Exploring the Impact of User Experience on Value Co-Creation Citizenship Behaviors in Virtual Brand Communities

With the proliferation of digital platforms, virtual brand communities have become important contexts for examining how individual perceptions shape discretionary behaviors in online environments. However, the mechanisms through which user experience translates into value co-creation behaviors remain underexplored. Drawing on relationship marketing theory and a behavioral perspective, this study develops and tests a theoretical model linking user experience to value co-creation citizenship behaviors through distinct dimensions of quality of relationship-satisfaction, trust, and commitment. Using a two-wave survey with 549 matched responses, we employ multiple regressions and bootstrapping analyses to assess mediation and moderation effects. The findings indicate that different dimensions of user experience have differential impacts on satisfaction, trust, and commitment, which in turn promote value co-creation citizenship behaviors, supporting their roles as central psychological mechanisms. Specifically, affective and behavioral experiences exert significant positive impacts on value co-creation citizenship behaviors, mediated by all three dimensions (satisfaction, trust, and commitment), whereas the influences of sensory and intellectual experiences are only mediated by two dimensions (satisfaction and trust) of the quality of relationship. In addition, perceived community support strengthens the relationship between satisfaction and value co-creation citizenship behaviors, while it exerts no significant moderating effects on the impact of trust or commitment on value co-creation citizenship behaviors. By situating value co-creation within a behavioral framework, this study contributes to the literature by exploring the mechanism through which user experience influences voluntary, citizenship-like behaviors in digital communities from a relational perspective, and by identifying boundary conditions under which these effects are amplified.