posts new information because it benefits basically all of us.”) (A7, “Sometimes from the chatting and some people bored they might show some tricks then maybe you can learn something from it.”)

Power type 3: Aggregation Members are quite realistic. They know that the Australian market is small and they will not get their message across if they only complain or do something locally. If members want to be taken seriously, they would go to Bungie community and post there. They still aggregate in online or offline competitions. By gathering more people to play the game, they indirectly increase their power and influence compared to their US and UK peers. (A9, “…you have to post on the forum and get others to back you up, take it to Bungie forum and say that.”) (A5, “with Bungie the creators of the Halo series I’ve used their Forums and created threads on how they can improve the game what I don’t like and what minor things they can do to make it as good I thought it could be.”) (A10, “The Gamethon in Australia in Melbourne this year, 100,000 people will be there every day…I want Australian community to keep up with American community cause that will be really good to see. ”)

Power type 4: Participation Members participate by creating content, mostly video montage (most often refers to collage including photomontage and sound collage). Halo montage is a big thing for Halo fans. If you google “Halo montage”, 287,000 results are displayed. Halo players are quite enthusiastic about sharing their best playing moment, or generating a fun or creative twist about the storyline. Some participate to show how well they play. Some just do it for fun, while others want to be famous. There is also a specific section in Australian online community where members discuss and post their videos. No clear evidence was shown that members try to use this tool to influence company or production company for any possible changes of the game or the brand equity (Aaker, 2008). However, the montage is treated as another good source of information. 88

Sharing and keeping threads going as contribution to the community is regarded as another form of participation. (A9, “I might make one in the near future. I like to watch (them) too, something just amazed you with the “wow” effect; they do that, a lot of editing, took a long time, you would just appreciate it.”) (A8, “I made some video of playing the game, showing off how good I played. Also watch other people’s videos and learn from them.”)

Consumer power types in China In China, most participants feel they have little power in controlling the relationship with the company behind the game or over the strict rules of the community. They feel that China has the biggest number of WoW players in the world (7 out of 9 million) yet gets the least attention. The controlling power in the community, they believe, lies with the administrators and monitors. They see no power in aggregating together to complain to the agent, as they typically get either no response or all kinds of excuses. There is some power for participants to share artwork, stories or English translations of posters. However, even these consumer-created content are still subject to the censorship of the administrators and monitors.

It seems that in China the real power for participants is in the information the forum provides. The consumer power is in the searching, gathering and sharing of information. This can help improve their game skills and their status in the community. The four consumer power types in China are detailed next.

Power type 1: Control over relationship Nobody feels any control over the brand or the community. Some feel they can influence other’s opinion, but they do not control it. Overall the control is in the hands of administrator and monitors. a) Brand – Chinese consumers have less control over the company (Blizzard) compared to their peers in US/UK. One reason is the language barrier. Because of this, they can only feedback Blizzard’s business partner agent – The 9. The agent focuses on making the profit rather than benefiting players. However, the creator/administrator of this community was hired 89

by The 9 as the chief localization officer. He would have got some firsthand information out of the company to benefit other members in the community. b) Community – The rules of the community are very strict. If members scold/argue with each other without any reason, the administrator or section monitors would delete the posts or block the user ID for a couple of days as punishment. Or if there are a lot of members all against one member who did something “inappropriate”, before administrator or section monitors even detect the wrong doing, members will proceed with “justice” based on collective consent. c) Over other members – Administrators, monitors who publish a lot good posts have the influence over other members. As what a member said “they have credibility” and “they have power”.

But in reality, if Blizzard’s marketers want to better understand Chinese consumers, NGA is the best option to conduct any brand related program, because of its size, quality and status built over the years. (C3, “China has 7 million users, but Blizzard pays little attention to us. Maybe because the government policy, they have to use agent in China, so it’s hard to get direct feedback from users. Complain is useless.”) (C24, “I have no control at all, maybe monitors have more say, they can delete the posts, that’s the power affect the community.”) (C21, “I wrote one post asking about pet which was deleted immediately. Hehe. I agree that they manage like that, which helps to maintain the high standard of the community.”) (C14, “I am monitor, so I think I have some control over other members. My opinion will influence others.”)

Power Type 2: Information All respondents think the community is meant for information searching, gathering and sharing. This is the most important part and most people are empowered by gaining knowledge, updated information/ news from the US/ the UK, specific skill tips searching and sharing information and so on. The quality of this information 90

depends on the content (usefulness), and the member’s “reputation” (the site has a “reputation” calculation figure). This kind of useful information helps members to advance their game skills and understanding of the game. Some members call it “selfimprovement”. (C17, “what I can get from the community is a lot of valuable knowledge and thoughts.”) (C19, “most of the time, I can get all the information I want from the community, from the highlighted posts or posts by high-prestige member or monitors.”) (C21, “I think my power has increased since I learned a lot from others’ experience, skills and information sharing.”) (C2, “in this community, I am perfecting myself all the time.”)

Power Type 3: Aggregation Members only “attacked” the agent sometimes to release their dissatisfaction, however at the same time, knowing it is useless. This is due to many reasons related to the poor feedback from The 9—like politics, language, and so on. There was one incident, when a member posted a suggestion to “strike” for 24 hours to all the WoW players in China to show their resentment to The 9 (Wang You, 2007) for the delayed launch of the new game series---TBC (The Burning Crusade).

NGA has a section named “Fountain of wonders” in “Tower of Medivh” to collect good ideas or feedback about the game. However, as a result of the language barrier, many good ideas but remain untranslated and Blizzard never hears about them.

Members from the community rarely do offline activities. Some people meet when they form groups or relationships in the game. However, there have been no organized competitions. After the interviews in China have been completed for this research, the agent – The 9 announced it was organizing a national WoW competition. The researcher asked a couple of respondents for their intension of participating; they expressed lack of interest due to various reasons. (C21, “I sent an email to Blizzard about my thoughts toward WoW game, but no response.”)

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(C3, “somebody wrote an email to Blizzard about the TBC’s late launch in China, but Blizzard replied saying they felt sorry, however what they could do was to discuss with the agent in China.”) (C9, “a lot of people would post to scold The 9, no expectation of tangible result, just to feel better. Sometimes we understand that it’s because of the policy of China, but we are still not happy.”) (C1, “I met someone from the game, just had dinner together.”) (C3, “Some people meeting offline, I don’t like that, not necessary.”)

Power type 4: Participation The creation of the content includes stories, pictures, cartoon, video, et cetera. However, there is no promotion involved; members just share with other members or friends within this community or some other public sites.

“Video Discussion” in “Hall of Azeroth” and a few sections in “Tower of Medivh” are the place that members can publish ‘self-produced’ artwork in the community, including articles, translations from original English version, posters, videos, et cetera. Members have no intention to use this to influence the company or brand/product. Some members leverage the game content to earn profit out of it. Most members see their participation as the contribution of the threads. (C18, “I use some good dialogue to make some mobile ringtone and sent to friends, just for fun.”) (C19, “I like the storyline of WoW, so I wrote something like novel, using some characters in WoW which gained me some good feedback from other members.”) (C8, “I got more and more emotionally involved in the community, besides playing the game, I also study how to make money in the game and share in the community, thus made some friends”) (C17, “I place 1-2 posts per day, following some threads and share my opinion.”)

Comparison of Australia and China consumer power types There are some similarities and differences in the consumer power types in the two countries. Firstly, all four power types have been detected. There is also a sense of 92

lack of control over the relationship in terms of the brand relationship. In Australia, it is because the market is considered to be too small and distant to the game producers. In China, it is because of the role of the agent, who fails to deliver good service and represent the players. It is supposed to be easier for Australians to communicate with game developers, because of language difficulties in China. Therefore, this lack of control is perceived to be greater in China than in Australia. In both countries, it is felt that the power rests with the administrator and monitors. In Australia, it is also felt that the best players and top teams have more power than others. Some of them use their power to manipulate other’s opinion or status in the community.

Australian community members tend to organize online and offline activities more than Chinese counterparts. Participants in both countries feel they have the power to participate by generating their own content and posting it on the site. In China, however, these postings are often censored or removed if against the community rule while in Australia the regulation is not that strict. Neither country uses this approach to try to influence the game manufacturer.

In both countries, it seems that the real consumer power comes in the seeking and sharing of information. This exchange of information, ideas and playing tips is perhaps a bit freer in Australia, where anyone can be an expert, compared to China, where members are often reluctant to post information, as other players may have more knowledge. However, of the four types of consumer power, information is undoubtedly the greatest in both online brand communities.

While the four types of consumer power are evident in the Australian online brand community, the size of the community may be a moderating factor in this consumer power. It may affect consumer power in both positive and negative ways. The small community may be less intimidating to new members, encouraging a faster and more fluid movement across the power types. While members initially visit the forum for information, they appear to soon find themselves participating by replying to posts or contributing consumer generated content. The size of the community also encourages aggregation, as the community has to stand together as one on important issues in order to make their views heard by the brand's American parents. However, as the

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members have expressed, the small size of the Australia market compared with the US or the UK, effectively gives them less power.

Proposition 2 is supported, all four consumer power types exist in an online brand community.

P3: There are different roles in an online brand community, such as tourist, insider, mingler and devotee.

Member roles in Australian online brand communities In terms of member roles, this research will base discussion on what Kozinets (1999) described as tourist, insider, mingler and devotee. The identification of each role is derived from two constructs --- the involvement of game playing and the social relationship in the community (Kozinets, 1999).

Tourist, as the name reflects, is just visiting and has weak social ties to the group, superficial or passing interest in the game playing activity (Kozinets, 1999). The ‘tourist’ in this community can be treated as so-called “Newbie” (Wikipedia, 2008a), normally they are linked with negative images as coming to the site asking simple questions which can be easily found in other threads or annoying people by talking big or through bad demeanour. Tourists do not intend to stay in the community for long, either just lurking or randomly checking out or get kicked out by other members if they are badly behaved. This role was not detected amongst the respondents being interviewed for this study, but obtained from their responses: (A10, “some players just come and say something wrong cause they know nobody knows them, then everybody attacks them, they don’t care, then they keep making noise until they leave…”) (A1, “some people disappeared because they lost trust and been picked on.”) (A5, “the immature people who post random comments and spam some pretty funny stuff…”)

Mingler has strong social ties, but only perfunctorily interested in the game playing activity (Kozinets, 1999). This type of member is the minority in the Haloforum 94

community. They can also be treated as “entertainer”, and they provide a lot of funny stuff which becomes another cohesive power of the community. (A2, “I have posted 3000 posts so far, most are replies to off-topic and video threads; I like this community, and I would like to share my opinion, I generally reply to every thread that is made.” ) (A8, “I love some ‘off-topic’ conversation, like what you do, jobs, et cetera, interesting to have a look.”)

