Exploring how social ties affect lurking behaviour in Microblog: from a role stress and social identity perspective
| Date | 25 August 2022 |
| Pages | 796-817 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-02-2022-0080 |
| Published date | 25 August 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
| Author | Yiwen Zhang,Yongqiang Sun,Wuping Lei,Nan Wang |
Exploring how social ties affect
lurking behaviour in Microblog:
from a role stress and social
identity perspective
Yiwen Zhang
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Yongqiang Sun
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China and
Centre for Studies of Information Resources, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and
Wuping Lei and Nan Wang
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Abstract
Purpose –The primary objective of this research is to explore the underlying mechanisms of social ties
influencing lurking behaviour in Microblog by combing role theory and social identity theory.
Design/methodology/approach –An online survey of 312 Microblog users in China was conducted to test
the proposed research model and hypotheses. The partial least squares (PLS) approach was used to analyse
the data.
Findings –The results show that social ties affect lurking behaviour on Microblog in two ways, directly and
indirectly through role stress. Social ties have a negative direct impact on lurking behaviour. Based on the
multiple mediation analysis, social ties positively affect lurking through role overload and negatively affect
lurking via role ambiguity. Perceived heterogeneity strengthens the positive effects of social ties on role
overload and conflict, and weakens the negative impact of social ties on role ambiguity. Social identification
weakens the positive relationship between social ties and role overload and strengthens the negative
relationship between social ties and role ambiguity.
Originality/value –This study extends the literature on the social interaction reasons behind lurking
behaviour in Microblogby revealing the effects of social ties in Microblog. The theoretical mechanisms of social
ties on lurking behaviour in Microblog are unveiled by discovering the direct effect of social ties, the mediating
effects of multidimensional role stress, and the moderating effects of different kinds of social identity.
Keywords Social ties, Lurking behaviour, Microblog, Role stress, Perceived heterogeneity, Social
identification
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Social media, i.e. Microblog, have been developed as a fundamental social vehicle that enables
individuals to create diverse content (Wan et al., 2017) and interact with others (Almalki et al.,
2021) without the constraints of separation in space and time. However, studies show that
users who actively engage in such activities only make up a small fraction of the overall user
population on social media (Sun et al., 2014). The silent majority has been identified to tend to
lurk just reading or browsing and seldom posting on this platform (Nonnecke et al., 2006).
Behaving like rare expressions and interactions will spoil the online atmosphere’s liveness
and impede the platform’s sustainable development (Sun et al., 2014). Considering the
substantial amount of time and the material costs of attracting new users to adopt Microblog,
AJIM
75,4
796
The work described in this paper was partially supported by the grants from the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Project No. 71904149, 71974148, 71921002), and the Humanities and Social
Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education, China (Project 17YJC630157).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2050-3806.htm
Received 15 February 2022
Revised 16 May 2022
29 June 2022
Accepted 10 July 2022
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 75 No. 4, 2023
pp. 796-817
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-02-2022-0080
a social media platform that already has a relatively constant and large user base,
understanding why existent users choose to lurk on Microblog is of crucial importance in
maintaining its vitality.
Despite a proliferation of studiesassociated with individual(Badreddine and Blount, 2019),
informational(Ortiz et al.,2018), and technological(Amichai-Hamburgeret al., 2016)factors,less
attentionhas been paid to investigatinghow social interactionfactors affect lurking behaviour
in online environments. The influence of social interaction factors on social media use is
prominent becausesocial media has a solid social bonding attribute that encourages users to
replicate the offlinesocial connections and expand new online relationships throughbuilding
and sustainingsocial interaction ties (Maieret al.,2015;Shiet al.,2014). Accordingly, we adopt
social ties, the structural manifestation of interpersonal connections in relationship networks
(Chengand Guo, 2015), to reflect the effectsstemming from more interpersonalinteractionsand
complicatedsocial relationshipson lurking behaviour on socialmedia (Liu et al., 2020). To date,
their impacts on lurkingon social media have not been empirically examined although social
ties have been presumedas important social interactionfactors to influence lurking behaviour
(Nguyen, 2020).Further, inconsistenciesin previous findings regardingthe role of social ties in
social mediause are also noteworthy, suchas those on information sharing,which is one of the
most distinct characteristics between lurking and other types of participation (Amichai-
Hamburgeret al.,2016;Zhenget al.,2020).Scholars have showndivergent interpretationsof the
impacts of socialties on information sharing as positive(Chai and Kim, 2012;Shi et al.,2018)or
negative (Shi et al.,2014).
This study tends to attribute the existence of conflicting findings to the lack of
simultaneouslyconsidering both the inspiringeffects of the benefits and the hinderingeffects
of the requirementsof developing varioussocial ties on social media. Specifically,in addition to
the direct impact, social ties will also indirectly affect lurking behaviour through the
interaction-induced stress that arises from a potential disequilibrium between massive
demands resulting from managing vast social ties and users’finite coping abilities. Since
Microblogusers hold diverse socialpositions and act in varioussocial roles, this researchdraws
upon role theory that depicts social interaction as individuals performing assigned roles and
delineateshow social interactions and individualbehaviours are constrained by each person’s
role (Galletta and Heckman, 1990;Zhao et al.,2014) to capture interaction-induced stressors
from conflicted, ambiguous, and overwhelming expectations from the objects whom users
interact with. It is also noted that the effects of social ties on role stress have not received
consensusin previous research.They have been identified to reducerole ambiguity (Aime et al.,
2011) and have positive (Liu et al.,2014) or insigni ficant (Lin, 2010) impacts on role conflict.
Thus, to explore thedifferent effects of social ties on lurking behaviour in Microblog varying
with types of role stressors,we put forward the following research question:
RQ1. How do social ties affect lurking behaviour in Microblog, directly and indirectly
through different role stressors?
Furthermore, this research extends the discussion on the direct and indirect effects of social
interaction ties on lurking behaviour by considering the group identity of Microblog users.
Consistent with Pan et al. (2017), we surmise that users’participation not only relies on how
they view themselves in terms of interpersonal relationships but also depends on how they
perceive themselves as members of the Microblog users group. Moreover, it is predicted that
the perception of group identity in the community will modify the establishment and
maintenance of interpersonal ties in the Microblog community. In line with the cognitive-
affective dichotomy of social identity (Johnson et al., 2012;Palmer et al., 2013), this study
expressly classifies social identity in Microblog into perceived heterogeneity and social
identification. It is expected that during interactions, perceived heterogeneity, which
describes the cognitive similarity among group members (Vegt and Janssen, 2003), might
Lurking
behaviour in
Microblog
797
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