1 Consequences of Consumer Interactions in Virtual Community Hazliza Haron Department of Servicing (Management) Universiti Teknologi Mara Cawangan Perak Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia hliza457@perak.uitm.edu.my Zarifah Fadilah Ramli Faculty of Business Management Universiti Teknologi Mara Cawangan Negeri Sembilan Seremban, Negeri Sembilan Malaysia Abstract— Social networking has become the main online platform not only to Generation Y cohorts, but also to other Internet user groups including Generation X and Baby Boomers . This not only affecting the way Internet users conducts their daily life; it also affects marketers (online and offline) in terms of their marketing practices. Especially to online marketers, this should be seen as a huge opportunity to revamp and revisit their marketing strategies in line with the changes that is happening. This research looks into the consequences of consumers’ participation in online communities or specifically in product-specific online forums. It investigates whether the participation in online community could influence consumers’ consumption-related behaviors such as spreading online and offline word of mouth. An online survey was conducted on 289 users of online communities adopting convenience sampling technique. Six independent variables were regressed against online and offline word of mouth behavior. Results show that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social influence and group norms positively affects online word of mouth behavior whereas online perceived usefulness and group norms affect the offline word of mouth behavior. Keywords—word of mouth; online interactions, virtual community; purchase decisions I. INTRODUCTION The diffusion and adoption of information technologies over the Internet in businesses and homes has significantly transformed the way marketing functions are being performed. Both marketers and consumers are increasingly benefitting from this development and adopting the Internet as a tool for information search, communication, transactions and distribution channels. The development of online relationship through online social networking and its rapid popularity has ushered in a new era in interpersonal communications. As teenagers and young adults are increasingly participating in virtual communities while expanding their online social networks, understanding this new trend could be viewed as a potentially profitable area for marketers especially online retailers, as it can provide new knowledge on the behaviour of the users who are also consumers. Although research on social networking has been in abundance, there has not been a clear understanding of the possible influence of users’ interaction online especially from marketing researchers. Previous studies that have been focusing on this area were mostly from the knowledge management and social network disciplines. A review of the literature on computer-mediated communication specifically in the area of consumer behaviour has revealed gaps that need to be studied and bridged. Past researchers have highlighted these gaps and examined various aspects of the dynamics of online consumer behaviour. For example, Valck (2005) examined the role of interpersonal interaction in the virtual communities and investigated its influence on consumer decision process in the offline purchase environment. While online participation is significant in influencing the offline purchase behaviours among consumers, this researcher believes that the behaviour of participating in the virtual communities could have relevant and significant impact on consumers’ consumption-related behaviors online and/or offline. Moreover, an empirical evidence of the comparison in terms of purchase potentials on both online and offline purchase environment is obviously lacking. Although membership of various online social networking and online communities are continuously increasing, the motives for consumers’ participation in those online communities are not very clear; the impacts of consumers’ participation in online communities, which is of interest to this study, are still