The impacts of knowledge sharing-based value co-creation on user continuance in online communities
| Published date | 20 November 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-11-2016-0043 |
| Date | 20 November 2017 |
| Pages | 227-239 |
| Author | Chen Chen,Rong Du,Jin Li,Weiguo Fan |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Library & information services,Lending,Document delivery,Collection building & management,Stock revision,Consortia |
The impacts of knowledge sharing-based
value co-creation on user continuance in
online communities
Chen Chen, Rong Du and Jin Li
School of Economics and Management, Xidian University, Xian, China, and
Weiguo Fan
Department of Accounting and Information Systems, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg,
Virginia, USA
Abstract
Purpose – Though online communities offer unprecedented opportunities to involve people in knowledge sharing, the reasons why users would like
to participate in those activities in online communities have still been under-explored. In this research, the authors aim to use the value co-creation
theory to build and test a continuance usage model, which focuses more on experiential values resulted from the knowledge sharing behavior.
Design/methodology/approach – An integrative research model is built to investigate how knowledge sharing behavior affects users’ co-creation
value and then drives their continuance usage in online communities. Online survey data collected from 239 Sina Microblog users in China are
utilized to validate the proposed model and hypotheses.
Findings – Empirical results indicate that the knowledge sharing behavior helps improve users’ co-creation value, including customer learning value,
social integrative value and hedonic value. This co-creation value can subsequently affect users’ future participation intention in online communities.
Originality/value – This paper seeks to fill the research gap by examining customers’ motivations or perceptions underlying their knowledge
sharing behavior at the usage-stage, instead of the pre-usage stage mainly concentrated on by previous studies. The managerial implications can
be utilized for policy making to encourage customers’ participation and operate a better online community.
Keywords Hedonic value, Knowledge sharing, Online community, Customer learning value, Future participation intention, Social integrative
value
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The proliferation of the internet coupled with its higher
capability level of interactivity has inspired the advancement of
online communities, leading the knowledge transmission,
reception and sharing to develop across time and space. The
rapid development of online communities has dramatically
changed both individual and organizational behaviors in
knowledge sharing. From the view of users, their aims of
participating in online communities are to obtain knowledge,
resolve problems, improve individual capability, absorb
professional knowledge or create innovations. Moreover, from
the perspective of firms, customers’ interactions or
crowdsourcing in a product-support community enable them
to receive new design or new product ideas (Algesheimer and
Dholakia, 2006;Verona et al., 2006;Huang et al., 2014).
Many organizations have paid attention to online communities
and devoted to its development, as the online community has
been treated as a valuable digital information platform in
organizations’ knowledge management for information exchange
and sharing (Gongla and Rizzuto, 2001). The success of online
communities depends on keeping a large crowd of active users
participating in knowledge sharing activities. However, the
biggest challenge in operating an online community is to ensure
that knowledge contributors supply their knowledge
continuously and reuse codified knowledge frequently (Ba et al.,
2001). Thus, the purpose of this research is to understand why
individuals are willing to contribute and share knowledge with
others in online communities.
Previous studies have focused on identifying motivations of
customers’ willingness to share knowledge, such as contextual
factors (Bock and Kim, 2002;Wasko and Faraj, 2005,Wang
and Wei, 2011), and personal factors (Kankanhalli et al.,
2005;Hsu et al., 2007;Jadin et al., 2013). Lin et al. (2009)
used social cognitive theory to develop a framework for
understanding the determinants of knowledge sharing in
online communities. Chang and Chuang (2011) and Hsu
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-6247.htm
Information Discovery and Delivery
45/4 (2017) 227–239
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2398-6247]
[DOI 10.1108/IDD-11-2016-0043]
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China through grant 71271164 and the Shaanxi Humanities and Social
Science Talent Plan (HSSTP) through grant ER42015060002. It is also
supported in part by the Shaanxi Major International Cooperation
program through grant BD18015060001 and the Chinese Fundamental
Research Funds for central universities under grants JB160611 and
XJS16026.
Received 16 November 2016
Revised 7 May 2017
Accepted 10 May 2017
227
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