VALIDATING THE CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT WITH SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND-RELATED CONTENT (CESBC) SCALE: EVIDENCE FROM THE CROATIAN MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SECTOR
Lordan Kondića, Vanja Šebekb, Dino Giergiac
a Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, Triagon Academy, Malta, Joseph.J.Cilia@mcast.edu.mt
b Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, Triagon Academy, Malta
Abstract
Social media has intensified the need for theoretically grounded and psychometrically sound measures of consumer engagement with brand-related content. Although engagement is widely studied, its operationalisations vary substantially across studies and contexts, which complicates cumulative knowledge development and cross-country comparison. This study validates the consumer engagement with brand-related social media content (CESBC) scale, which captures three behavioural levels of engagement (following/consuming, reacting/contributing, and creating) in the Croatian mobile telecommunications market. Data were collected through an online survey of Croatian mobile-network users; after restructuring responses to the brand level and applying established data-screening procedures, the analytic sample comprised 294 brand evaluations provided by 172 respondents. The CESBC scale demonstrated strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0,90–0,96; composite reliability = 0,90–0,96) and adequate convergent validity (AVE = 0,64–0,80), with all standardised loadings exceeding 0,70. All reliability and validity coefficients are rounded to two decimals. Overall model fit was, however, only marginal (CFI = 0,883; TLI = 0,866; RMSEA = 0,120), and discriminant validity was not supported between the reacting and creating dimensions (latent correlation = 0,91; HTMT = 0,91), indicating that these two active behaviours are empirically redundant in this context. Brand equity was clearly distinct from all engagement dimensions. Nomological validity was supported: engagement was positively associated with consumer-based brand equity, with following (consumption) emerging as the only unique predictor once shared variance among dimensions was accounted for. The study contributes the first Croatian language validation of CESBC, documents a transparent and replicable validation workflow, and provides evidence that the contribution–creation distinction may collapse in low-base-rate service categories such as the one studied here.
Keywords: Customer Engagement, Social Media, COBRAs, CESBC, Scale Validation, Brand Equity, Telecommunications, Croatia
JEL Classification: M31, C83, C38
To be cited as: Kondić, L., Šebek, V. and Giergia, D. (2026) Validating the consumer engagement with social media brand-related content (CESBC) scale: Evidence from the Croatian mobile telecommunications sector. International Journal of Management Cases, 28(1), pp. 46-53.