PROCESOS QUE INTERVIENEN EN LA FORMACIÓN DE LA BIOPELÍCULA

The previous section has introduced the two main models (TAM and TPB) in the study of online customer behaviour. Although these models are mainly used to identify the factors that facilitate IS use, the focus of this section is on the studies that adopt these models to study customer engagement behaviour in online communities. This section reviews the studies with two characteristics: first, the studies in which the developed model is based on TAM and TPB, and second those that include the customer engagement construct or similar constructs in the model.

Table 9 provides an overview of the studies undertaken to test the TAM and TPB models to study customer engagement in online communities. The column ‘Constructs’ presents the factors other than original factors in the model that were added to study customer participation behaviour in online communities.

Table 9 Summary of Studies Adopting TAM & TPB to Study Online Communities

Author Year Model Constructs The used

concept Context

Chung et al. (2010) TAM Internet self- efficacy, quality of online community, Technology affordance, Privacy protection Online community participation

Online panel for media research

Wang et al. (2010) TAM Internet self- efficacy, Community environment, Intrinsic motivation

Actual use Online panel

including

different online communities

Raunair et al. (2014) TAM Perceived playfulness,

critical mass, capability

Actual use Facebook

Casalo et al. (2010) TAM Identification Intention to

participation Online travel community

Park & Yang (2012) TPB Self-efficacy, collective efficacy

Participation Online environmental communities

Liu et al. (2010) TAM Perceived

interaction Intention to use Online learning community

Hajli et al. (2015) TPB Social support,

perceived value Participation Facebook, TripAdvisor, LinkedIn

Jung et al. (2014) TAM Informational benefit, social benefit

Actual use Online brand

community

Gwebu et al. (2014) TAM Trust,

enjoyment Continued use Facebook

According to Table 9, the following observations have been revealed. First, the ‘intention to use’ variable plays an important role in determining use behaviour or participation behaviour in the online community. Second, the findings of the studies suggest that the models based on TAM and TPB are robust across different settings and community populations. In support of this point, Zhao et al. (2013: 903) posit “the results from numerous studies suggest that belief-intention- behaviour framework is robust across a broad range of technologies, user populations, and settings”. Third, the models only include the motivational factors, and the consequences of using an online community have not been examined. The developed models mainly focus on testing the original factors in order to extend the application of the TAM & TPB in the online community context. Fourth, in contrast to the original model, the terms ‘participation’ and ‘actual use’ have been used to investigate the continued use of the online community. Despite the important

insights of the reviewed studies in understanding customer behaviour in the online community, the next section discusses the limitations of these two dominant theoretical perspectives on individual online community acceptance (Bhattacherjee and Sanford, 2006).

4.3.1 Limitations of Prior Models

The previous section presented the two important models used in investigations of customer behaviour in relation to Information Systems, particularly online communities. The reviewed studies have used terms such as actual use or participation to go beyond the IS adoption. However, the operationalisation of the mentioned terms is not different from the original variable in the model. To illustrate, ‘actual use’ has been operationalised in the same way as IS acceptance in the relevant studies. Moreover, Turner et al. (2010: 463) offer strong evidence that TAM variables are less likely to be correlated with actual use, and they conclude that “care should be taken using the TAM outside the context in which it has been validated”. In addition, ‘participation’ has been defined as the “likelihood of participating in an online community” (Hajli et al., 2015). Their definition of ‘participation’ does not clearly explain how customer behaviour is shaped in the online community. Furthermore, there is a lack of studies using TAM & TPB to investigate the customer’s behaviour after accepting and joining an online community. Although IS acceptance as initial adoption is important, it does not necessarily mean that users will engage in Information Systems after accepting them (Bhattacherjee and Sanford, 2006). Studying influential process towards IT acceptance comprises the dominant body of research while there is a lack of research regarding post adoption of IS. As mentioned in Section 3.2.2, customer engagement comprises different dimensions that result from customer interactions with the online community. Therefore, these models are not appropriate models to explain antecedents and consequences of customer engagement in the online brand community. Apart from this, the mentioned models (TAM, TPB) only consider internal variables based on user’s perception towards a particular Information System and only subjective norm as an external influence is examined, whilst prior research has identified the importance of external influences in shaping online behaviour (Legris et al., 2003). Thus, using these models would limit our understanding of factors that influence customer engagement in the online brand community.