Reputation Management in Social Commerce Communities

The social media revolution has created a shift from in E-commerce to social commerce. The voice of influence is moving from traditional marketers towards social commerce communities (SCCs). This transformation allows community members to develop rich relational-related resources via digital online network. In this study, we focus on reputation building based on social capital theory in the context of social commerce community. We enhance the understanding on social capital theory in social commerce communities by identifying antecedents to contributors' (i.e. members) community reputation. By analyzing panel data collected from a popular online forum, we found that reputation building is influenced by member centrality (structural capital), member tenure (cognitive capital), and member community reciprocity (relational capital). Of these, member centrality is the most influential factor. The study makes important contributions to research and practice.