Devotees are members with strong interest in and enthusiasm for the game playing activity, yet lack social attachments to the community (Kozinets, 1999). In this community, this role is reflected by “newbie” as well. However, this type of “newbie” is well-behaved, and their attitude is more positive than the tourist type. They want to get more involved in the community on the social level. (A8, “I don’t have roles, I am a newbie...will continue stay there and get involved.”) (A9, “I only play Halo, I like how much skill it takes and always try to be good…but I am still new to the forum and I don’t think currently I have a role in the community…will change someday”)

Insider refers to someone who has strong social ties and strong personal ties to the game playing activity (Kozinets, 1999). This member role constitutes the largest part of the community. They are quite devoted to the game and enjoy talking about everything on the game and competition. (A6, “Halo has been a big part of my life for the past 6 years, HaloForum is the best place for information, I check the forum once or twice a day, and am very actively involved in helping people out and organizing tournament, et cetera. ”)

Leader A new role is indentified from this research. Based on the scale of the involvement of consumption activity and social relationship in the community, leader is high on both scales. The difference between insider and leader is that the insider is both active in consumption activity as well as socializing with other members. Leader in the first place is an insider, other than that, leader would have a clear goal to promote the 95

community and play more aggressive role in achieving the goal. Leader is excellent on game skills, and he/she is a role model to other members with the strong long-term collective gain in mind. Their influence in the community is sometimes acknowledged by some brand agent or big-scale game event organisers, who invite them to speak for all gamers. (A5, “help direct teams to compete better, and more so just to play Halo and run tournaments, yeah they have but that just comes with time and experience its due to knowledge of the game and your reputation in the community that changed your role. roles are more self assigned some people are just natural leaders and take on a role of running things others just sit back with no role and post random comments lol. There are not many different roles just the leaders and followers.”) (A10, “I’ve been here since 2004, I enjoyed the game so much and I visit forum every day, give my opinion now and then…I think I tried to play some like ‘leadership’ role, I want to improve Australian community as much as possible, the community improved, we improved, you know I want Australian community to keep up with American community cause that will be really good to see.”) (A10, “we are invited to be showcased as the ‘best team in Australia’, the advertising details will release next week…”)

Administrator/Monitor In Halo community, administrator and monitors are the good players and often friends to many in the community. Some of them are in the leader role as well. They do delete irrelevant posts, however, the limit is not quite “strict” and “very reasonable” (A1). Most of the time, “other members will feedback first saying that is not right, even before administrator do anything” (A1). Thus the so-called “authority” is based on mutual understanding, friendship and moderate “management”.

Member roles in Chinese online brand communities Tourists comprise a large percentage in NGA community. They play the game, but clearly claim that game-play is not all they do with their spare time. They call themselves “deep divers” which vividly convey the fact that they do not contribute a lot in the community. As kozinets (1999) describes, this type of member focuses on 96

short-term personal gain, taking what the community can offer without returning anything of benefit to other individual or to the whole group. (C22, “I played the game to kill time and use this community to get information, I don’t rely on it, when I feel bored I will check it see other bored people talking.”) (C20, “I am just a spectator, I don’t have time and energy to do the research and write and post.”) (C12. “I just read the posts. No time contributing and don’t spend too much effort either.”)

Mingler role is not obvious in NGA. Every member is enthusiastic about the game and their main objective in coming to this community is to check game-related information, not to socialize with other people. (C3, “I think we are just like meteors in the sky, nobody needs to be responsible for nobody.”) (C18, I have nothing to do with other member, people come here just to get what they want.”)

Devotees constitute the second major part in NGA community. People are clear about their objective to get information; they love playing the game and want to get better skills, which motivates them to be active in the community. They do not care too much about the “relationship” with other members. (C23, “, I love WoW and I reply a lot here, about 5 posts every day. But I feel the community is only a medium, I am very normal, just like a pedestrian on the street.”) (C16, “WoW is the only game I still play now, and I check NGA everyday for any updates...the community is big, I don’t expect to develop any relationship with others, just to be polite to everyone, that’s all. ”)

Insiders have strong social ties as well as strong personal ties to the game (Kozinets, 1999). Respondent C14 is defined as an insider. The reason lies not only from his own reply, but also from the fact that almost every respondent regards him very helpful and a valuable information provider. Insiders devote a lot of time in the game and

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also post their in-depth thinking and learning from the game-play in the community, part of which gains them credibility and reputation. (C14, “Everybody is fun, and I post a lot and help a lot of people, which gained me some fame as well.”) (C25, “I enjoy playing WoW and I can say I play pretty good. In the community, being a monitor myself, I will pay attention to what I say and keep fair play to everyone.”)

Administrator/Monitor In NGA, the website creator himself is regarded as a very strong figure and administrator. He and the monitors are like the law enforcers. They do post and share information. However, members stand in “awe” of them since they have the power to regulate the community and delete normal members’ posts or ban their ID permanently. Their contribution is more on the quality of the information, not always on the relationship among the members. They are not necessarily “insiders” themselves. Some monitors do not care about their relationship with other members because they trust their power is everything they need. Members think of the forum as the place which the creator set up and controlled by monitors, so “they have right to do anything they want”, “they have a universal nickname---“ Sickle” (C12, C13, C16) from which the tension can be easily felt.

Comparison of Australia and China member role types There are similarities and differences in both Australia and China regarding the consumer role types in the online brand community. Based on the typology developed by Kozinets (1999), tourist, mingler, devotee and insider exist in the Australian online brand community. In addition, there is a new role identified as leader. The leaders are “role models” in the community, top players and some monitors are examples of this role. Based on their longer game playing experience and personal involvement in the community, they have genuine love to the community and try to lead and grow a higher collective level both on skill and communal relationship.

In the Chinese online brand community, the role of tourist, devotee and insider were identified. There is no clear evidence that mingler role exists in this community. 98

Administrator and monitors are strict on rules and regulations, which is very different from the more relaxed Australian community. They are more focus on the “managing” side of the relationship. Members understand what kind of roles they play in the community and they are happy about it. Some think the roles’ formation is because of their “personality”, as one respondent describes “I am quite low-key in my daily life, so the same when I am online too” (C13, tourist).

In the Australian online brand community, insiders or insiders-to-be make up the majority of the community, while in the Chinese one, tourists and devotees are in a more dominant role.

Proposition 3 is partially supported. Not every role is evident in both online brand communities, a new role as leader is found in Australian online communities.

P4: Power distribution is based on different roles of the members in an online brand community. This proposition brings together the previous two to explore whether the type of consumer power is related to member roles in the community. To do this, the four consumer power types—control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation are mapped against identified member roles.

Online consumer power types defined by Denegri-Knott (2006) are control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation. From the previous analysis, the findings proved that these four power types are present in both Australian and Chinese online brand communities. Tourist, mingler, devotee, insider, leader are evident member roles in the Australian online brand community. Tourist, devotee, insider, administrator/monitor are observable member roles in the Chinese online brand community. In this section, the study uses high, middle, low or descriptive approach to illustrate different power types of different roles. The details are listed in Table 4.3 and Table 4.4 below.

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Table 4.3 Power Distribution in Australian Online Brand Communities Control over the

Information

Aggregation

Participation

Low-value

No involvement

No involvement

relationship Tourist

No control

information Mingler

Low control in affecting

Entertaining

Mid—high

Mid—high

the brand, community or

information

involvement

involvement

Low control in affecting

High-value

Mid

Mid

the brand, middle level

information

involvement

involvement

Low control in affecting

High-value

Mid—high

Mid—high

the brand, high level

information

involvement

involvement

Middle control in

High-value

High

Mid—high

affecting the brand, high

information

involvement

involvement

other members Devotee

control of affecting community and other members Insider

control of affecting community and other members Leader

level control of affecting community and other members

Source: Developed for this research

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Table 4.4 Power Distribution in Chinese Online Brand Communities

Tourist

Control over the relationship

Information

Aggregation

Participation

No control

None/low-

No

No

value

involvement

involvement

information Devotee

Low control in affecting the

High-value

Mid

Mid

brand, middle level control of

information

involvement

involvement

Low control in affecting the

High-value

Mid—high

Mid—high

brand, high level control of

information

involvement

involvement

affecting community and other members Insider

affecting community and other members Adminis

Low control in affecting the

High-value

Mid—high

Mid—high

trator/

brand, high level control of

information

involvement

involvement

Monitor

affecting community and other members

Source: Developed for this research

Comparison of power distribution in Australian and Chinese online brand communities Table 4.3 and Table 4.4 clearly list different member roles in Australian and Chinese online brand communities with the relevant level of control based on previously identified online consumer power types--- control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation.

Tourists in both the Australian and Chinese community have no perceived power, and their involvement in consumption and social aspects are on a superficial level. Mingler role is not evident in the Chinese community. In Australia, the Mingler is not so much involved on pure consumption level, but is highly involved on the social level. Utilizing their consumption knowledge, they provide a lot of “entertaining” value in the community. They will contribute to group activity when the opportunity arises, but they are not the organizers. Devotees in communities have low control over brand, but with mid level control over community and other members, based on their 101

high involvement on consumption and sharing of valuable information. For group activity and the creation of new content, they are involved whenever they feel like. The insider in both communities like the devotee does not have enough control of the brand, but they do have high level control of the community and other members because they are both highly involved in the consumption activity and have strong social ties. For group activity and new content creation, they demonstrate mid to high level involvement. Only the leader role members in the Australian community have certain control of the brand, based on their reputation and influence exerted in the community. They can speak on behalf of the gamers and influence the brand to a certain degree. Some administrators and monitors overlap with the leader role in the Australian community. Leader role is not evident in Chinese community. However, administrator and monitors are more influential in determining the main atmosphere in the community with the strict controlling power.

Proposition 4 is supported.

P5: Power will change when members’ roles change. In the study conducted by Schouten and McAlexander (1995) exploring HarleyDavidson owners and socialization processes, they found that new members entered the subculture, after a period of time, they would gain legitimacy and experience varying degrees of identity transformation. When members come to an online brand community, they have interest in this specific brand, rather than the community. Based on members’ consumption and social level, roles are self-assigned. Different member roles have different power distribution in the community as proposition 4 states. The power will circulate in the group over the time. For example, members’ role would change from ‘visitors’ to ‘insiders’ as they gain experience and identify groups whose consumption activities satisfy their needs (Kozinets, 1999). “Insiders” have the tendency to change to “devotees” if they lose the motivation to maintain their social ties with the community. The details of member role change in Australian and Chinese communities are described next.

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Members’ roles change in Australian online brand community In the Australian Haloforum online community, as explained in last section, five member roles were identified. They are tourists, minglers, devotees, insiders and leaders. In this section, we examine findings which show how these roles evolve or change over time.

