Collective empowerment in online communities: conceptualization, scale refinement, and validation

Abstract

Online communities provide consumers with an avenue to harness the collective power of their members and advocate changes to products and services of an organization. Drawing on social identity theory, we conduct a series of studies to conceptualize, refine, and validate a measure of “collective empowerment in online communities”. We demonstrate its dimensional structure comprising cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and relational empowerment. The four-dimensional empowerment construct provides a foundation for further consumer research to explore the effects of online collective empowerment on consumer behavior outcomes. Managerially, marketers can use the measure to track members’ perceptions and leverage the efforts of their online community.