![Sample our Economics, Finance,Business & Industry journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5931/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Economics-Finance-Business-Industry.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Online brand communities such as Facebook fan pages show an increasing level of cyber-victimization, which is where a community member is bullied by another member. Based on the cyber-victimization literature in psychology, we designed an experiment that explores how cyber-victimization affects three commercial outcomes, namely, a victim’s positive word-of-mouth intentions, community satisfaction, and community following intentions. Using a survey of 387 community members with past cyber-victimization experiences, our results show that outcomes differ significantly in relation to the severity of cyber-victimization (severe vs. mild) and the reactions (defending vs. reinforcing vs. pretending) from bystanders (i.e., uninvolved community members who witness the cyber-victimization incident). Our findings offer brand managers a better understanding of the undesirable effects of cyber-victimization in online brand communities, and of the type of reactions from bystanders that they may wish to encourage.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Nuttakon Ounvorawong
Nuttakon Ounvorawong is a visiting lecturer at Thammasat University, Thailand. He received his PhD in marketing from University of Kent, United Kingdom. His research interests include consumer misbehaviors, consumer-to-consumer hostility, online brand communities, and social media.
Jan Breitsohl
Jan Breitsohl ([email protected]) is an associate professor (senior lecturer) in marketing at Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom. His academic interests focus on aggressive consumer behaviors on social media and corporate response strategies. His work has been published in such journals as Journal of Retailing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Internet Research, Tourism Management, and many others. He also serves as an associate editor at The Information Society.
Ben Lowe
Ben Lowe ([email protected]) is a professor of marketing and Associate Dean for Global Engagement and Recruitment at Kent Business School, University of Kent, United Kingdom. His work has been published in such journals as European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, Technovation, and many others. He is an associate editor at the European Journal of Marketing and is on the editorial boards of several other journals.
Des Laffey
Des Laffey ([email protected]) is a senior lecturer in e-commerce at Kent Business School, University of Kent, United Kingdom. His work has been published in such journals as Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, Communications of the AIS, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Business Horizons, Journal of European Public Policy, and many others.