1. Understanding Local Residents’ Online Helping Behavior From A Dual Social Identity Perspective Bingjie Liu Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management University of Florida William C. Norman Professor Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management Clemson University March 2013

2. Acknowledgement This research is funded by SETTRA Student Research Grant (2012)

3. Introduction The switching persuasion power on potential tourists’ travel behaviors (Casaló, Flavián, & Guinalíu, 2011) The influence of online travel communities (Arsal, Backman & Baldwin, 2008 ) The import role of local residents’ contribution (Arsal et al., 2008; Arsal, Woosnam, Baldwin, & Backman, 2010)

4. Purpose of Statement Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand why local residents offer help in online travel communities by examining the influence of their dual social identities of local resident and online travel community member

5. Literature Review Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1978) Social Identity and prosocial behavior (Dholakia et al., 2004; Thomas, McGarty & Mavor, 2009) Social identity as a local resident: cognitive social identity, affective social identity, and evaluative social identity (Ellemers, Kortekaas, & Ouwerkerk, 1999 ) Social identity as an online travel community member member participation, member attachment (Qu & Lee, 2011)

6. Research Questions What are the underlying components that make up these members’ social identification process as a local resident as well as an online travel community member? Is there a relationship between the social identify of local resident and their online helping behavior? Is there a relationship between the social identity of online travel community member and their online helping behavior?

7. Methods—Data Collection Data Collection Study Site: the online travel community CouchSurfing Systematically random selected members Members residing in the Southeastern US Web-based survey

8. Methods—Variable Measurement Variable Measurements Social identity as local resident cognitive identity, affective identity, and evaluative identity (Dholakia et al., 2004) Social identity as online travel community member member participation, member attachment (Qu & Lee, 2011) Helping Behavior (Batson et al., 1990) Likelihood of offering help, certainty of offering help, and level of help

9. Results—profile of respondents Response Rate 29.5%, 377 completed cases were included Age a mean age of 32 years old ranging from age of 18 to 65 Gender half of them (52.9%) were male Education the majority of them (86.5%) had college or higher degree Employment : about six out of ten of them (57.7%) were employed full-time

10. Results—Profiles of Respondents Online Travel Community Membership the majority of respondents (78.3%) hold a single membership Length of Residency four out of ten of the respondents (42.0%) have lived in their current community for 1-5 years

11. Results--Factor Analysis RQ1: What are the underlying components that make up these members’ social identification process as a local resident as well as an online travel community member? social identity of local resident (α=.96 ) online community attachment (α=.90) online community participation (α=.74) total explained 76.91% of the variance

12. Results-OLS Analysis RQ2. Is there a relationship between the social identify as a local resident and their online helping behavior? Cognitive social identity (p=-.797) Affective social identity (p=. 032) Evaluative social identity* (SE B=. 321, p<.05) * At a significant level of.05

13. Results—OLS Analysis RQ3. Is there a relationship between the social identify as an online travel community member and their online helping behavior? Online travel community member participation* (SE B= 0.164 p<.05 ) Online travel community member attachment* (SE B=.187, p<.05) * At a significant level of.05

14. Discussion The value of Local Resident Contribution in terms of online helping behavior Community construction and destination marketing Social Identity as a local resident The transfer from reality to online environment Empower the local resident Create more opportunities for host-guest communication Social Identity as an online travel community member Attachment at an online sphere Participation: reward system

15. Limitation The population is delimited to members residing in other areas The study site is delimited to other online travel communities

16. Thank you