Tourist → Mingler Tourist is the most aloof role of members in the community. People come to the community because they have the initial interest in the brand or the consumption activity. Since tourists form the basic level of members in the community, they are low on consumption as well as social level. However, if they start building interest, adjusting their attitude and becoming more engaged, their roles would change. As the consequence, their power would change too, from being picked-on or ignored to more involved and appreciated. (A2, “I used to be sort of a noob, and people didn’t really listen to me because they didn’t know me, which is a problem on this forum, then I started posting smarter, respecting people, not posting stupid things like some people do, as you saw in the thread you made, then you get respect as well.”. )

Tourist → Devotee If a tourist feels that the community can offer a lot of valuable information, they could spend more and more time in the community and start contributing their own information. After a period of time, knowledge is shared with others regarding the information or related about the consumption activity. Then his role has changed to “devotee”. (A8, “I am a newbie, however, I will continue be there and get involved…I like to stay there, there is good information that I am looking for which solve my queries or help me improve my skills.”) (A4, “I used to keep quiet, later I started sharing my learning of the game, which I enjoy more than being silent.”)

Mingler/Devotee → Tourist When minglers and devotees need time away from playing the game, they will become tourists, just lurking and checking and not responding to any post. 103

(A3, “I am selling my Xbox since I am going to Japan to study. But I will still check the community from time to time.’) (A1, “I will have a month break after a few months playing, and no post on the forum either. However, I am still checking the forum for updates.”)

Devotee → Insider Devotees comprise a big part of the Australian online brand community. They are famous for their contribution to the consumption activity but lack of loyalty to the brand or the community in relation to other members. When the devotees start building up their relationship with other members and start to care more about their long-term personal gain, they will change to insider roles. (A9, “I don’t think I currently I have a big role in the community, but in a couple of month, I might have bigger influence, I want to get more involved. I like to be accepted by people, be friends with people rather than be hated.”)

Insider → Leader Insiders are already active in consumption activity as well as in relationship with other members in the online brand community. When they stay in the community long enough to build their online reputation (Valck, 2007), they can take a more aggressive approach which makes them more like leaders. (A5, “(my role) has changed but that just comes with time and experiences; it’s due to knowledge of the game and our reputation in the community that changed your role”) (A5, “when I get more power, I don’t abuse and use it to gain more power…yes, I know I’m greedy. Get more well-known and get to be more respected as a player.”) (A10, “I’ve been here for a long time; you need time to gain respect. Then I tried to play sort of ‘leadership’ role, want to improve Australian community as much as possible…”)

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Members’ roles change in Chinese online brand community Within China’s NGA Online community three primary member roles were identified, they are tourists, devotees and insiders. In addition, administrators and monitors wield irrefutable power. Some change formats are described below.

Tourist → Devotee Similar to their Australian counterparts, when tourists stay in the community long enough and want to get more involved, they start sharing information. However, they do not really care about the personal relationship with others, so their roles change from tourists to devotees. (C3, “the roles will exchange, will not be so different, it’s easier from low level to higher level. In the beginning, I was a “xiaobai” (literal meaning: little idiot, as a nickname for newbie), then after visiting more I become more informed, can discuss more in-depth questions.”) (C10, “when you invest more time and effort, your role would be more recognized in the community”)

Devotee →Tourist Some members start with posting a lot of information, due to changing circumstance, they reduce the amount of information they post till none. Thus their roles change from devotees to tourists. (C16, “I used to post a lot and discuss with others, but often attacked by others, then I lost interest later…if you don’t post, then nobody know that you exist, not least to say about power.”)

Devotee → Insider When devotees post enough information and gain more recognized in the community, other members start expressing higher expectations from them. Devotees put effort to increase the relationship with other members; hence their roles change to insiders. (C11, “I only contribute to the off-topic at the moment, but I believe my role will change over time, but not now.”) (C14, “From happily getting information, to take care of other’s request, now I take it more like a platform to share, discuss and self-improvement.”)

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Devotee/Insider → Monitor With the in-depth consumption activity and experience of the game accumulating, a devotee or insider can become a monitor, controlling the quality of the posts. Engaged members can apply to become monitors with certain level of “reputation” (a level to measure the quality contribution in the community). (C25, “I have gone through the process from learning, appreciation, advising and now to control the quality of the posts.”) (C11, “From joining the community, contribute to the community and serve the community, it’s a process.”)

Comparison of members’ role changes between the Australian and the Chinese online brand communities Evidence was found of member roles change in both Australian and Chinese online brand communities. The summary is shown in Table 4.5. Table 4.5 Comparison of Member role changes in Australian and Chinese online brand community Australia

China

Tourist→Mingler/Devotee

Tourist→Devotee

Mingler/Devotee→Tourist

Devotee→Tourist

Devotee→Insider

Devotee→Insider

Insider→Leader

Devotee/Insider→Monitor

Source: Developed for this research

Any role changes involve time. In both countries, many members begin as tourists with the passing interest in the brand consumption activity, yet no or weak social relationship with other members in the community. However, over the time, they may start to contribute to the community, either sharing valuable information or strengthening the social ties. By adjusting their attitude or style/tone of posts, they will become devotees (Australia and China) or minglers (Australia). During this change, they feel that they are more accepted in the community. On the other hand, minglers and devotees can revert to tourists as they lose their interest in the brand consumption activity or social contact with other members. This phenomenon is 106

identified in both Australian and Chinese online brand communities. When devotees become more involved in developing social relationships with other members in the online brand communities, they take on the insider role. This applies to both countries. In the Australian community, once insiders gain enough experience and cherish the passion to lead the community to another level, they take up the leader role. While in the Chinese community, devotees and insiders would assume more power as monitors, trying to manage the activities inside the community in a more authoritative manner.

Thus proposition 5 is supported.

P6: Members most involved in exclusivity, rituals, and responsibilities to the group have more power in an online brand community. Consciousness of kind, shared rituals and traditions, sense of moral responsibility are three characters of brand community (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). The relationship between members and these characters are described below.

Australian online brand community Consciousness of Kind The members in Haloforum have a very strong sense of belonging. They feel that most members are like-minded, no matter how different their personality might be. They are somehow bonded. Existing members do not like new people just showing up and criticizing their community or saying anything inappropriate. They define themselves as part of the collective community. Members understand there is unequal status within the community, but believe those with better skills, or offering more general help, or having good personalities earn more respects. (A 4, “we are like a group of friends, there are a few guys who I chat to on MSN, and we are hopefully gonna make a team and go to the real events, they pretty much liked me from the start and were very friendly.”) (A 6, “I guess it’s kind of like one big family as in not all of the members like each other or get along, but through mutual friends, etc we are all bonded”) (A10, “The site attracts competitive people like myself, some come here just for fun. But it’s more for competitive, and kind of exclusive…all competitive players, top players keep in touch with each other here.”) 107

(A6, “However in the community as a whole I guess my views/opinions and thoughts are taken into consideration more so than others that have displayed less wisdom and in turn my views are less if in direct contrast of someone else who is held in higher esteem in the community, wow, I just realised its just like high school. hahahaha…well I guess there really is an underlying hierarchy. I can’t speak for others on the forum, but I certainly take into account certain peoples posts more if they are made by those who have already proven themselves time and time again”)

Shared rituals and traditions There are some special terms and actions used in Haloforum. Some widely used words in the community come directly from the game. In addition, there are actions and words created by members in the community based on the consumption activity (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). When they meet in the game, if someone talks about certain words or does a certain action, people know he/she is from the same community. This strengthens the consciousness of kind and validates their understanding of the community (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). With the shared common language, members feel more connected. The insiders or leaders often use the words when they post, defining them as a real “insider”, as well as a more approachable person. From the observation of the posts, it is evident that the community has certain communication style – simple and succinct, the manner of posts is quite relaxed most of the time. However, for some serious topic like organizing the tournaments, members will get a bit serious and drop half-joking tone.

Members also share the information about the brand, as described before. They share brand related information, post self-created montage and videos, and this, in a way, increases the “consciousness of kind”, and works as cohesion among the members. (A2, “there's the 07 nub thing, people who joined the forum in 2007 or late 06 or where unknown before then people say things like "shut up 07 nub" in threads when they post or "it's an 06 person thing, you wouldn’t understand", people just take it as a joke, which it is.”) (A6, “...bk is one of them- bad kid; there’s the head shake in game, when you kill someone they go to a third person shot above their body, the killer then 108

proceeds to look left and right and it appears he is shaking his head---these are created by HaloForum members.”)

Sense of moral responsibility Moral responsibility is a sense of duty to community as a whole and to individual members of the community (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). There are different levels of responsibility based on the different member roles. Tourist, for example, basically has no sense of moral responsibility. Mingler and devotee keep threads going and show interest to demonstrate responsibility. Insider regards helping other members as showing they are responsible. Leaders will try to draw, integrate and retain members. Another common idea emerging from the research shows being responsible as the manner in which the members use the online brand community. Online community depends very much on written text. No matter what the brand, the general Internet rule or community rule, is that members do not support bad language or “verbal abuse”. For example, someone may get picked on and kicked-out because of improper language. Some members mentioned that a “newbie” needs to learn how to use language appropriately, and the lack of understanding of how to talk is a barrier to enter or to be accepted by the community (Haythornthwaite, 2007). (A7, “not really, I use the forum to check for the competitions….I don’t post just afraid that I post the wrong information and five people would attack me at once.”) (A8, “I don’t post a lot at the moment, since I am quite new to the forum still.”) (A2, “I want the community to grow. As for their game skills I'd probably direct them to someone else who does that sort of thing. Yeah I feel I should help the others.”) (A9, “I have commitment to my team…also have commitment with the people on the forum, do things together. I always post info. about tournament, and whether I am gonna show up. Weekly updates.”) (A5, “As a member who has been on the site for a while, when new member come online I show them the ins and outs of the site and the competitive community it’s based around.”)

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(A10, “I try to welcome new people to the site, rather than push them away…I also give lessons to people who come to me. I want to improve Australian community as much as possible, we improved, the community improved... ”)

Chinese online brand community Consciousness of Kind Half of the respondents believe that most community members are good and talented people with certain quality. Sometimes their way of thinking, hobbies and experience are extremely similar (C11). Members feel delighted when they meet both online and offline if possible. However, with more and more people joining the group, the quality of interaction has declined. Some members think the community is getting too big to feel being a part of (C9). A minority group of members is quite cynical. They do not see this like-mindedness, refusing to mingle with others. Looking from different roles, insiders tend to have more positive feeling towards the community, as well as other members. This is the same as devotees. Members regard different status in the community as common, just like in real life. Those who invest more time and effort and post quality information earn more respect. However, they also express a dislike of the unequal treatment between ‘monitors’ and regular members. (C1, “I felt warm when I met someone also active in the community on the train, we talked all the way.”) (C7, “In the beginning, the forum was full of ‘professional’ kind of people, it’s the most famous forum for WoW in China; these days people started talking nonsense. As an old member, I really hope it would be better. Although now I am often AFK (Away from keyboard, means not playing game), but I still check the forum everyday.”) (C6, “There are all kinds of people in the community, their objectives are different, although they all play WoW, but some are real idiots, I don’t want to be associated with them, I concentrate more on the game”) (C22, “I only believe in those people with high reputation.”) (C24, “last month, there is an incident, monitor XX did something against the community rule, but he didn’t receive the same punishment as if this would happen to a normal member. Thus I don’t think the equality exist in the community. ”) 110

(C25, “the so-called equality has context, monitors and people with high reputation apparently got more say than others.”)

