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Title:
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NON COMMERCIAL B2C VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES: VIRTUAL BRAND COMMUNITIES AND COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE: AN EXPLORATORY QUALITATIVE STUDY FOR A PRECISION OF CONCEPTS |
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Author(s):
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Imène Ben Yahia |
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ISBN:
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972-8924-23-2 |
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Editors:
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Sandeep Krishnamurthy and Pedro Isaías |
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Year:
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2006 |
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Edition:
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Single |
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Keywords:
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Virtual community, brand community, community of practice, B2C virtual community |
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Type:
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Full Paper |
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First Page:
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65 |
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Last Page:
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72 |
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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 B2C virtual communities. On one side, the paper notes that some researches in Marketing tend to design any community within the official Website of the brand as a B2C virtual brand community. However, the empirical results show that the passion to the brand, which is an essential characteristic of a brand community, is not usually the common point that gathers participants. On the other side, the paper notes that communities of practice have been considered only from a B2B perspective. However, the empirical results show that the exchange of knowledge in such communities is no more exchanged only between professionals but between companies and consumers too. So the paper calls for a new consideration of B2C virtual communities. It tries to remove these confusions through an exploratory qualitative study and finishes by an examination of the managerial and the academic implications. |
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