The Impact of Perceived Interactivity of Virtual Brand Communities on Consumer Purchases of Domestic Electric Vehicles in China

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism (CE), perceived interactivity (PI), perceived value (PV), attitude, subjective norm (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), and intention to adopt energy-saving vehicles (EVs) in virtual brand communities among Chinese consumers. A total of 411 completed questionnaires were collected through purposive sampling to empirically test the proposed hypotheses using SPSS and AMOS-SEM. The results suggest that in the backdrop of China EVs market, CE and PI positively influence PV respectively, where CE positively influences intention and PI positively influences attitude simultaneously in virtual brand communities. PV further positively influences consumer attitude in such brand communities. Furthermore, attitude, SN, and PBC positively influence intention to purchase EVs, while SN directly influences PBC. In addition, PBC and attitude fully mediate the relationship between SN and intention. This study provides a more comprehensive explanation on the purchase of EVs among Chinese consumers in the virtual brand communities circumstance, by utilizing the theory of planned behavior in green marketing literature. Findings of this study would greatly benefit EVs business operators and other key stakeholders in the emerging markets.