سرمایه اجتماعی و انگیزه های فردی بر روی اشتراک گذاری دانش : دخالت شرکت کننده به عنوان مدیر

The Internet is a communication channel that allows individuals to share information and knowledge. However, it is not obvious why individuals share knowledge with strangers for no apparent benefit. What are the critical factors influencing such behavior? To attempt to understand this paradox, we combined the theories of social capital and individual motivation to investigate the factors influencing knowledge sharing behavior in a virtual community, applying a participant involvement concept to analyze the moderating effects of individual motivation on knowledge sharing behavior. By analyzing the results of a survey using a questionnaire, we found that altruism, identification, reciprocity, and shared language had a significant and positive effect on knowledge sharing. Reputation, social interaction, and trust had positive effects on the quality, but not the quantity, of shared knowledge. Participant involvement had a moderating effect on the relationship of altruism and the quantity of shared knowledge. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

The Internet has become an inexpensive medium that enables millions of people worldwide to exchange information and knowledge. It has drastically changed the scope, boundaries, and dynamics of social interactions. It provides a platform to support individual communication unrestricted by the constraints of time and space. Moreover, online social networks have become a part of the lives of users, serving to satisfy the desire to interact with and help others. According to Breslin and Decker [8], the 10 most popular domains account for about 40% of all page views on the Web, and nearly half of those views are from two social networking sites: MySpace and Facebook. In Taiwan, although the most used Internet application is still webpage searching and surfing, participating in virtual communities has become one of the major user activities. Due to the pervasiveness of virtual communities, recent studies have focused on communities of practice in organizations [19], specific professional virtual communities [10], and educational learning communities [22]. In addition, Algesheimer et al. [1] considered the value of virtual communities in business. Although people can obtain abundant information and knowledge from communities, there is no guarantee that they will share their knowledge without expecting a return. According to Bock et al. [6], individuals contribute knowledge only if their expected benefits overweigh the costs. In addition, spontaneous knowledge sharing behavior can be regarded as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) [30]. Many authors have used TAM (the technology acceptance model) to explain the behavior of users, but we decided to apply social capital theory (SCT) to explain participation in online social networks [26]. Based on our literature review, we felt that a network of relationships in online communities could provide the resources that facilitate knowledge sharing between participants. Therefore, we attempted to enhance the notion of social capital by applying it to general virtual communities. However, there has been little research on virtual communities examining the moderating effect of involvement. Our study applied the concept of involvement as a moderating construct to analyze how it affects the influence of individual motivation toward knowledge sharing behavior in virtual communities. The main objectives of our study were to (1) investigate participant behavior and participants’ interactive relationships within virtual communities and (2) incorporate both individual and organizational perspectives to determine their effect on knowledge sharing. These objectives were proposed to help in answering three research questions: (1) Why are people willing to share personal knowledge and participate in a virtual community? (2) How can individual motivation and social capital facilitate knowledge sharing behavior in the context of a general virtual community? (3) How can participant involvement moderate the relationship between individual motivation and knowledge sharing behavior?

The objective of our study was to investigate participant behavior and participants’ interactive relationships from both individual and organizational perspectives. We found that individual motivation motivates participants to contribute quality knowledge to the community. From an organizational perspective, the dimensions of structure (social interaction), relation (trust, identification, and reciprocity), and cognition (shared language) help participants contribute both quality and quantity of knowledge to the community. Also, participant involvement only has a moderating effect on the relationship between altruism and the quantity of knowledge sharing behavior.