Antecedents and Consequences of Online Brand Community Participation in Iran: (Case Study: Elite Virtual Brand Community)

An organization with robust brand in virtual community will be more successful in its marketing. One of the important aspects in each virtual brand community is active community members’ participation. Due to the importance of members’ participation in online brand communities, this article investigates the antecedents and consequences of online brand community participation. A sample of 578 online form completed by Elite brand community members. This paper explains the casual relationships using Lisrel. According to the results, social benefits has positive relationship with online brand community participation. Also this online brand community participation results in consciousness of kind and shared rituals and traditions. Although perceived benefits and shared rituals and traditions has positive relationships with brand loyalty, consciousness of kind has negative one with brand loyalty. As an innovation this article proposed a new conceptual framework with variables which not considered in prior researches.