Shared rituals and traditions Some special terms and actions used in NGA online brand community are identified. Members used to print funny screens when they play the game and post this to the community. Many terms and words reflect the sarcasm about other members who have said something silly or those who are not welcomed by the whole community. A lot of members think that there is no standard common language exclusively for this community, since the WoW is such a popular game and NGA is not the only online community based on WoW, so a lot of words are universal. From the observation, members in NGA tend to talk much and describe everything in detail. (C10, “for example, there are some people, they comment on some actions in the game which they think are absolutely correct, however, they are just what the whole community against. These kinds of people are called ‘*Jiaozhu’.”) (*like ‘Master’) (C19, “I can’t recall the specific ones. Some wordings might be created here, but they will transmitted to some other forums, the Internet is connected”)

Sense of moral responsibility Members normally behave well in the community. The exception happens when they hold grudges or use bad language or post irrelevant content, all of which are against the community rules. However, they tend to understand when such posts are deleted. Tourists think it is unnecessary to reply to others’ posts as there will always be someone else to reply (maybe someone of higher level, with more knowledge), but they feel they would have if they were certain of the answers. Devotees and insiders have a comparatively stronger sense of responsibility, offering help, building the community, as well as self-improvement. The members who offer quality help most of the time are more trusted by others. (C15, “I don’t think I have any responsibility to others, if I happen to know the answers that other members asked, I would help them; it doesn’t have any relationship with if you are a member or not”)

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(C1, “I will help others because I want the whole community to grow and get better & stronger.”) (C2, “I will make sure I won’t do any harm to the community and I would like to contribute but need time for myself to grow till I grasp enough knowledge and skills.”) (C4, “I will keep maintaining and checking the feedback or possible queries after I post, I am responsible for what I am doing in the community”)

Comparison of Community Character in Australian and Chinese online brand communities Australian online brand community has a stronger consciousness of kind, is more close-knit and members develop shared language and ritual-like action in the game. All of which strengthen members’ sense of belonging to the community. Members are eager to help others, demonstrating the sense of responsibility to the community as well as self-discipline. The hardcore members even contribute in order to elevate the community to another level, by calling more members and retaining old members. Compared to their Australian counterparts, Chinese community members lack in consciousness of kind and do not have strong sense of responsibility to the community.

The common finding from both communities is that members with more devoted attitudes, having more commitment to the community, who create content and demonstrate more responsibility would receive more support and a more enhanced reputation compared to the members who do not. Based on their roles, leaders/insiders/devotese have various more power than tourists.

Schouten and McAlexander (1995) suggests that a hierarchical structure exists based on status, the source of which is one’s commitment to the subculture’s ideology as manifested in patterns of consumption. Muniz Jr and O'Guinn (2001) also comment that brand communities are open social organizations and do have status hierarchies. Within group status is a function of an individual’s commitment to the group’s ideology of consumption. The most committed (hardcore) members of a group function as mediators of meaning and opinion leaders; less committed members are 112

important for their moral or say their adulation of more committed members (Schouten & McAlexander, 1995) who are the ones most involved in exclusivity, rituals, and responsibilities to the community.

Proposition 6 is supported.

P7: The power relationships members formed in an online brand community will reinforce the consumer’s liking of the brand. Gamers love the games they play; this is a harmonious relationship with the brand. This relationship can lead consumers to seek out interaction with like-minded consumers who share the same enthusiasm (Algesheimer et al., 2005) as well as a sense of belonging and affinity with others (Moynagh & Worsley, 2002). That is the reason they join the online brand community and become members. They sometimes associate brands in human terms, as taking the perspective of a brand as a person to relate to themselves (McAlexander et al., 2002). This will be described as part of the findings next.

Consumer’s thinking about Halo brand in Australian online brand community Members love what the brand Halo represents, which is competitive, skilful, strategy, fast, social and fun. And they all like the brand. (A1, “if use three words to describe Halo, I would say fast, competitive and sometimes aggravating.”) (A2, “…and I love it.”)

Members portray the brand personality or brand image in their own images or in potential future images: male, in his 20’s, energetic, resourceful and like a friend. (A10, “definitely a guy, competitive, resourceful, wanna win, very energetic”) (A6, “umm, one of those people that are fun when they need to be but can be quite serious, resourceful, open minded.”)

From the interaction with other members, some members acknowledged that they became more competitive and the online communication and activity motivated them

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to practise more and become more skilful in the game. They try to improve their contribution to the community and move to top level on the “Halo player list”. (A3, “Since they organise Halo tournaments online it has made me play halo more competitively since joining.”) (A9, “I changed thoughts after joining this forum, treating it not like the little game, more seriously, more competitive. Trying to practice more, be as good as other people.”)

The results show that this adoration for Halo was not reflected in their attitude to its parent company– Microsoft. They expressed their hope that Microsoft might stop charging but think it is not possible. The other wish is to upgrade the server for the Australian market to provide a more competitive platform with US counterparts.

Consumer’s thinking about WoW brand in Chinese online brand community People come to the community and become members based on their interest in the brand and consumption activity. Most of the members love the game and regard it as the best MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) ever produced by the American company, Blizzard. It is easy to play, very detail, good storyline, visuals are all top-notch. (C21, “this is a fantastic world. It is the best online game, nothing can take over it.”) (C18, “I only play WoW since its launch. It’s easy to play, the plot and visuals are so good and it does have the balance between the hardware requests and the operational feasibility.”)

Members portray the brand personality in different ways. Most male players regard WoW game as a female, charming and addictive. A few members think WoW is like a teacher, very resourceful with a bit rigorous method. A couple of female players think the game as a male, young and well-organized. (C19, male “I will put WoW as a charming beauty, make me so attracted to her, although she might not be attracted to me.”)

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A few members declared that they gained a lot out of the community, the knowledge and greater liking towards WoW, tips and tricks to play the game, and the fun from self-reflection by posting and creation, as well as interaction with other like-minded members. However, they did raise the point that if the community attracted too many members talking “nonsense”, who argued all the time without any “valuable contribution” or the “unequal incident” happened too much, they might consider leaving the community.

All members worshiped the parent company, Blizzard, for producing such a wonderful game, although they were not quite satisfied with the current agent in China, a few respondents quote the same saying “whatever produced by Blizzard is a masterpiece.” (C9, C19, C23)

Comparison of consumer’s thinking about brand between Australian and Chinese online brand communities The members in Australian and Chinese online brand communities have similar reasons for joining the group, based on the liking of the brand and consumption activity-game play. Although their portrayals of the two brand personalities are quite different, Australian members thinks the game more like their friends while Chinese members think the game is like something higher they always seek to pursue, however, they share a similar addiction to the games. The interaction with likeminded members in the community, the information searching, exchanging, creation of new content and motivation members engaged with the community reinforced their participation. From positive brand associations, to positive relationships with other members in the community (Aaker, 2008), members demonstrated a positive attitude towards the brand, thus the power relationship in the community does reinforce the brand liking.

Thus proposition 7 is supported.

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P8: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher collectivism while the Australian one demonstrates higher individualism;

Australian online brand community Members in Haloforum online community treat the community like a “family”, as it is caring, inclusive and provides a sense of belonging. They tend to organize the activities to involve as many members as possible, to practise against each other, to improve game skills as well as to strengthen the credibility of the community to be a top competitive Halo community in Australia. All these activities they have been endeavoring on are based on collective goal to support and develop the community. Members like to stay well-informed on many subjects. (A10, “Usually most players are nice, they won’t treat new member badly, if your attitude or the tone you use are arrogant, people won’t accept you and don’t like that. People think you don’t have the right to come to their forum and tell them they are wrong.”) (One post from the forum “state of origin competition”---“Alright boys, seems like we have enough interest in this so post below your gt and your state. e.g x2770 PELICANx -Queenslandaaaaaarrrrrrrr (QLD). Hopefully with the help of state captains we can get some rough ideas on how many teams we should have etc… Please lads, don’t say you’re from one of the less populated states just to get on a team or be funny. I'm going to try and accommodate as many teams from each state as possible.”)

Chinese online brand community Members in NGA online community are treating the community more like an online library – a place of sharing and gaining information. They do form online relationships with other members, but this kind of relationship tends to be very superficial. Moreover, a lot of members tend to be ill-informed on subject outside of their own interest. They have short-term relationships with other members, as well as shallow relationship with the community as a whole. (C24, “I only take the community as a source for information. Besides, to me, the game will lose popularity someday and so does the community. ”) (C23, “This community is just a platform, although there are a lot of members there, but most of them don’t have anything in common at all.”) 116

Comparison between Australian and Chinese online brand community Comparing the Australian and Chinese online brand community is like comparing a family with a library. It is somehow manifest that members in Australian community place value in the group more than their Chinese counterparts, who attach value more to the individual benefit. Therefore, there is no strong support that the Chinese online brand community demonstrates collectivism while Australia one demonstrates higher individualism. In fact, it appears the opposite is the case.

Proposition 8 is not supported.

P9: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher power distance; the Australian one demonstrates lower power distance.

Power distance in Australian online brand community As identified in the explanation in proposition 6, members who are more involved in the community have more power. Administrator and leaders normally have greatest power. However, they do not use this power to strictly control other members’ posts. They try, instead, to lead the conversation in the community and keep the threads going to create a balanced and harmonious environment. Everybody has a say in the community, but it is not to say everyone’s status is equal. Nonetheless, there is not a huge gap between higher power leaders and lower power members. From the online observation of many threads, members in every different role post together. The only difference is sometimes leaders’ tone is more concerned or with authority. (A1, “Some people’s offensive posts have been deleted by the administrator, I think that administrators have right to do that—they are doing their job if only to offensive thing, not lock down people’s opinion.”) (A3, “If someone post offensive post, most time other members will feedback first saying that’s not right, even before administrator do anything”) In the community, there is a function that members could vote for each thread with a number from 1 to 5. Member can give lower or higher points to the threads depending on their thinking of them are unspeakably dismal or superb. Once enough votes have been cast for the thread rating, a set of stars will appear with the title of the thread in

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the thread listings. These stars reflect the average vote cast, and can allow members to quickly see which threads are worth reading (HaloForum, 2008). This gives everyone the right to judge the quality of the post.

