The Influence of Online Social Value Co-creation Activity on Consumer Purchase Intention: An Experimental Study

In recent years, an increasing number of online social value co-creation activities are conducted by companies in their marketing campaigns. A question is that whether these activities that take social responsibilities could help enterprises improve marketing performance. Drawing from social interaction theory, this study explores the causal effect of online social value co-creation on consumer purchase intention through three experiments. The results show that social value co-creation can stimulate consumer purchase intention. Moreover, consumer-company identification plays a mediating role in linking social value co-creation to purchase intention. In addition, compared to low social norms, high social norms are more likely to weaken the influence of social value co-creation on consumers' buying intention. The study provides both theoretical and practical implications to research area. Limitation and future research directions are also discussed.