Influence Mechanisms That Leverage Participation Quality in a Professional Virtual Community

Abstract

Despite the considerable attention paid to the determinants of participation (e.g., time spent and visit frequency) in professional virtual communities (PVCs), what and how to enhance participation quality have seldom been addressed. Participation quality is an affective outcome of social emotion for assessing the success of a PVC. By using the social-relationship perspective, this work develops a theoretical model based on relationship commitment and social psychology theories to examine how dedication-constraint mechanisms influence participation quality in a PVC. Empirical results of a PVC demonstrate that the dedication-based mechanisms (i.e. affective commitment and normative commitment) are more salient than the constraint-based mechanism (i.e. calculative commitment) to leverage participation quality. Additionally, identity-based attachment influences participation quality more than bond-based attachment does. Interestingly, the constraint-based mechanism positively affects identity-based attachment, yet negatively affects bond-based attachment to a virtual community.