Power distance in Chinese online brand community Sometimes, the atmosphere in the NGA community can become very tense. Quite often, monitors delete members’ post or ban members’ ID based on their own judgment. There is one section named “Court” for people to complain about the deletes they think are unfair. Normally members try to support each other on such matter. There is a subdivision here called “Cemetery” where all the banned ID members are displayed. The arguments about the fairness of deleted posts or banned ID happen frequently in NGA community. For example, one member’s recruitment advertisement for his team was deleted after 30 minutes posting in the community. Some of his friends started the thread trying to defend him, which generating more than 50 posts of discussion and complaint. They said “very unfair”, “bad use of power”, “no compassion” and so on. The responsible monitor only came out to explain once, insisting the post was against the rule of the community, then closed the defending chain post to end the case. It is apparent that a large gap does exist between the higher power administrator/monitors and regular members in this Chinese online brand community. (C20, “monitors only care about delete the post, ban/open ID all these chores, what else can they do?”) (C16, “posts being deleted are quite common in this community. But this site is created by the administrator and managed by all the monitors, they are kind of have right to set up the rules for what can be kept and what have to go.”)

Chinese community does not have a public voting system, the system can accumulate the number of posts that one member contributes. The reputation rating will depend on the monitors’ decision, if they think the posts are good, they would add “reputation” mark for the member who contributes that specific post.

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Comparison of Power distance in Australian and Chinese online brand community Power distribution is different in Australian and Chinese online brand communities. The power distribution is more equal in Australian online community, while it is more unequal in the Chinese community. Australian members, regardless of their roles, tend to have more equal rights and are more relaxed in the community; while their Chinese counterpart, especially the administrator/monitors are very serious about the power they wield, thus they have a greater say in what content is appropriate and good or otherwise in the community. As supported by Hofstede & Usunier (2003), larger power distance will lead to more centralized control.

Proposition 9 is supported.

Table 4.6 summarized the propositions status.

Table 4.6 Proposition Summary Proposition

Supported or Not

P1: Power relationships exist in an online brand community.

Supported

P2: 4 consumer power types (Control over the relationship,

Supported

information, aggregation and participation) exist in an online brand community. P3: There are different roles in an online brand community,

Partially Supported

such as tourist, insider, mingler and devotee. P4: Power distribution is based on different roles of the

Supported

members in an online brand community. P5: Power will change when members’ roles change.

Supported

P6: Members most involved in exclusivity, rituals and

Supported

responsibilities to the group have more power in an online brand community. P7: The power relationships members formed in an online

Supported

brand community will reinforce the consumer’s liking of the brand. P8: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher

Not Supported

collectivism while the Australian one demonstrates higher

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individualism; P9: The Chinese online brand community demonstrates higher

Supported

power distance; the Australian one demonstrates lower power distance. Source: Developed for this research

4.3 Conclusion This chapter has described findings from the data gathered from face-to-face and online synchronic interviews as well as online observation. The research confirmed that four types of power do exist in both Australian and Chinese online brand communities. Different member roles were identified according to the four member types that Kozinets (1999) proposed. The research identified a new role in the Australian online brand community and found that not every role existed in the Chinese one. Power is distributed differently based on different member roles and power changes when the roles change. These power relationships affect members’ liking of the brand. Power relationships also differ between the Australian and the Chinese community members, based on cultural differences explored. The implication of these findings will be discussed in detail in Chapter Five.

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Chapter Five: Conclusions and Implications

“Consumers are adding online information gathering and social activities into an extended repertoire that also includes their face-to-face interactions. Online interactions and alignments increasingly affect their behavior as citizens, as community members and as consumers. The prospect of advancing marketing thought and practice may come from an enhanced understanding of these groups of consumers.” (Kozinets, 1999, p. 253)

5.1 Introduction This chapter relates the findings from the research presented in the previous chapter to the literature to highlight important implications and draw conclusions. Some findings confirm expectations from the extant literature. However, as this is an exploratory study undertaken with both Australian and Chinese cases, some new themes emerged from the analysis, which need highlighting in addition to further research to address.

In the following sections, conclusions are drawn from revisiting the research questions and linking back to the literature as well as findings from the research. The chapter then turns to a discussion of the implications of the research for theory as well as practice. Afterwards, limitations of the research are raised and possibilities for future research recommended.

5.2 Conclusion about the Research Problem The main research question and three sub research questions were developed in Chapter Two. In this section, the research questions are reintroduced along with the results of the research and discussion of the issues that they raise. Each sub research question will be discussed first; the main research question will be answered subsequently.

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SRQ1 Is there any power distribution difference based on roles of members in an online brand community?

Result The results show that a power distribution difference exists based on the different roles of members in the online brand community. When the member’s role changes, the power will change and vice versa when certain power varies or accumulates, the member role changes.

Discussion The results of this sub research question raises a number of issues for discussion, including what consumer power in the online brand community is, what the exact relationships between the member roles and the power types are and so forth.

What is consumer power in the online brand communities? Power is a hard-to-define construct (Drake, 1992). There is no universal definition for power. However, power needs to be studied at certain times and in certain contexts (Arendt, 1986; Foucault, 1983). The online brand community has given the study of consumer power a precise context, which also confirmed the methodology recommended by extant literature (Cova & Pace, 2006; Füller et al., 2007).

This research confirmed that four formats of consumer power exist in online brand communities. They are “control over the relationship”, “information”, “aggregation” and “participation” (Denegri-Knott, 2006). However this study injected new meanings to these four constructs as shown in Table 5.1.

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Table 5.1 Consumer power types in online brand community Power types

Confirm Literature

Comments

Control over the relationship Lack of control 

Over Brand

Y

Leaders and administrators have the potential to influence the brand through in-direct approach. Members are proprietary to the community;



Over Community

N

Desire to improve the quality of the community to promote it, strict rule is used to regulate the community.



Over Other Members

N

Information

Y

Aggregation

Y

Participation

Y

Experienced members or members with “authority” have more control over others Quality of information is the key Online and offline activities, not necessarily with specific intention to deal with marketers Most recreational purpose for the co-creation

Source: Developed for this research

Three dimensions of control over the relationship show the recognition of the dynamics of the online brand community and its potential effect and implications for brand management. This finding proves that online brand communities have an influence on the brand as the literature already reveals, such as an increase in sales and word of mouth promotion (Brown et al., 2007b). However, it also suggests that in understanding the online brand community should we examine the complex and multiple relationships that the members have over each other (McAlexander et al., 2002) and the community as a whole, since the brand community character would exert an effect on specific members and vice versa (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). Information has been regarded as the most significant outcome of members in the online brand community (Hans & Gaby, 2008; Hummel & Lechner, 2002; McWilliam, 2000; Preece, 2000b). Members in the community can get valuable information or knowledge of what they are eager to know about the brand or the consumption activities and the peripherals. On the other hand, they can also share

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their own experience with the brand with other like-minded members and contribute to the threads. The research found that information exchange or knowledge sharing is due to members truly wanting to help others or to experience feelings of prestige as part of a sense of moral responsibility (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001; Valck, 2007). As Foucault (1980) suggests consumers obtain pleasure from power and form knowledge that produces power. The information/knowledge exchange and sharing give members the satisfaction of belonging to the community (Schlosser, 2003), helping others increases their self-esteem, feeling of being respected and status attainment (Wellman & Gulia, 1998). Nonetheless, information quality is more valued in the online brand community than normal online communities, since the fundamentals of forming an online brand community is based on the communal admiration of the brand and members’ expectations are clear to gain more knowledge about the brand or the consumption activity, and the judgement standard tends to be more critical than other online communities. The prior literature defined “aggregation” as consumers utilizing the enhanced interaction that the Internet brings in order to achieve their intentions or act against marketers, as argued by Denegri-Knott (2006) based on the struggle between consumers and marketers. The results of this research show that “aggregation” happens in an online brand community; however, the intention was not necessarily against the marketers. For example, members form online or offline tournaments which enhance the relationship amongst members and their relationship with the consumption activity and the brand. This kind of aggregation can also be taken as an approach for member acquisition to the community. If someone wants to join the offline tournaments which are community member exclusive, he/she might consider becoming members of the online brand community.

Members’ participation in the creation of the brand related content is rooted in their liking or love of the brand or the consumption activities. They are given a platform to express their passion towards the brand from different creative angles, such as stories to extend the brand history, game music re-composition and video montage and so on. Through this, members communicate with the brand in their own way. This kind of action can also be understood as a way of communicating with like-minded others based on their own language, with the content provided by the specific brand or

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consumption activity. How to leverage this initiative and creative side of community members can be a further valuable study for marketers (Füller et al., 2007).

As a summary of the issues discussed above, power in the online brand community can be derived as “the relationship that like-minded members engaged in an online brand community have via control over the relationship with the brand, community and other members, in addition to the relationship they have via information, aggregation and participation on creating brand related contents.” This definition provides power with a holistic overview by putting it in a particular context and including all the elements it involves. After defining power in the online brand community, the report turns to identifying the member roles.

Member Roles in the online brand community As in any society, organization or company, members in the online brand communities all present different roles. Tourists, minglers, devotees, insiders and the new leader role are identified in the Australian online brand community. In China, the monitors’ role is quite notable since they have the power to determine other members’ choices to “live or die”. The mingler role is not identified because the members in the Chinese community are more information-searching orientated. This latter point will be discussed more in section 5.2.3.

The formation of roles may be the result of several factors. “Personality” and “objective to visit/belong to an online community” are the most recalled by respondents of this research. Applying Barnes’ (1988b) desire of control theory here, tourists may want to keep a low profile both in personal life and in the community; however, they have a basic need to search for desirable information or just visit randomly to check out of curiosity. Minglers enjoy the “hanging-out” experience with other like-minded members online; insiders share their knowledge to help and socialize with others. For leaders, they search the primary control and focus on control-relevant information which helps them to establish status, process the information in great detail, and actively obtain control during the interaction through the situation (Burger, 1984) internally and externally. Uses and gratification theory also provides an explanation for the shaping of different member roles. For example, a “tourist” pursues more cognitive needs while a “mingler” focuses on fulfilling his 125

affective needs; a “devotee” concentrates on building his credibility while an “insider” pays attention on both personally integrative needs as well as the cognitive needs. A “leader” normally has specific confidence and high esteem which motivate him to aim higher.

Member roles change when power circulates, say via the exertion of a different power strategy. Similarly, when member roles change, they finish the process of change of a power relationship. The roles are partially assigned by members themselves as discussed previously. However, they are affected by members’ involvement with consumption activities, the interaction with other members, and the community rules or code of conduct (Hummel & Lechner, 2002). All these elements will shape the community as a whole simultaneously.

