20.500.12556/RUP-23741 When brand community participation feels effortless an integrative framework of motivation, trust, interaction fluency, and consumer engagement Online brand communities enable knowledge exchange, peer support, content creation, and value co-creation, yet technically simple participation can feel costly while objectively demanding activity can feel smooth. This conceptual article develops the Effortless Brand Community Engagement Framework (EBCEF) to explain that anomaly. A structured integrative review directly consulted 58 cited sources, using a published review of 88 records and 41 included studies as inherited synthesis rather than as a newly screened corpus. Abductive theory development distinguishes perceived participation effort as a seven-dimensional resource appraisal from interaction fluency as the subsequent technological, interpretive, and social smoothness of participation. The five-stage framework links design and governance to psychological and relational mechanisms, effort, fluency, consumer engagement, observable participation behavior, continued participation, and downstream outcomes. Twelve proposition sets specify core paths and selected moderators, while the effortlessness paradox predicts when high-intensity or low-control features generate overload, privacy concern, reactance, or fatigue. The EBCEF advances theory by separating engagement from its behavioral and longitudinal consequences and offers managers a diagnostic basis for removing unnecessary burdens while preserving autonomy, meaningful challenge, trust, and consumer control. The constructs and dimensions remain theoretical expectations requiring empirical validation. online brand communities consumer engagement perceived participation effor interaction fluency self-determination trust value co-creation brand advocacy spletne skupnosti blagovnih znamk vključenost potrošnikov zaznana participacija napor tekočnost interakcije samoodločanje zaupanje sooblikovanje vrednosti zagovorništvo blagovne znamke true false false Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Članek v reviji 2026-10-02 09:28:30 2026-10-02 09:28:30 2026-10-03 03:03:57 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 str. 1-25 issue 10, [article no.] 470 Vol. 16 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 2026-09-29 659.1 2076-3387 10.3390/admsci16100470 293392643 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/16/10/470 1 dd38e0ec-be32-11f1-91c8-005056ac49c0 https://repozitorij.upr.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=35258 RAZ_Faganel_Armand_2026.pdf RAZ_Faganel_Armand_2026.pdf 1 77E4C7D5C842E5873988D77146242362 7e29d246bb0aafb9ab67c8f2c1e9628e8a831025be1e5f33dac3991ae55701f7 072c3ede-be33-11f1-91c8-005056ac49c0 https://repozitorij.upr.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=35259 Fakulteta za management 0 0 0