Understanding Factor Configurations Explaining Physician Loyalty to Online Health Communities Based on an Extended RFD Model (Preprint)

Abstract

Given the dilemma of problematic physician engagement in the online health community (OHC), the improvement of OHC physician loyalty is able to enhance OHC's sustainable development and physician stickiness effectively.

This paper attempts to investigate the status, difference and factor configurations of OHC physician loyalty.

Based on the extended RFD model, six OHCs in China were selected as datasets to measure 509 physician loyalty of haodf.com. Drawing on perceived value theory and the fsQCA method, the factor configurations explaining OHC physician loyalty are presented from the perspective of benefit and cost.

The distribution of OHC physician loyalty is uneven. Except for minor physicians with high levels of loyalty, most physicians have moderate or low loyalty. Drawing on behavioral and attitudinal loyalty, 509 physicians could be classified into 18 true-loyalty physicians, 107 latent-loyalty physicians, and 384 no-loyalty physicians. For true-loyalty physicians, they demonstrate more proactive behaviors than the other two. Latent-loyalty physicians have high attitudinal loyalty but low behavioral loyalty. The perceived benefits of no-loyalty physicians are minor than true-loyalty and latent-loyalty physicians, but their perceived cost is higher than the other two types. In addition, drawing on the fsQCA method, this study also discovers 2 types of factor configurations that explain OHC physician loyalty, including low-cost type and dedicated type.

This study expands the application context of the RFD model, reveals the uneven distribution law of OHC physician loyalty degree, identifies physician groups in three loyalty conditions, and explores two factor configurations that explain OHC physician loyalty.