How Brand Community Practices Create Value

TLDR

Brand community practices consist of procedural rules, tacit skills, and emotional commitments that shape member behavior. The study uses social practice theory to uncover how collective value is created within brand communities. The authors analyze published research and data from nine diverse brand communities to identify a common set of value‑creating practices. They find 12 common practices organized into four thematic aggregates that enable consumers to realize value beyond firm expectations, with practices exhibiting physiological interactions, apprenticeship functions, cultural capital, insider sharing, consumption opportunities, vitality, and value creation, and they offer managerial implications for nurturing such communities.

Abstract

Using social practice theory, this article reveals the process of collective value creation within brand communities. Moving beyond a single case study, the authors examine previously published research in conjunction with data collected in nine brand communities comprising a variety of product categories, and they identify a common set of value-creating practices. Practices have an “anatomy” consisting of (1) general procedural understandings and rules (explicit, discursive knowledge); (2) skills, abilities, and culturally appropriate consumption projects (tacit, embedded knowledge or how-to); and (3) emotional commitments expressed through actions and representations. The authors find that there are 12 common practices across brand communities, organized by four thematic aggregates, through which consumers realize value beyond that which the firm creates or anticipates. They also find that practices have a physiology, interact with one another, function like apprenticeships, endow participants with cultural capital, produce a repertoire for insider sharing, generate consumption opportunities, evince brand community vitality, and create value. Theoretical and managerial implications are offered with specific suggestions for building and nurturing brand community and enhancing collaborative value creation between and among consumers and firms.