Understanding online community citizenship behaviors through social support and social identity

• Online community citizenship behavior (OCCB) is driven by social support and social identity.
• External prestige and community distinctiveness positively affect community identification.
• Community identification positively affects OCCB.
• Social support has a positive effect on self-efficacy, self-esteem, and subjective well-being.
• Subjective well-being has a stronger effect on OCCB than does community identification.

As with other types of online communities, the success of an online support community depends on members’ behaviors that benefit the community as a whole. Such discretionary conduct is called online community citizenship behavior (OCCB). This study integrates social support and social identity theory to examine factors affecting citizenship behaviors in online support communities. In the research model, we theorize that online community citizenship behavior is driven mainly by two social mechanisms: (1) the social support mechanism, which transfers the effect of online social support first to self-efficacy, self-esteem, and subjective well-being, and then to citizenship behavior; and (2) the social identity mechanism, which relates the perceived external prestige and distinctiveness of online support communities to community identification and, in turn, to citizenship behavior. Data collected from 159 valid users of online support communities provides partial support for the research model. The findings indicate that perceived external prestige and community distinctiveness positively affect an individual's identification with an online support community, which in turn has a positive effect on OCCB. Social support has a positive effect on self-efficacy, self-esteem and subjective well-being. Subjective well-being has a stronger effect on OCCB than does community identification. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.