Customer engagement and consumer well-being in online brand communities

Customer engagement (CE) has been widely studied, but is often approached as something observable, with less attention to its underlying processes. At the same time, interest has grown in how participation relates to consumer well-being (CWB), especially within socially intensive digital contexts. These interactions increasingly take place in online brand communities (OBCs), where customers engage with brands and with each other on an ongoing basis. However, less is known about how psychological experiences develop through participation and how they relate to both engagement and well-being. To explore this, the study examines how engagement and well-being are experienced and how they develop through psychological processes within OBC participation. It examines how individuals make sense of their participation and how brand- and community-related cues shape these experiences. A sequential exploratory mixed-method design was used. The first phase involved qualitative interviews (26 first + 12 second wave), analysed using Straussian Grounded Theory. The findings show that engagement and well-being develop through two broad mechanisms. Some experiences lead to connection and alignment with the brand, while others introduce pressure or fatigue. These were interpreted as identity (self-brand connection) and strain (emotional exhaustion leading to negative brand experience) pathways. The second phase built on these insights into a quantitative model, tested using survey data (n=278) and Structural Equation Modelling. The results indicate that these psychological processes shape both engagement and well-being. The identity-based pathway shows a consistent positive relationship with engagement and well-being, while the strain-based pathway influences engagement more selectively, particularly affective and behavioural engagement. In summary, the study shows engagement and well-being develop through how individuals experience and interpret their participation. By bringing together qualitative insights with quantitative testing, it offers a more grounded understanding of both within OBCs.