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ABSTRACT
As online travel bookings have grown, virtual travel communities have increasingly served as a marketing tool for companies. This study examines antecedents and moderators that affect satisfaction within a virtual travel community. As prior literature shows, satisfaction is important in that it can lead to greater profit generation. Although prior studies have examined factors related to satisfaction, there is a paucity of research incorporating moderators in the prediction of satisfaction in virtual communities. Based on prior research and well-established theories and measures, such as Social Capital Theory, we developed a moderated satisfaction model. We collected data from one of the largest online travel communities in China (China Internet Watch, 2013), and empirically tested hypotheses with a sample of 496 respondents. The results show that entertainment, social interaction ties, and reciprocity are significant predictors of satisfaction. Furthermore, online community affiliation moderates the relationship between interactivity and satisfaction, and the relationship between reciprocity and satisfaction. In addition, information value moderates the relationship between interactivity and satisfaction.
Funding
This study was supported by a grant from Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation (PI: Xueyan Yang, No. LY12G02005). This article is part of the project “Comparative Study on Public Services Equalization in Urban and Rural Areas Based on Information Technology” supported financially by Zhejiang Agricultural and Forestry University (ZAFU).
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Xueyan Yang
Yang Xueyan received her MBA at Zhejiang Agricultural and Forestry University and is pursuing her Ph.D. in E-Commerce at Dongbei Finance and Economics University. Before joining academics, she worked at China.com Group. She is an associate professor in Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University. Her research focuses on information technology adoption and E-Commerce. She has received several major grants, including Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation. She has published numerous papers in China and abroad.
Xiaoni Zhang
Xiaoni Zhang is a Professor of Business Informatics at Northern Kentucky University. She received her Ph.D. from University of North Texas in 2001. Her research interests include text mining, big data, business intelligence, technology adoption in healthcare, digital government, enterprise systems and mobile technology. Her publications appear in Communications of the ACM, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, European Journal of Information Systems, Information & Management, International Conference on Information Systems, and other journals. In 2004, she won Outstanding Scholarship Award in the College of Business at NKU. In 2010, she won the Sustained Excellence in Scholarly Activities Award at NKU.
Kevin P. Gallagher
Kevin P. Gallagher is an Associate Professor in Department of Management at Cleveland State University. He holds Ph.D. and MS degrees in Management with a focus in Information Systems and Organizational Behavior from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He was formerly a faculty member in the College of Business at Florida State University. His work has appeared in Communications of ACM, MIS Quarterly Executive, and Communications of AIS and other peer review journals, and received Best Paper Awards at international conferences, including the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management and the Americas Conference on Information Systems.