Investigating the intention to purchase digital items in social networking communities: A customer value perspective

Some social networking community service providers have earned revenue by selling digital items to their community members. We examined SNC member decisions to purchase digital items based on customer value theory. Six factors were extracted from three dimensions of customer value: functional, social, and emotional value. Our findings indicated that the effects of value on member purchase intentions were significant in terms of the emotional and social dimensions. Our results should help SNC providers by improving their sales of digital items. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 10 8976 4410; fax: +82 2 2123 8654. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (H.-W. Kim), [email protected] (S. Gupta), [email protected] (J. Koh).