Drawing upon social capital theory and the platform synergy perspective from systems theory, this studydevelops an explanatory model to explain how social capital, platform synergy and active participationaffect consumer benefits in an online group buying (OGB) context. Data gathered from OGB consumersthrough a large-scale online survey is used to test the hypotheses. The conceptual model was validatedusing the partial least squares (PLS) technique. The results show that (1) the consumer benefits createdby engaging in OGB are contributed collectively by social capital (i.e., social interaction ties, trust,and value of sharing), active participation and platform synergy; (2) the social capital enhances consumerbenefits by increasing consumers’ active participation; (3) the OGB platform synergy has a positiveimpact on social capital, active participation and consumer benefits. Our findings highlight the important
role of active participation in mediating the effect of social capital and platform synergy on OGBconsumer benefits. The results provide insights into (1) how OGB platform developers can providesynergic functionalities that are compatible to OGB activities to enhance consumers’ capabilities andthe efficiency of OGB processes; (2) how OGB managers and initiators can leverage platform synergy
to enhance social capital and the mediating role of OGB consumers’ active participation in exchangeresources within the OGB community, thereby leading to effective consumer benefit creation._ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
