Members’ satisfaction and continuance intention: a socio-technical perspective
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-01-2015-0023 |
| Date | 13 July 2015 |
| Pages | 1132-1150 |
| Published date | 13 July 2015 |
| Author | Minghong Chen,Xianjun Qi |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems |
Members’satisfaction and
continuance intention: a
socio-technical perspective
Minghong Chen
School of Information Management, Sun Yat-sen University,
Guangzhou, China, and
Xianjun Qi
School of Public Policy and Management, Guangxi University, Nanning, China
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explain how sociability and usability enhanced members’
satisfaction, and how such satisfaction in turn, influenced their continuance intention of knowledge
sharing in academic virtual communities (AVCs).
Design/methodology/approach –Drawing on social capital theory and technology acceptance
model, this study proposed a theoretical socio-technical model, and the partial least squares method is
used to examine the proposed model, based on data collected from 431 subjects in a well-known
academic community in China (i.e. ScienceNet).
Findings –Both sociability and usability were important to improve members’satisfaction with
knowledge sharing in AVCs. Specifically, social interaction ties, trust, reciprocity, shared vision,
perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are antecedents of members’satisfaction, which in turn
positively affects their continuance intention of knowledge sharing in AVCs.
Practical implications –This study provided insights that can help AVCs’administrators develop
effective strategies that could encourage continued knowledge sharing behavior through promoting
members’satisfaction.
Originality/value –While the socio-technical framework has mainly been used to study initial
adoption and participation of knowledge sharing. This study proposed a socio-technical model to move
a step forwardby explaining the exact roles of sociability and usabilityin terms of promoting members’
satisfactionand identifying its criticaleffect on their continuanceintention to share knowledge in AVCs,
leading to a more comprehensive picture of members’satisfaction and continuance intention of
knowledge sharingin AVCs.
Keywords Knowledge sharing, Satisfaction, Continuance intention, Academic virtual communities,
Socio-technical perspective
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The rapid development of both the internet and Science 2.0 has greatly facilitated the
popularity of academic virtual communities (AVCs), such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate,
Mendely, ScienceNet.cn and emuch.net, etc. These AVCs give each member a profile and
provide unprecedented opportunities to connect to each other without physical constraints
(Thelwall and Kousha, 2014; Sun et al., 2014). As a kind of academic social platform, AVCs
have millions of users and so it is possible that they are having an impact on patterns
of informal scholarly communication, especially in terms of information seeking and
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 115 No. 6, 2015
pp. 1132-1150
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-01-2015-0023
Received 22 January 2015
Revised 1 April 2015
Accepted 3 May 2015
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
This study was partially supported by a grant from National Natural Science Foundation of
China (Project NO. 71263006), a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the
Ministry of Education (Project NO. 12YJC870004), and a grant from the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (Project NO. 1309076).
1132
IMDS
115,6
knowledge sharing (Mangan, 2012). More and more scholars proactively take part in
various AVCs that enable them to seek, collect, or even contribute expertise and
knowledge to improve their capabilities, to disseminate their research interests, to absorb
advanced insights, to create innovations and to resolve academic problems (Nistor et al.,
2014; Lin et al., 2009; Chen, 2007).
Compared to traditional and formal academic communications, knowledge sharing
in AVCs will not be limited by time and space (Lu and Yang, 2011; Chang and Chuang,
2011). Thus, knowledge sharing in AVCs has several advantages, such as open and free
interaction, convenience and efficiency. However, some constraints in AVCs, including
public goods characteristics of knowledge (Wasko and Teigland, 2004), weak ties and
voluntary participation (Chiu et al., 2011), may negatively affect members’experience
and impede their continuance intention to share knowledge. Prior research has widely
demonstrated that the sustainability of AVCs depends largely on whether members are
willing to initially and continually share their knowledge (Jin et al.,2013;Cheunget al.,
2013). The value derived from these AVCs can only be realized when there is ongoing
knowledge sharing(Fang and Chiu, 2010), which often doesnot occur (Ma and Agarwal,
2007). Some AVCs attracta large number of members in the early stages, but suffer from
huge turnover at a later stage (Chen, 2007). If there are few members who are willing
to stay and contribute their knowledge continuously, this would reduce the quantity of
knowledge shared by members and further accelerate the decline of AVCs (Phang et al.,
2009). Accordingly, it is important to understand how to sustain an AVC by improving
members’satisfaction and motivating them to continue to share their knowledge.
With the aforementioned motives, this study aims to examine significant motivators
of members’satisfaction and to identify its critical effect on continuance intention to
share knowledgein AVCs. Previous studies have shown that virtualcommunities consist
of social and technical system and that social and technological perception are crucial to
members’continuous participation (Lu et al., 2011; Chai and Kim, 2012) and knowledge
sharing intention (Liao and Chou, 2012). Considering a socio-technical perspective
provides a useful framework to investigate members’knowledge sharing behaviors in
AVCs, we integrate social capital and technology acceptance model (TAM) to propose
a socio-technical framework for gaining a more comprehensive picture of members’
satisfaction and continuance intention of knowledge sharing in AVCs. We choose TAM
model to integrate with social capital theory to investigate members’satisfaction and
continuance intention of knowledge sharing motivated by the reasons. First, the fact that
AVCs are usually considered as a type of socio-technical systems (Phang et al.,2009)
provides the base for combining them into a hybrid model with enhanced explanatory
power by incorporating their different constructs. Second, TAM has been generally
proven to be one of the most parsimonious, but valid and robust theoretical models and
has been used extensively to explain user satisfaction and post-adoption behaviors
(Bhattacherjee, 2001; Cheng, 2014). Third, the general applicability of TAM has been
consistently validated in different time spans, application technologies and use contexts
through the integration of various domain-specific constructs (Tsai et al.,2014).
The remainder of thispaper is organized as follows. First, we provide a brief literature
review related to knowledge sharing in AVCs and a socio-technical perspective on
knowledge sharing. Second, we theorize a socio-technical research model for members’
satisfaction and continuance of knowledge sharing in AVCs. Next, we describe the
research methodology used to empirically test the model, and present the resultsof data
analysis. Finally, we summarize the findings and discuss the implications for both
research and practice.
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Continuance
intention
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