Relationships among para-social interaction, perceived benefits, community commitment, and customer citizenship behavior: Evidence from a social live-streaming platform

Abstract

Encouraging online consumers to participate in the value enhancement process of products and stimulating users to engage in spontaneous and voluntary behaviors, the so-called Customer Citizenship Behaviors (CCBs), can significantly contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of online communities. Nowadays, there has been no systematic discussion on enhancing product value through value co-creation. Based on the Social Exchange Theory (SET), and take the current new type of online community, the social live-streaming community, as the research object, this study investigates how Para-social Interaction (PSI) between users and streamers affects users' perceived benefits, whether perceived benefits are related to users' community commitment and the relationship between community commitment and CCB from the perspective of value co-creation. Three hundred and forty-seven valid samples from China were obtained using TikTok and subsequently analyzed via Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The analysis results show that PSI positively influences users' perceived benefits, and among the perceived benefits, hedonic and self-esteem benefits can positively influence users' community commitment. When users' community commitment to live-streamers exists, it can effectively incentivize users to develop CCB. Theoretically, research findings enrich the study of online community value co-creation, para-social interaction, and citizenship behavior and provide recommendations for operating social live-streaming platforms.