Parasocial and interpersonal interaction: distinct associations with customer value co-creation in virtual brand communities

Virtual brand communities expose members to communication from the brand side and interaction with other members, but these sources may not relate to participation through the same psychological processes. Drawing on the stimulus organism response framework, social identity theory, and social cognitive theory, this study tested whether community identification and self-efficacy statistically accounted for indirect associations between parasocial interaction, interpersonal interaction, and customer value co-creation behavior. The hypotheses were examined in an unpublished cross-sectional survey of 240 adult users of virtual brand communities in China. An audit of the questionnaire and data codebook corrected a prior item-block parsing error and established the intended 30-item measurement structure. Internal consistency was acceptable for the five composites (Cronbach's alpha = 0.730-0.837; McDonald's omega = 0.744-0.838). A five-factor confirmatory model fit better than models combining the interaction constructs, combining the mediators, or placing all items on one factor, although its absolute fit and discriminant validity were only partly satisfactory (CFI = 0.870, TLI = 0.857, RMSEA = 0.064, SRMR = 0.056). Regression estimates used HC3 robust standard errors, and indirect associations used 5,000 percentile-bootstrap samples. Parasocial interaction uniquely predicted community identification and self-efficacy, and both variables were associated with customer value co-creation. The indirect associations of parasocial interaction through community identification (B = 0.163, 95% CI [0.038, 0.303]) and self-efficacy (B = 0.167, 95% CI [0.053, 0.281]) were statistically detectable. Interpersonal interaction retained a direct association with customer value co-creation but did not uniquely predict either proposed mediator when both interaction variables were included; its two specific indirect associations were not statistically detectable. Results were similar after excluding uniform responders and after adding demographic and community-use controls. The findings distinguish relational and capability-related correlates of parasocial interaction while showing that interpersonal interaction may share substantial variance with brand-side relational experience. Because the data are cross-sectional, same-source, and affected by incomplete discriminant validity, the indirect effects are interpreted as covariance patterns consistent with the proposed pathways rather than evidence of causal psychological mechanisms.