THE IMPACT OF ONLINE BRAND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ON PURCHASE INTENTION

Abstract

Globally, starting nearly from 2010 the researches interest on online brand community engagement area was grown where two scholars have done two researches to explain the dimensions of OBC engagement which at present stands as the most validated measurement scales. The scholars have mentioned this area of the subject should be investigated more and the scales introduced should be tested in different categories. Locally, there's only one research done on this area. With the gradual increase in internet penetration in Sri Lanka the need of having more confidence on how a brand should act on an OBC is important. The study objectives are to identify the level of impact of online brand community engagement, on purchase intention, to identify the relationship between online brand community engagement on purchase intention, to identify the impact of online brand community engagement on purchase intention, to identify the online brand community engagement dimension, which have the most significant impact on Purchase intention with special reference to the banking sector in Sri Lanka. A quantitative approach with a questionnaire-based sample analysis is the base of this study with an online survey and printed questionnaire. As the sample population, any teachers in the Polonnaruwa area who has an active Facebook account and are follow on any Facebook page related to the banking sector are considered. For this purpose, the survey questionnaire was considered as a tool to get responses from 371 teachers. In this study, the statistical tools that were used to analyze the levels of variables are mean and SD values, while relationships were measured by Pearson coefficients, impacts were measured by simple linear regressions and multiple linear regressions for measured the most significant dimension. This study concludes that the result shod significant positive associations among all the variables, by denoting a positive relationship between online brand community engagement and purchase intention too, also the most significant dimension is the helping dimension. Hence, this study will help to the extent to which community activities affect the purchase intention of the Sri Lankan banking sector through new internet penetration as well as engaging the business community for further research on the use of social media and to consider new approaches to this.