Consumer engagement in social media: scale comparison analysis
Journal of Product & Brand Management
ISSN: 1061-0421
Article publication date: 27 January 2020
Issue publication date: 23 June 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Engagement is a construct that varies according to the subject, object and context; this has been used to justify the coexistence of a variety of construct definitions and scales. Instead of proposing a new scale, this paper aims to create a procedure for comparing scales and to use it to evaluate brand engagement measures in social media.
Design/methodology/approach
This study first defines a procedure for the selection, standardization and comparison of scales; this procedure considers both the classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT). The authors apply the procedure in a survey of 233 respondents to compare three scales for measuring consumer engagement with brands in social media.
Findings
The establishment of a procedure for scale comparison is useful in assisting researchers to choose specific measures. Results showed that the three scales have similar characteristics, but Vivek et al.’s (2014) scale is recommended when better discrimination between construct dimensions is required, Hollebeek et al.’s (2014) scale could be used as a one-dimensional scale and Dessart et al.’s (2016) reduced scale has better ability to capture information for the affective and cognitive dimensions. None of the scales were very efficient in discriminating weakly and strongly engaged individuals.
Originality/value
This study makes a substantive contribution by proposing a procedure for scale comparison that considers CTT and IRT and shows the advantages, limitations and recommendations for using three different scales of consumer engagement.
Keywords
Citation
Ferreira, M., Zambaldi, F. and Guerra, D.d.S. (2020), "Consumer engagement in social media: scale comparison analysis", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 491-503. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-10-2018-2095
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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