The direction of role change happens normally from more distant to more involved, such as from visitor to devotee or from insider to leader, which is a positive phenomenon to the brand. If there is some effective approach to facilitate and accelerate the process, the desired change might happen to exert power that may benefit the community, brand and the company.

Consumer power and member roles in the online brand community Figure 5.1 aims to illustrate the relationship between the power types and the member roles in the online brand community.

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Information Devotee

Tourist Participation *Aggregation

Mingler

Control over relationship Monitor

Aggregation

Insider

Control over relationship

Control over relationship

Leader

*The power listed in Figure 5.1 is referring to the primary power exerted from one role to another, for example, from “tourist” to “mingler”, “information” still exists, but the main power types is “aggregation”.

Figure 5.1 Power & Member Roles Model in the online brand community (Single Direction) Source: Developed for this research

The figure starts with “tourist”. When a tourist tries to facilitate any interaction with other members as his/her main objective/action in the online brand community, he/she turns himself/herself into a “mingler” via the power of “aggregation”. If a “tourist” comes to the community mainly for information searching in the beginning, with time, he/she gets familiarized with the style of the community and via the information he/she accumulates over this period, he/she becomes more knowledgeable and he/she starts to share information with others. This becomes his/her main action in the community, whether it be sharing ordinary game information or creating new developed content based on the brand/consumption activity. In this way, via the power of “information” or “participation”, he/she becomes a “devotee”. A “devotee” normally only pays attention to the information, however, when he/she becomes more involved in other activity in the community and socializes with others by taking the power of “aggregation”, he/she turns to an “insider”. When an “insider” who is devoting his/her time and effort to the information contribution as well as helping

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others, he/she also has the ambition to take more “control” power to affect the brand, the community and other fellow members, he/she grows into a “leader”. Apart from the assigned administrator when the community is created, the community also encourages ordinary members to apply to take the “monitors” role. They normally are either “devotees” or “insiders” who take on control in a more authoritative manner.

From results of this research, an interesting phenomenon can be noticed – the leaders or the monitors always adopt a different approach to influencing the community. The more significant role will decide the atmosphere and the style of the community. From figure 5.1, it is easy to see that the roles of leaders and monitors, who have most “control” in their hands, will greatly influence the community.

SRQ2: Do the power relationships have any effect on the consumer’s liking of the brand?

Result The results show some connection between the power relationships and the consumer’s liking of the brand. The interaction with like-minded members, the information gathering and sharing, creation of new content and motivation to aggregate are positive factors to reinforce members of their brand liking.

Discussion

Likings of the brand/Relationship Members join the online brand community based on the appreciation of the brand which is the basic and the lowest form of involvement (Schau & Muńiz Jr, 2002). As described before, the longer members stay in the community and the more involved they become the higher status they will attain. This research found that the power relationships that members formed reinforce their likings of the brand, which means that the control over the relationship, information, aggregation and participation are the contributors to member’s involvement and lead to positive likings of the brand.

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Consumers are what they consume and conversely, consumers consume what they are (Belk, 1988). Escalas and Bettman (2003) claim that consumers construct their selfidentity and present themselves through their brand choices based on the congruency between brand-user associations and self-image associations. Members in the online brand community present themselves via the interactivity with the Internet, through the power relationships that affect each other in the community. This research found that some members will change their attitude/likings towards the brand/consumption activities after their interaction with others in the community. Thus the community provides meaning through the associations members hold in the community. Subsequently, the meaning moves from brand/consumption activity to members, as they construct themselves through the brand around the congruency between brand image and self-image (Escalas & Bettman, 2005). In this way, some consumers are able to forge a special kind of relationship bond with brands connected to their meaning of self (de Chernatony, 1993; Lindberg-Repo & Brookes, 2004).

Apart from the redefinition of self-meaning, consumer power relationships also help members to connect with brands in different ways. From the power of information, members gain more understanding about the brand/consumption activity. Via the power of control, aggregation and participation, members again go through other formats of brand experience --- transfer to the emotions shared with other members. The social links sometimes formed in the consumption activities are more important than the product itself (Cova, 1997). They gain satisfaction through interaction with others.

The more time and effort members devote, the more attached they become to the community. As one member from the Australian Halo community mentioned “it gives me something to do that I enjoy; it wouldn’t be a full Halo experience if it wasn’t there” (A5). This supports the prior literature that the higher levels of brand relationship quality lead to a stronger brand community identification and likewise, member’s intentions to remain engaged with the brand community have a positive impact on their loyalty towards the brand (Algesheimer et al., 2005). They are part of the company and the brand is part of the community. Members treat the community as the channel to be closely connected to the brand or consumption activities.

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Relationship marketing From the results of this research, although members from the community feel they find it is hard to get their feedback to the company thus lack control to the brand, they still have the desire to be connected to the creator of the brand/consumption activity that they love. This means that the company needs to show their care and attention to the community, by communicating with members in the online brand community, ensuring every one of them is part of the conversation with the view that dialogue can facilitate social bonding (Szmigin et al., 2005) and provide the holistic consumption experience to consumers (McAlexander et al., 2003). Increased controls encourage consumers to make a number of commitments over time. As these commitments accumulate, the consumers may feel unwilling to switch to another course of action (Wathieu et al., 2002) which increases their loyalty to the community and the brand. This is a good way to retain the existing members. Having said that, the focus is still necessary (Reichheld & Schefter, 2000). The Pareto rule which indicates that 80 percent of posts are contributed by 20 percent of members (Kozinets, 1999) who are mostly devotees, insiders and leaders. This shows that talking to these groups can achieve a higher response. However, since most members are “tourists” or “minglers”, a meaningful dialogue has to be made with them as well. As Figure 5.1 shows members’ roles are constantly changing, thus to get more involved members in the community, some power facilitation needs to be given to the less-active members. It is paramount to understand that the highly involved insiders and leaders have a lot to contribute as brand ambassador, such as welcoming new members and trying to retain existing members to keep the community stronger. Sometimes they even accomplish the jobs of marketers, such as brand message delivery. They also have a strong influence on tourists and devotees in changing attitude and behavior. How to leverage this effectively will be the next step for the practitioners to consider.

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SRQ3:Do these power relationships differ between the Australian and Chinese community members?

Result The results show that there are significant differences of power relationships between the Australian and Chinese community members.

Discussion Cultural Difference Results of this research show there are a lot of similarities as well as differences between the Australian and the Chinese online brand communities. These differences lie in the different role types in the community and the cultural dimensions as summarized in Table 5.2. Table 5.2 Comparison of the Australian and the Chinese online brand communities Australia online brand community

Chinese online brand community

Haloforum.net

Bbs.nga.cc

Tourist, Mingler, Devotee, Insider, Leader Monitor

Collectivism character

Low power distance

Tourist, Devotee, Insider Monitor

Individualism character High power distance

Source: Developed for this research

China is regarded as high on collectivism and Australia high on individualism (Hofstede, 1980). However, the result of this research shows an opposite scenario. The Chinese community is stronger on individualism while Australian one is stronger on collectivism. Some scholars comment that consumers these days are seeking both individualistic and communal brand experiences (Cova, Pace, & Park, 2007; Simmons, 2008). Previous research also suggests that not only collectivism but also 131

individualism may also serve the function of showering loyalty on the group for high identifiers who are more committed (Jetten, Postmes, & McAuliffe, 2002). This will be discussed more in the next section.

The power of different member roles and many different functions in both Australian and Chinese online brand communities, such as the thread voting system all contribute to different power distance.

These differences in the Australian and the Chinese online brand communities imply that the brand community study should be culture-specific and this learning also helps global practitioners to set up various goals and plans for different countries.

Are the brand community characteristics anything to do with the cultural difference? The results of this research indicate that the characteristics of the brand community, such as the consciousness of kind, shared rituals and the sense of responsibility influence the power relationship in the online brand community. Apart from looking at it from the individual’s perspective, the collective power of the community should be considered as well.

Members in the Australian community expressed themselves as bonded together, which can be explained by higher group cohesiveness. According to Yalom (1995), group cohesiveness was affected by members, leaders, the community and the time period that the community evolved. Unlike the normal online community which has a low entry and exit barrier (Valck, 2007), the online brand communities have sufficient means to integrate members in the group by sharing quality information and selfregulating the system which makes sure that members are more like-minded and different from the outer group (Langer, 2007). In this way members attract each other, which contributes to group cohesiveness (Yalom, 1995). The identified new role as leader in the Australian community is regarded as very important to affect the style and the direction for future development of the community (Yalom, 1995). Because of their laid-back style, the Australian online brand community tends to be a relaxed “hangout”, which also explains the lower “power distance” compared to their Chinese counterparts. On the other hand, in the Chinese community, since most power is

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controlled in the monitors’ hands, the way they do things affects the style of the community which leads to higher power distance.

Sharing the rituals or common language and expressing the sense of community – such as providing help, sending a positive response to others – is a form of generalized reciprocity and altruistic behaviour important for initiating and sustaining the overall community (Haythornthwaite, 2007). The higher the sense of the community, the stronger collective power the community has over the brand; it might be delivered by word-of-mouth communication amongst members, or via the leaders’ influence upon others, or through some cooperation with some external parties.

Group size The Chinese community has less role types, simpler structure but the member size is far larger than the Australian community. A group’s size often determines the total amount of resources and the strength it controls, because this depends considerably on the number of persons contributing their quota of individually owned or controlled resources to the common pool (Wrong, 1979). In the online brand community, this self-owned resource can translate to member’s information, knowledge and involvement.

The size of community will influence the activities (Preece, 2000a). If it is too small, there will not be enough communication. If it is too big, a critical mass will result. As this research shows, the size of the community also contributes to the sense of belonging. For example, the smaller size Australian community places more emphasis on each member’s weight (Yalom, 1995), thus higher consciousness of kind is also supported by the higher “collectivism”. In addition, it is easy to form and distribute similar language and ritual actions as well as a sense of moral responsibility. The bigger Chinese community has too many members which loosens the social relations and diminishes the motivation for many members to contribute (Hummel & Lechner, 2002). This might explain why the whole community feels a weaker sense of belonging compared to their Australian counterparts.

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RQ: How are perceived power relationships structured in an online brand community?

The discussion about three sub research questions has basically outlined the whole picture for the answer to the main research question.

Based on the conceptual model proposed in chapter two, the research explores how perceived power relationships are structured by looking at different member roles in the online brand communities which have common characteristics (Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001), and trying to identify the power effect of the brand.

As previously stated, this research investigates from the consumers’ (members’) perspective and discovered that the power exists in the online brand community and their distribution are different based on different member roles. Power will change when the member’s role change; the more devoted members have higher power in the community. Power relationships among members, role changing and the collective power exerted from the whole community will affect members’ liking towards the brand. Power relationships amongst members are different between Australian and Chinese online brand communities.

