Motivational function and online community participation towards brand commitment: A case of Grand Blue Wave Hotel, Shah Alam - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 135

brands loved by people and engage it in a fun
way”. This issue raised a critical question as to
why there is less participation among online com-
munity towards Grand Blue Wave Facebook page
despite of the hotel using social media to promote,
to make people loved their brand and engage in a
fun way.
Thus, the factors that would influence customer
commitment toward the brand in a social media
are worth to be studied further. Specifically, the
researcher studied the motivational functions per-
taining to Grand Blue Wave Hotel's Facebook
page and how the online community participa-
tion would have a significant impact on brand
commitment.

potential participants was taken from the personal
information from Facebook personal account of
fans that participated in the Grand Blue Wave
Hotel Facebook page. All data keyed in for anal-
ysis using a Statistical Package of Social Science
(SPSS), Version 20.0.

6 RESULT

Table 1 shows the result of hierarchical multiple
regressions. As can be seen beta ( ) value for the

first step of analysis (path c) is 0.176 (p

β

.003). By
looking at the beta value there is significantly low
contribution to the model. The R value for motiva-
tional functions towards brand commitment is.176
while the R 2 value (percentage of variance) for
motivational functions towards brand commitment
is only 3 percent (R2

=

4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

8.693***).
According to Cohen (1988), when the R value
ranges from 0.10 to 0.29 it is predicted as a weak
relationship. The second step of analysis (path a)
explained that motivational functions do not signif-
icantly affect online community participation with
standardized coefficient value

= .031, F change =

The following research questions were formulated
in supporting the objectives and direction for this
study:
RQ1: What is the relationship between motivational
function and brand commitment?
RQ2: What is the relationship between online
community levels of participation and brand
commitment?
RQ3: To what extent does online community par-
ticipation mediates the relationship between motiva-
tional function and brand commitment?

0.1169)
For the final test, online community participa-
tion (mediating variable) contributed minimally

β = .095 ( p =

Table 1. Summary of hierarchical multiple regression
analysis.

Step and variables

Model 1/ Std. β

Testing step 1 (path c)
Outcome: Brand commitment
Predictor: Motivational function
R
R2
Adj. R2
F change

5 METHODOLOGY

.176**
.176
.031
.027
8.693***

Respondents for this study consist of Grand Blue
Wave Hotel Facebook fans that have already par-
ticipated in Grand Blue Wave Hotel Facebook
page. Google Drive was used as the medium to
distribute the online questionnaire. Data was gath-
ered through emails. Email invitations were sent
to the potential participants, along with a link to
the online questionnaire. The email address of the

Testing Step 2 (path a)
Outcome: Online Community
Participation
Predictor: Motivational function
R
R2
Adj. R2
F change

.095

.095
.009
.005
2.474

Testing Step 3 (path b and c')

Model 2/ Std. β

Outcome: Brand commitment
Mediator: Online Community
Participation (path b)
Predictor: Motivational function
(path c')
R
R2
Adj. R2
F change

.173**
-.192**

.246
.060
.054
10.579***

Figure 1. Theoretical framework the role of motivation
functions in increasing brand commitment participation
adapted from Kang (2011).

Note : *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.