ABSTRACTINTENTION TO SHARE PROMOTIONAL OFFERS IN BRAND SOCIAL COMMUNITIES: THE ROLE OF PERCEIVED TRANSACTION AND SOCIAL VALUE BySung-Mi Lee This dissertation adopts an equity theory to investigate how the type of promotional offer affects the perceived value of the offer and subsequently the intention to share among users of brand social communities. The study argues that such effect on the perceived value and intention to share is affected by users' familiarity with the brand of the promotional offer and the tie strength between users who share the offer and users who receive the offer. These causal relationships constitute a model of promotional offer sharing behavior in brand social communities. Equity theory that underlies the principle of reciprocity states that individuals prefer an equitable (balanced) exchange, and if it is unbalanced, the feelings of indebtedness ultimately generate the positive response to reciprocate favors (Adams, 1965). The theory has been applied to marketing and advertising contexts such as the sponsorship of charitable events (Dean, 2002) and the use of sales promotion (Ramanathan & Dhar, 2002), but it has not been applied to the sharing of promotional offers in brand social communities. Brand social communities are keen on building relationships with consumers through implementing effective promotion strategies. Promotional offers in brand social communities have been one of the common ways to encourage patronage of new users (Guy, 2010). Thus, understanding the response of users to different promotional offers in brand social communities is essential to the growth of brand social communities. Unlike traditional promotional offers that are typically valid only for the consumers who receive them, promotional offers in brand social communities generally encourage consumers to forward the sharable offers to their friends. Consumers tend to evaluate potential benefits and costs not only for themselves, but also for their friends in sharing promotional offers. Thus, identifying factors that affect consumers' perception of promotional offers and the likelihood of sharing such offers will be useful in advancing the literature of online promotion as well as helpful for managers of brand social communities. This study uses a 3 x 2 x 2 between-subject factorial design, which varies the type of promotional offer (for me only, for my friend or "you" only, or for both me and you), the brand familiarity (familiar or unfamiliar), and the tie strength (strong or weak). A total of 317 undergraduate students participated in the experiment and the results indicate that promotional offer type significantly affects the perceived value in that transaction value is perceived higher in "offers for me only" whereas social value is higher in "offers for you only," with transactional and social values perceived similarly for "offers for both." The results also show that brand familiarity influences perceived transaction and social value of promotional offers. Finally, the results show that perceived transaction and social value positively affects intention to share promotional offers.
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