A previously proposed new model for Power & Member Roles in the online brand community (Figure 5.1) focuses on the power relationship amongst members. When considering the relationships between consumers and brand and the community, this research transfers the insights learned from the research findings to extend the initial model which was presented in the literature review chapter as Figure 2.4, which is showed as Figure 5.2.

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Focal Consumer

Consumer

Brand/ Consumption

Community

Activity

Figure 5.2 Power Structure Model in the Online Brand Community Source: Developed for this research

This model shows the community structure still positions focal consumers in the center. It has a relationship with other members, the community and brand or consumption activity. However, the new model gives weight to the relationships among all the different members in the community and the brand/consumption activity as well as the relationship between the communities as a collective power to the brand/consumption activity. The core aspect of this model is from the consumer’s perspective to inspect the relationship amongst the online brand community. Although at the moment it is not feasible to quantify how much difference the focal consumer or other consumers affect brand or community or vice versa, the recognition of these relationships lays a foundation for further research.

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5.3 Implications 5.3.1 Implications for Theory With the online brand communities gaining more significance, this research has investigated the power structure in the online brand communities. This attempt fills the gap discussed in the literature review by bridging the power theory with member roles in the online brand community. The detailed implications for the theory are: 

Definition of power in the online brand community context which contributes to the body of knowledge of power theory in marketing and consumer behaviour discipline.

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Redefinition of power types in the online brand community. Built on DenegriKnott’s (2006) consumer power strategies on the Internet, this research redefined the consumer power types in the online brand community, broadening the scope that consumers might come into contact with all the involved parties, not only struggling with marketers.

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Discovery of the new member roles in the online brand community based on the study conducted by Kozinets (1999) and provides a more dynamic understanding of the structure of an online brand community.

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Proposition of a new model of power and member roles. This model links the defined consumer power types and identified member roles in the research.

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Adaptation of the Customer-centric model from McAlexander et al. (2002). This modified model confirmed the one developed by McAlexander et al. (2002). However, by underlining the relationship between brand and all members as well as brand and community as a whole, it presents a complete picture of how the perceived power relationships are structured in the online brand community.

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Identification of influences and changes in consumer power has important implications for brand loyalty management and relationship marketing in the online environment.

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Detection of community size as a crucial factor which contributing to the significance of the brand community character.

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The conduct of a cross-cultural study between Australia and China illustrates that online brand community study should be culture-specific.

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5.3.2 Implications for Practice These days consumers are increasingly like minded and form relationships with the marketing system- closely knit communities in the brandscape (Kozinets, 1999; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001). Marketers try to understand and employ this special formality to communicate with consumers and achieve different marketing goals (Ouwersloot & Duncan, 2008). Building a strong online community has become a crucial marketing activity for many companies (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Catterall & Maclaran, 2002), which they believe can strengthen brand and corporate image and encourage customer loyalty. For practitioners, whether marketers or advertising agencies, it is imperative to successfully integrate this developing knowledge and understanding of online consumer power relationships in the online brand community, in order to develop customized approaches to communicate with consumer effectively.

Normally there are two ways of building an online brand community. One is to set up from scratch and attract consumers to join; the other is to purchase and manage the existing community which already has certain consumer base. A few cases suggest that the company should buy an established online brand community set up by the passionate consumer then try to manage it. In this scenario, marketers need to acknowledge the power relationships previously created in the community, and approach members with different roles in strategic ways to facilitate the meaningful dialogue according to the ultimate goal of the brand communication.

This research identifies different member roles and the power relationships amongst them in the online brand community. Identifying key influencers (those with power) as well as strategies to convert visitors to more devoted members are suggested. This might help practitioners in developing strategies based on the brand situations to target different members or assist in role switching. For example, instilling information to tourists to help them become more engaged in the community. Facilitating aggregation through minglers or leveraging the increased participation of devotees and shaping the control for the insider and influencing the leader to lead other members can serve the brand and the company. Roles represent a level of brand loyalty and potential word-of-mouth (WOM) opportunity, for planning and implementing relationship marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) program, injecting dynamics to the vibrant consumer market (Mitussis et al., 2006). 137

An online brand community is also an effective tool for marketing/consumer behaviour research. From the threads generated and members’ interaction in the online brand community, practitioners are able to understand target consumers, what they really perceive about the brand, about their peers, about consumption activities. These are all valuable information. Conducting non-participate observation based on the discussion threads of certain topics can be a type of real-time research which may be undertaken with less hassle and cost involved.

Interactivity is the pivotal function through which the Internet gives power to consumers (Hummel & Lechner, 2002) and it is the key to the online brand community. Based on the understanding of consumer roles and power relationships in the online brand community, the interactive functions can contribute to strengthening the relationship and encouraging members to post more and be more open to others. For example, too many tourists will reduce the interactivity of the community (Farquhar & Rowley, 2006), so marketers should utilize the power realisation to help tourists change roles. Existing members do not like “newbies” to ask “simple and silly” questions, although there are people willing to help, like minglers or insiders. However, a “search” function in the community empowers members to search for a specific topic and reduce the chance to ask silly or repetitive questions. The personal post which asks for personal information would help strengthen the bond amongst members. For example there is a post in the Australian community asking everybody to post their own photos to let others know who they are talking with everyday. This post attracted almost everyone and it ranked as the most viewed and replied thread.

Another power based on interactivity is participation, such as the co-creation from consumers. How to make the most of the consumer’s co-creation power to create value to the company is another issue. Lego has done an outstanding job to leverage community to collect ideas and develop new products. Recently it even developed the program “SERIOUSPLAY™” which has made Lego another huge success in workshop training for organization team building. Participants come away with increased confidence and more commitment to the shared and common goals (Lego, 2008). However, co-creation can also cause misdirection from objectives. There was an incident where a Brisbane game company took too much notice of community 138

opinion in the process of product development and it failed in the end due to loss-ofdirection. Marketers should be the coaches (Xie, Bagozzi, & Troye, 2008), not only pure listeners who take everything as given straight from the community, and need to make concrete plans on how to use resources. Although members from the Australian and Chinese online brand communities chosen for this research do not try to use cocreation to affect the brand or marketers, as both communities are both fan created; members still contribute much new content for hedonistic or self-presentation reasons (Cova & Pace, 2006; McAlexander et al., 2002). Customization based on customer needs is an unavoidable trend in the brand/product development (Mohanbir Sawhney, 2005; Nambisan & Baron, 2007; Rowley, Kupiec-Teahan, & Leeming, 2007; Russo & Watkins, 2005) which needs special attention.

Another implication of this research is that practitioners need to find a way to control the size of the community. If it is too big, there is a risk of losing the sense of belonging, thus resizing or categorization might need to be considered, like forming sub-group based on various topics or other indicators. Apart from facilitating role changes, practitioners also need to assist in establishing and strengthening the characteristics of the community, such as sense of belonging and shared rituals or meanings (McAlexander et al., 2002). By doing this, they are able to enhance member’s loyalty to the community thus increase the brand loyalty in the long run.

Results from this research also indicate that the Australian community tends to hold more offline activities than their Chinese counterparts. Because of these occasional offline activities, like tournaments, members have the chance to meet each other face to face. Sometimes they hang out together, which in return strengthens the online relationship. This supports the literature that states that although the Internet contributes a lot to the structure, maintenance and longevity of the online brand community, the offline activities are also important which could extend the relationship amongst members, in a way strengthening the consciousness of kind (McAlexander et al., 2002; McAlexander & Schouten, 1998).

Community related research has gone through a few stages. From the offline brand community of Harley-Davison Owners Group to online brand communities like Apple, Nutella and so on to these days popular social networks such as LinkedIn, MySpace 139

and Facebook. The common aspect is that the consumer is always the focus of the relationship, and understanding them is the key. This research investigates the power relationship in the online brand community as a consumer to consumer (C2C) network (Pitta & Fowler, 2005). It will also shed light on the business to consumer (B2C) network, since most organizations with communities draw repeat visitors to B2C sites over 60% of the time, compared with only 33% for other B2C transaction sites without communities (Bughin & Hagel, 2000). A well-structured and operated community is the critical component to a company’s future success.

5.4 Limitations This research has drawn several implications as described in last section. However, as with any research project without rich empirical foundation, it has a number of limitations. 

Case study methodology: Generalizations and representativeness to the broader population are limited due to the nature of qualitative research with non-probability sampling method (Cavana et al., 2001; Davis, 1997). Therefore, the findings need to be tested for statistical generalizability in later research, using quantitative methods (Perry, 1998).



The gender issue: The consumption of chosen online game brands is highly male dominated, so are the data samples. However, generally the community is male dominated (Wallace, 1999) as they are more expressive and eager to share opinions; the exception will be those female-orientated communities, such as the ones set up for female brands or mother-topic related. Hence gender can be treated as a variable in further studies.



Discrepancies of two cases selected: they are two different games, thus consumers will be somewhat different, in terms of personality or age. Halo community members tend to be younger than their WoW community counterparts. It is highly recommended to replicate the study in one game brand in both countries to verify the results.

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Sample bias: the samples are confined to those who can provide specific information required by the research from these two communities (Cavana et al., 2001; Davis, 1997). There might be some information missing from

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unwilling-to-participate members. The imbalance between China and Australian respondent numbers are also the potential threat to the result. Furthermore, game players may be different from larger population in terms of personality and involvement on the Internet which is another inadequacy for generalizability.

5.5 Implications for Methodology This research adopts a combined data collection method, using face-to-face interviews and online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger) which proved suitable for the online community research. This successful adoption of data collection methods combination is another contribution of this research.

5.6 Future Research There are a number of areas in which further research may be undertaken to explore un-researched areas or to expand on the findings from this study. 

This study is exploratory in nature; the findings need to be generalized in other community settings, such as replication in different countries, on different product categories or the brand communities set up by companies. As a number of scholars also point out, quantity scale development to test different aspects of online brand community is on the agenda since there is a vast gap in research that needs to be filled (McAlexander et al., 2003; McAlexander et al., 2002; Muńiz Jr & O'Guinn, 2001; Szmigin et al., 2005).

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A longitudinal study is suggested for further studies, in order to observe the changing dynamics of online brand communities.

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How much control should be given to consumers? The most relevant and effective approach to communicate with different members in the online brand communities is another interesting area to explore.

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The optimum size for an online brand community is a potential research area raised by this study. Is there an optimum community size in terms of control of the brand and the community?

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Future research can also look at how online consumer power interacts with offline consumer power; and whether a CRM program can contribute to controlling consumer power on the Internet.

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Regarding the online game category, since the game playing environment is actually a community itself, a lot of researchers have investigated this area (Charlton & Danforth, 2007; Gao, 2004; Wood et al., 2004). Future studies can investigate the interrelationship between the game community and the game discussion community.

