Contract governance and value co-creation in virtual community: the moderating effect of psychological ownership

Previous research has identified the factors that affect the value co-creation in virtual community from the perspective of customer demands, however, less has been studied in the literature from the perspective of firms’ contract governance. Drawing on the literature on this topic, this paper focuses on the impact of contract governance on value co-creation in virtual community and introduces the belongingness, self-efficacy, and self-identity contained in psychological ownership of customers as moderators into the model. The findings show that contract governance has a positive effect on value co-creation in virtual community, psychological ownership has a positive moderating effect, which is mainly reflected in belongingness and self-identity of psychological ownership, but this effect is not obvious in self-efficacy of psychological ownership. This study will provide inspiration for brands to better manage virtual brand communities, enhance customers’ willingness to participate in value co-creation, and expand the research on transaction cost theory and value co-creation theory.