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Title:
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NON COMMERCIAL B2C VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES: DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION AN EXPLORATORY QUALITATIVE STUDY |
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Author(s):
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Imène Ben Yahia |
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ISBN:
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ISSN: 1645-7641 |
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Editors:
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Pedro Isaías |
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Year:
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2007 |
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Edition:
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V V, 1 |
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Keywords:
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B2C Virtual community, brand community, communitys orientation, communitys object. |
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Type:
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Journal Paper |
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First Page:
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129 |
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Last Page:
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144 |
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Language:
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English |
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Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload 
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Paper Abstract:
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This paper highlights some confusion in the marketing literature concerning virtual communities of
consumers which are initiated by companies in their web sites. Some researches in Marketing tend,
indeed, to design any community within the official Website of the brand as a B2C virtual brand
community. However, the paper notes that the passion to the brand, which is an essential characteristic of
a brand community, is not usually the common point that gathers net surfers in the brands web sites.
Through a participating observation, this article tries, therefore, to bring some clarification on B2C
virtual communities by proposing them a definition and a typology. The latter rests on the central object
of the community like on its orientation. The qualitative empirical results stress the different forms of
B2C virtual communities and note that virtual brand communities are just one form of them. The paper
finishes by an evaluation of the proposed typology according to the five criteria of Hunt (1991). |
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