Positive and Negative Behaviors of Oppositional Loyalty in Online Communities

Abstract

Based on the theories of moral identity, community engagement, emotional attachment, and brand loyalty, this study aims to explore oppositional loyalty's driving factors and dimensional structure (the willingness to pay a price premium, oppositional referrals, schadenfreude, and trash-talking). Our samples comprised 533 members who contributed more than three posts monthly in Xiaomi's mobile online communities. The structural equation modeling method was utilized to test direct effects, and hierarchical regression was adopted to verify the moderating relationship. The findings show that community engagement and brand attachment positively affect oppositional loyalty, and brand attachment partly mediates the influence of community engagement on oppositional loyalty. Furthermore, moral identity positively moderates the impacts of community engagement and brand attachment on oppositional referrals. On the contrary, moral identity negatively moderates the relationships between community engagement and trash-talking as well as between community engagement, brand attachment, and schadenfreude. Negative effects on competing brands are harmful to favored brands through the moderating effects of moral identity. Enterprises and online communities should discard the idea that more oppositional loyalty is ideal and correctly guide members' positive and negative behaviors.