Outcomes of Cyber-victimization and Bystander Reactions in Online Brand Communities

Online brand communities such as Facebook fanpages show an increasing level of cyber-victimization, which is where a community member is bullied by another member. Based on the cyber-victimization literature in psychology, we designed an experiment that explores how cyber-victimization affects three commercial outcomes, namely a victim’s positive word-of-mouth intentions, community satisfaction and community following intentions. Using a survey of 387 community members with past cyber-victimization experiences, our results show that outcomes significantly differ in relation to the severity of cyber-victimization (severe vs mild) and the reactions (defending vs reinforcing vs pretending) from bystanders (i.e. uninvolved community members who witness the cyber-victimization incident). Our findings offer brand managers a better understanding of the undesirable effects of cyber-victimization in online brand communities, and on the type of reactions from bystanders that they may like to encourage.