This study examines the dark side of online communities, especially barriers to customer engagement in online communities. A total of 301 responses from online community members were collected to examine the proposed hypotheses based on the Innovation Resistance Theory (IRT). The study also examines the mediating effect of negative anticipated emotions and moderating effect of association tenure and customer prior attitude. The findings suggest that performance, information overload, and social recognition barriers positively impact the users’ disengagement intention towards the online community. The negative anticipated emotions mediate the association between barriers and customer disengagement. Also, tenure was found to be a crucial moderator. The study contributes to the dark side of online community literature and suggests marketers how to reduce customer disengagement in online communities.

这项研究探讨了在线社区的阴暗面，特别是客户参与在线社区的障碍。总共收集了 301 份来自在线社区成员的回复，以检验基于创新阻力理论 (IRT) 提出的假设。该研究还检验了负面预期情绪的中介作用以及协会任期和客户先前态度的调节作用。研究结果表明，性能、信息过载和社会认可障碍对用户脱离在线社区的意图产生积极影响。负面预期情绪调节障碍与客户脱离之间的关联。此外，任期被发现是一个关键的调节因素。这项研究揭示了在线社区文献的阴暗面，并建议营销人员如何减少在线社区中的客户脱离。