Why do members contribute knowledge to online communities?
| Pages | 829-854 |
| Date | 30 November 2010 |
| Published date | 30 November 2010 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521011099360 |
| Author | Shih‐Wei Chou |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Why do members contribute
knowledge to online
communities?
Shih-Wei Chou
Department of Information Management,
National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology,
Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China
Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to better understand individuals’ motives for contributing knowledge in
an online community.
Design/methodology/approach – An integrated model is developed based on a motivational
model and social cognitive theory. To validate the model two online communities: the Electronic
Engineering Times in Taiwan and China were surveyed.
Findings – It was found that both perceived identity verification and performance expectancy are
positively associated with satisfaction, which in turn affects knowledge contribution. Performance
expectancy is affected by both computer self-efficacy and computer anxiety, and perceived identity
verification is influenced by members’ innovativeness in IT.
Originality/value – This is the first study which aims to assess the relationships between
individuals’ differences, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and knowledge contribution. The findings
can help managers to build an effective community.
Keywords Motivation (psychology), Individualbehaviour
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The importance of anonline community has been recognised byprior studies (Lee et al.,
2002; Ma and Agarwal, 2007), because it can help to achieve a wide variety of activities
such as knowledge sharingand developing relationships. Online communities are a new
organisational form where people communicate and interact, develop relationships, and
collectively and i ndividually seek t o attain some goals . Despite a significan t growth in
the number of onlinecommunities, studies show that very few aresuccessful at retaining
their members and motivating their knowledge contribution (Butler, 2001; Wasko and
Faraj, 2005). For example most of the communities (91.2 percent) on MSN
(www.msn.com) had fewer than 25 members, and the communities averaged between
one and 20 posts (Ma and Agarwal, 2007). With the recent emergence of new types of
online communities such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, how to increase the
number of members and posts remains a problem (Lin and Bhattacherjee, 2009; Wang
and Chiang, 2009). Communities can be a significant source of value for participants
provided that membersare willing to contribute valuableknowledge to the communities.
Thus understanding members’ motives for knowledge contribution and identifying the
determinants of the motivations are the goals of this study.
Successful knowledge contribution in a virtual environment involves effective
social interaction (Chiu et al., 2006; Lin and Bhattacherjee, 2009; Sussman and Siegal,
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Online
communities
829
Refereed article received
17 November 2009
Approved for publication
14 March 2010
Online Information Review
Vol. 34 No. 6, 2010
pp. 829-854
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/14684521011099360
2003). As prior work has shown (Ma and Agarwal, 2007; Wang and Chiang, 2009),
mediated communication suffers from social cue deficiencies because the transmission
of important contextual cues such as body language is difficult to achieve through
computer channels. In a virtual environment, the lack of synchronicity and immediacy
tends to attenuate the influence of social norms on members’ behaviour and to lead to
social loafing (Chidambaram and Tung, 2005). In addition the establishment of mutual
understanding to comprehend conversations and knowledge contribution is more
difficult than face-to-face communication in a small group because of members’ diverse
social backgrounds and perspectives.
Despite the above difficulties evidence shows that individuals do engage in
prosocial behaviours such as knowledge contribution in online communities (Eastin
and LaRose, 2005; Hertel et al., 2003; Huang et al., 2009). Research on online knowledge
sharing demonstrates that a variety of drivers motivate this behaviour, including the
anticipation of extrinsic benefits (economic rewards, performance expectancy),
intrinsic benefits (sense of self-worth, social norms), and social capital (Chiu et al., 2006;
Venkatesh et al., 2003; Wasko and Faraj, 2005). We theorise that two factors play a key
role in knowledge contribution behaviour in an online community: performance
expectancy and perceived identity verification (PIV). Performance expectancy refers to
the degree to which an individual believes that using an online community will help
them to improve their job performance (Venkatesh et al., 2003). PIV is defined as
individuals’ beliefs that they are able to successfully communicate with their onlin e
identity (i.e. who they are in an online community). Identity refers to an individual’s
self-appraisal of a variety of attributes along the dimensions of physical and cognitive
abilities, personal traits and motives, and the multiplicity of social roles including
worker and community citizen (Whitbourne an d Connolly, 1999). Individuals
participating in both offline and online social interaction seek to be understood as
the person they believe themselves to be (Swann et al., 1989). Studies (Berman and
Bruckman, 2001; Ma and Agarwal, 2007) show that for most participants in a
technology-mediated context, identity – both the establishment of their own reputation
and the recognition of others – plays a key role in intrinsic benefits such as an
amplified sense of self-worth or recognition. Following Ma and Agarwal (2007), we
argue that the extent to which individuals believe they are able to successfully
communicate their online identity is positively associated – both directly and through
mediation by satisfaction – with knowledge contribution in the community. Improved
job performance has been recognised as a key extrinsic motivation (Hsu et al., 2007;
Venkatesh et al., 2003), i.e. individuals will want to perform an activity if it is perceived
to be instrumental in achieving valued outcomes. An online community is likely to
provide organisational members with an opportunity to gain access to new
information, expertise, and ideas not available locally, which in turn may lead to higher
job performance (Wasko and Faraj, 2005). We therefore argue that higher performance
expectancy which serves as extrinsic motivation relates – both directly and through
mediation by satisfaction – to knowledge contribution in the community.
Since technology is the foundation and medium through which community
members interact, it is one of the key determinants of the dynamics of the community.
The relationships between technology and social relationships have been recognised
by prior research (Walther et al., 2001), arguing that technologies and social systems
evolve together and that technologies may result in different outcomes regarding
OIR
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830
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