Reputation Signals and Their Influence on Participation in an Online Community: An Extended Abstract

Branded online communities have become an integral part of doing business, as customer membership can have a direct impact on the bottom line. A recent study found that customers who join online communities increase their online purchases online by 37 % and offline by 9 % (Manchanda et al. 2012). A key component of these communities is the way in which users’ reputation in the community is signaled (Lampel and Bhalla 2007). While one community might construct a hierarchy of labels to display user status such as Newbie, Citizen, and Super Citizen in the T-Mobile Support Community, another may use numerical scores such as points. For example, users in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society community gain points based on the number of comments that they post to the community. Most communities employ one reputation signal type or highlight one type over another if multiple types are used simultaneously. Even when points and labels are used to signal reputation concurrently, a pilot study (N = 80) shows that consumers tend to rely on one reputation signal type (points or labels) as the major signal (i.e., 70 % of participants in a multiple-signal condition could recall only one signal type), and directional evidence suggests that the presence of multiple signals may be confusing (M_Multiple = 3.47 vs. M_One = 3.14). As such, the focus of our research is to systematically explore the differences in consumer perceptions of each reputation signal type individually.