Emotional brand attachment is a key driver of long-term consumer–brand relationships, yet limited research has examined how different brand community structures foster such attachment. This study compares the effects of participation in small-group versus network-based brand communities and investigates the moderating role of regulatory focus. Using an online survey of 1,773 consumers from two Chinese-speaking markets, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted while controlling for product involvement, self-congruence, and public self-consciousness. The results show that brand community participation enhances emotional brand attachment, with participation in small-group communities exerting a significantly stronger effect than participation in network-based communities. Promotion-focused consumers develop stronger emotional attachment through small-group participation, whereas prevention-focused consumers exhibit weaker attachment in network-based communities. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating how community structure embeds psychological distance, thereby extending construal-level theory, and by identifying regulatory focus as a key boundary condition shaping emotional outcomes in brand communities. The findings also offer practical insights for designing brand community strategies that align with consumers’ motivational orientations.
Yu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.