Virtual Customer Environments: IT-Enabled Customer Co-innovation and Value Co-creation - Information Technology and Product Development - page 111

customers to learn about various aspects of a product, the depth of topics discussed
enables them to gain a more fundamental understanding of the product - learning
that may lead to more effective product usage.
6.3.2 Social Integrative Benefits
In a VCE, the social context is defined by the participating customers and mem-
bers of the host firm. Social integrative benefits reflect the benefits deriving from
the social and relational ties that develop over time among the participating entities
in the VCE (Nambisan, 2002). Such social relationships provide a range of benefits
to the customer, including enhancement of a sense of belongingness or social iden-
tity (Kollock, 1999). Studies on brand communities (McAlexander, Schouten, &
Koening, 2002; Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001) have documented the considerable value
customers place on such social identity and relationships.
Interactions in VCEs that involve identity persistence enhance the probability of
deriving gains from the social ties in the future (Kollock, 1999). Such identity per-
sistence enhances customers' expectations regarding future interactions with peer
customers. Prior studies (e.g., Walther, 1994) have shown that anticipation of future
interactions in a community lead members to invest more in mutual understanding
and facilitate the creation of the social identity. This has also been evidenced in the
case of brand communities (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). Thus, it is expected that the
extent of stable identity afforded by the VCE will be related to customer perceptions
about social integrative benefits.
6.3.3 Personal Integrative Benefits
Personal integrative benefits relate to gains in reputation or status and the achieve-
ment of a sense of self-efficacy (Katz et al., 1974). VCEs serve as a venue
for individual customers to exhibit their product-related knowledge and problem-
solving skills.
By contributing to product support, customers can enhance their expertise-related
status and reputation among peer customers as well as with the product vendor
(Wasko & Faraj, 2000; Harhoff, Henkel, & von Hippel, 2003). The more in-depth
and diverse the product-related issues that are discussed in the VCE, the better would
be the opportunity for individual customers to demonstrate their unique knowledge
and/or breadth of expertise (Jeppesen & Molin, 2003) - and hence, the greater
the potential to enhance their product-related status in the community. Kollock
(1999), drawing on social exchange theories (e.g., Blau, 1964), has emphasized the
power and sense of self-worth or self-efficacy that individual customers may feel
by exercising such influence in online customer forums. Discussions that relate to
complex product-usage problems provide the context for customers to suggest inno-
vative ways of product usage (thereby influencing peer customers' product usage) as
well as innovative product improvement ideas (thereby influencing the host-firm's