ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 epidemic has hastened the growth of Virtual Communities and is affecting virtually every part of work in the public and business sectors. Virtual communities, popular forums for communication and entertainment, increasingly affected the users' decisions. Though many technology adoption models/theories are available, a distinctive model for decision-making in a virtual environment is scarce. This research developed the virtual communities' decision model and empirically tested its performance. This study examined 16 well-established theories/models of information technology, social science, marketing, and behavioral finance and extracted nine constructs from 58 identified constructs considering theoretical cohesiveness along with the three-stage method proposed by Moore and Benbasat. A unified model for virtual communities' decisions (VCDM) is developed and validated using the data collected from individual capital market investors in Bangladesh. The structural equation modeling technique is used to analyze the data. The upshot implies that VCDM performs adequately and explains the maximum variances in intention to decision and investment. VCDM also outperforms the majority of the related theoretical models. The acceptance levels of fit indices and all significant relationships among different constructs are also empirically validated. The moderating effect of the virtual group use experience is also confirmed. Future research can use VCDM in marketing, behavioral finance, ecommerce, information systems and social science context. VCDM thus facilitates a beneficial tool for managers, service providers, and other users to assess the likelihood of effectiveness for decisions in a virtual environment.