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More academic research regarding online consumer power is needed to comprehensively understand consumers’ motivation behind their behaviour and their attitudes variation towards brands. This will generate a much more complete picture to understand overall consumer behaviour within the Internet context.

5.7 Conclusion This final chapter has discussed the detailed implications of this study’s findings in terms of theory and practice. This research has presented a comprehensive understanding of consumer power structure in the online brand community. Importantly, it has bridged power theory and the online brand community typology to redefine the model of online community communication. It confirmed a number of findings from the extant literature. Furthermore, a new definition for power and member roles in the online brand community was suggested. In addition, by conducting the comparative case study of two online brand communities in Australia and China respectively, cross-cultural implications were given.

This research adds to the body of knowledge on consumer power in the advertising, marketing and consumer behaviour disciplines. Contributions include the proposal of a new definition of power, identification of member roles and the development of a model for power relationships based on member roles in the context of an online brand community. These contributions will help marketing practitioners significantly in planning more effective online strategies for approaching consumers in brand communities.

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The findings derived from this study also suggest a broad scope for further research directions, such as degree of control, the conduct of a longitudinal study, online versus offline power relationships and so forth. This research will help in fully understanding the structure of the community and how marketers can utilize the control exerted from within the community, individually and communally, in order to benefit their brand and other marketing endeavours.

The research successfully adopted combined face-to-face interviews and online synchronic interviews (via MSN Messenger) as the main data collection method, as a benchmark for future online qualitative research projects.

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Appendices Appendix I Interview Protocol (English) A. Welco me (Warm-up) Self introduction Project introduction Get the permission to tape record B. Gaming 1. How long have you been playing games? 2. What kinds of games do you play? 3. What do you enjoy most about playing games? C. Halo as the brand 4. Why do you play Halo? (What is about it that you like?) Have you always like Halo? 5. Who first introduced you to Halo? How long have you played Halo? 6. Do you only play Halo? Or mainly play Halo? Or play it as much as some other games? Do you constantly purchase new patches? 7. What are three words you would use to describe Halo? Or if you want to describe Halo as a person, what will be the person like? D. Halo forum as the online brand co mmunit y 8. Why did you first go to the site? (Like referred by friend or what?) How often do you visit Haloforum? 9. How would you describe the kind of people who visit the Haloforum site? Are they like you? Do you all think the same? (like-minded or totally different?) (How similar are your ideas or values?) How do you know that? What relationship do you have with this forum? 10. Have you noticed any kinds of special words or actions or in-jokes that people only use on this site? Things that people only seem to do here. Anything that you can remember. Or anything you do. 11. Do you feel any sort of responsibility to others on the site? Please describe. Would you help another Halo member if they asked? Or even only visitors? Why? Would you give them some advice or help them with their game skills? Do you feel as a member you should help others on the forum? 12. Have you changed any of your thoughts/attitude toward Halo after you joined the forum? Do you think your power get increased in the community –(added question)

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E. Control over the relationship- interaction with product/brand ‘controller’ 13. Have you or anyone else you know in the forum ever published anything that was deleted by the administrator? If so, what kind of post is that? how does that make you feel? Do they have the right to do that? 14. Are you aware ‘netiquette’? Do you follow that? Or do you follow forum rules? 15. Have you participated in any Game test held by the company or the agent? Any kind of research programs? 16. Have you thought of influencing any Game related content? Have you ever tried it? How? (for example, send email to the company about your ideas, etc.) F. Informat ion- knowledge sharing/debate 17. Do you ever just go to the site for information? How often? What kind of information? 18. Do you get good information on Haloforum? Where does it come from? Who posts it? How up-to-date/ useful is it? 19. What do you think of the people who post information? Are there some you believe, or information you value, more than the others? What kinds of people post most of the information? Are there any experts? Do you trust them or what they post? 20. How do you judge the quality of the information/post? 21. Do you ever post information? How often? What kind of information? 22. Do you feel you know a lot about Halo brand? Can you give me any examples? G. Aggregation—interact ion/different role/power among members 23. How would you describe you role in the Halo community? Have your roles changed over time? How & why? 24. What about other people? Do they have different roles? How are these roles decided? (By themselves or by others in the community?) 25. Do you think is it very important to be accepted by the community? 26. Do you feel you have certain control in the community? In which way? Are there people with more power, or more say, in the community? 27. Are there people who get picked on, or ignored or treated as a joke in the community? By whom? 28. What relationship you have with other members in the forum? Do you ever feel that your point has been directed by others? Do you think everyone is equal in the Haloforum? Can you think of any instances where they are? Can you think of any instances where they are not? 29. Is there anything anyone does on the forum that you really like? Is there anything anyone does that really annoys you? Do you do anything about it? 30. Do you have different small groups in the community? What’ the relationship? How did you form that? Any “conflict”? 31. Do you form offline activities? What kind? Often?

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H. Participat ion- co-creation/affect brand meaning? 32. Have you ever create some new content online? – Like the movie? On your own or with others? Have you promoted it? Have you tried to let the company know? 33. Have you ever recommended Halo game to friends? How many times? Would you ever recommend the forum site? Why or why not? I. Finishing 34. Any interesting stories ever happened in the forum? –(added question) 35. What else you want to tell us about your experience with Halo/ Halo Forum? Or even Microsoft? 36. If one day you decide to leave this forum, what the reason might be? 37. Do you have any questions about this project?

Basic Information Age Gender Education

Below 20 20-30 Male

Female

High School

Diploma/Undergraduate Postgraduate

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Appendix Π Interview Protocol (Chinese) A. 热身 自我介绍 项目介绍 得到允许录音 B. 于游戏 1. 你玩游戏有多久了？ 2. 你都在玩什么种类的游戏？ 3. 为什么你喜欢玩游戏？ C. 魔兽世界品牌 4. 为什么你玩魔兽世界？你总是玩这个么？ 5. 谁介绍你开始玩魔兽世界的？（或者说怎么开始的）玩多久了？ 6. 你只玩魔兽么？或者说花大部分时间玩这个？或者时间平均分配给其他游 戏？ 7. 如果让你用三个词来形容魔兽世界，会是什么？如果让你把它形容成一个 人，会是怎样？ D. 艾泽拉斯国家地理作为魔兽世界品牌社区 8. 你怎么样第一次来到艾泽拉斯国家地理社区的？(别人介绍或其他) 你的活动 频率如何？ 9. 你怎样形容在这个社区（艾泽拉斯）里的人？和你一样么？你们的想法/价 值观一致么？你怎么得出这个结论的？你怎么形容你和这个社区的关系？ 10. 你有注意到一些特殊的只在这个社区里使用的字，行为或笑话么？ 11. 在这个社区里，你觉得自己对他人有任何责任感么？请具体描述一下。如果 别的会员提问，你会给予帮助么？为什么？你会给他们建议或是帮助他们解 决技术上的问题？你觉得自己是会员就应该提供帮助给其他会员么？ 12. 在你加入这个社区之后，对于魔兽世界/暴雪的看法/态度有任何变化么？你 觉得自己对魔兽世界这个品牌的了解有多少？可以给我一些例子么？ 你认为自己的力量在社区里得到增强么？什么表现？--（新增问题） E. 对于关系的控制- 与产品/品牌/品牌‘管理者’的互动 13. 你的或者其他人的帖子曾经被管理员删除过么？如果是，这些都是什么样的 帖子？你感觉如何？你觉得他们有权利这么做么？ 14. 你是不是遵守‘netiquette’（网络礼仪）呢？或者你比较熟悉社区自己的规 矩？ 15. 你有参加过任何由公司/代理公司组织的游戏测试么？任何调研？ 16. 你有想过去影响和游戏有关的内容么？试过么？怎么做的？（例如：发电子 邮件给公司解释你的想法，等） F. 信息- 知识分享/探讨 17. 你来到社区是为了寻找信息么？多频繁？什么样的信息？

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18. 你能得到你想要的/好的信息么？从哪里来？谁发表的？及时/有用程度如 何？ 19. 你对于发表信息的人是怎么看的？有没有你对于其中一些信息的信任度或重 视度度比其他要高的情况呢？他们是专家么？你信赖他们的帖子/言论么？ 20. 你怎样来判断信息/帖子的质量呢？ 21. 你自己经常发帖子么？频率如何？什么样的信息？ G. 集体—会员间不同角色的互动，力量分配 22. 你怎样形容自己在社区里的角色呢？角色随着时间的变化有改变么？什么变 化？为什么？ 23. 其他人呢？他们都有不同的角色么？这些角色都是如何形成/决定的？（他 们自己或是其他成员） 24. 你认为被社区接受非常重要么？为什么？ 25. 你觉得自己在社区里有一定的控制力么？怎么样的？有没有一些人有相对来 讲更强的力量，或者说发言权？ 26. 有没有人受到攻击，或者冷落，或者被当成个笑话？被谁呢？ 27. 你和其他会员的在社区里的关系是怎样的？你有没有曾经感觉到自己的观点 被别人引导？还是自己想说什么就说什么？你觉得每个成员在社区里都平等 么？可以给我一些平等的例子么? 和一些不平等的例子。 28. 有没有你非常喜欢的什么人在社区里做得什么事情？或者你非常讨厌的？你 会做什么反应么？ 29. 你在社区里会有不同的“小组”么？如果有，组与组之间关系怎样？有‘纠纷’ 么？ 30. 你们会组织线下的活动么？什么样的？你觉得好么？ H. 参与—共同创造 31. 你有没有在社区里创作一些新的内容？--比如视频/小电影？你自己做还是和 他人一起？你会做一些推广的行为么？你有试过让公司知道么？ 32. 你有向其他朋友推荐过墨兽世界游戏么？多少次？你会向别人推荐这个社区 么？为什么？ I . 结束 33. 你对这个社区有依赖性么？你从中得到了什么？ 34. 如果有一天你决定离开这个社区，会是因为什么呢？ 35. 你还有什么希望告诉我们的关于与墨兽世界/社区的想法么？或者第九城市/ 暴雪？ 36. 你对这个项目有什么问题么？ 基本信息 年龄

20 以下 20-30

性别

男

教育程度

30—40

40 以上

女 高中

大专/大学 研究生

160

Appendix Ш Recruitment Posts on HaloForum and NGA.cn HaloForum

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NGA.cn

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Appendix IV Glossary of Terms Newbie — A character/player who is starting out fresh in the online game or any Internet activities.

Server — A powerful machine that hosts various software, files, and information to computers that connect to it. Game servers will hold the gaming worlds data, all details of characters/players connected to it that will provide feedback to all the computers (clients) around the world. LANs — A local-area network is a computer network covering a small geographic area, like a home, office, or group of buildings e.g. a school. The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to wide-area networks (WANs), include their much higher data-transfer rates, smaller geographic range, and lack of a need for leased telecommunication lines.

Source: Marine, Kirkpatrick, Neou, & Ward (1994) Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/)

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