Friend or foe? Customer engagement’s value-based effects on fellow customers and the firm

Customer engagement (CE) research has rapidly developed in recent years, with insight being gleaned in such areas as CE conceptualization, valence, measurement, and theoretical associations. However, despite the development of understanding of CE’s impact on the focal customer (e.g., by cultivating his/her brand attachment/loyalty), much less remains known regarding CE’s effects on other actors, particularly on multiple actors simultaneously. Based on the premise that differing actors tend to have different goals/interests, as advanced in stakeholder theory, we deduce that positive/negative CE can yield differing perceived value-based effects across actors. To address this issue, we examine the particular case of positive/negative CE’s value-creating/eroding effects as perceived by the actors of fellow customers and the firm, which we classify in a multi-actor typological framework. After introducing the typology, we conclude by outlining key implications that arise from this research, limitations, and avenues for further research on CE’s multi-actor effects.