Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser Drivers of brand community engagement Jitender Kumar a,∗ , Vikas Kumar b a Faculty of Marketing, Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh - 201306, India b Indian Institute of Management Sirmaur, Rampur Ghat Road, Kunja Matralion, Paonta Sahib, District – Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh - 173025, India ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Brand community engagement Brand community experiences Brand community self-esteem Brand community relationship investment Brand community commitment Brand loyalty Brand ownership Online brand communities ABSTRACT Brand community engagement is evolving as a prominent relationship marketing variable that yields promising outcomes for the frms. Drawing upon the relevant premises of social exchange theory, this paper proposes a theoretical model portraying the role of online brand community based benefts (experience based and self- esteem based) and the community relationship investment in predicting the levels of brand community en- gagement. Data collected through a survey questionnaire technique from 925 members of the frm created online brand communities was employed to test the measurement and structural theory using confrmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling respectively. The empirical results reveal that the customers’ experiential and self- esteem based benefts drive their brand community engagement. The perceived community relationship in- vestment of the members also drives their brand community engagement positively. The sequential structural model also supported a positive impact exerted by brand community engagement on brand community com- mitment and brand loyalty. Additionally, it is observed that the focal brand ownership moderates the efect of community benefts and community relationship investment on brand community engagement. This study contributes to the nascent academic research on online brand communities and to the existing understanding of the brand community managers in managing customer engagement in online brand commu- nities, thereby of profound theoretical and managerial relevance. 1. Introduction Firms are increasingly becoming keen on the creation of online brand communities (OBCs) to manage customers because OBCs exert more power and infuence on the brands and ofer brand relationships a broader meaning (Cova and Cova, 2002; Porter and Donthu, 2008; Fournier and Lee, 2009; Baldus et al., 2015). Brand community re- lationships (BCR) have been attracting research attention since the in- ception of OBCs in the marketing literature (McAlexander et al., 2006; Zhou et al., 2012; Habibi et al., 2014; Kumar and Nayak, 2018). BCR promise favourable consumer attitudes and behaviours towards the community and the focal brand (McAlexander et al., 2002; Algesheimer et al., 2005) and have enduring strength due to its multifaceted (psy- chological, emotional, behavioural, social) manifestations than tradi- tional relationship variable like loyalty (Oliver, 1999; Schouten et al., 2007). Due to the aforementioned prominence of relationships formed with the community, contemporary relationship marketing variable like ‘engagement’ (Dwivedi, 2015) has transcended from brand level to brand community level (see Baldus et al., 2015; Dessart et al., 2016). Brand community engagement (BCE) 1 has emerged as a powerful and infuential community relationship variable (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Schau et al., 2009). BCE is defned as the identifcation with and par- ticipation in the brand communities and acts as a strong predictor of community based and brand based relational outcomes like satisfaction with the brand and the community at the same time (Wirtz et al., 2013). BCE is vital for brand community success (Fournier and Lee, 2009)asit reduces the normative community pressure (Loureiro and Kaufmann, 2018) which promotes members to perform favourable voluntary be- haviours towards OBCs. Despite the importance of online brand community (OBC) engage- ment, the concept remains underexplored in extant brand community research (Zhou et al., 2012; Sierra et al., 2016; Kumar and Nayak, 2018). Marketing Science Institute (MSI) and researchers have re- peatedly called for the identifcation of factors infuencing BCE (MSI, 2010, 2014; Hofman and Novak, 2012). Dessart et al. (2016) call for empirical studies exploring customer engagement with virtual brand https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101949 Received 10 September 2018; Received in revised form 15 June 2019; Accepted 11 September 2019 ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: jitender.kumar060188@gmail.com, jitender.kumar@bimtech.ac.in (J. Kumar), vikas.kumar@iimsirmaur.ac.in (V. Kumar). 1 Brand community engagement (BCE) and Online brand community engagement are used interchangeably to represent customer engagement with OBCs in this study. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services xxx (xxxx) xxxx 0969-6989/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Jitender Kumar and Vikas Kumar, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.101949