The Continued Use of a Virtual Community

Abstract

With the advent of the Internet, so too came several new means by which people share and acquire information. One such method is the use of virtual communities. Virtual communities are steadily becoming a valuable resource for today's organizations. However, a large number of virtual communities fail because their members withdraw from using them. Motivated by this concern, this study investigates the factors which motivate individuals to continue using a virtual community for information adoption. The proposed model integrates the IS continuance model with the information adoption model and is validated through an online survey of 240 users of a Bulletin Board System established by a local university in China. The results reveal that continuance intention within a virtual community is primarily determined by user satisfaction with prior usage, as well as by perceived information usefulness. The results also suggest that a long-term sustainable virtual community should be provided with high-quality and credible information. The findings of this study contribute to both theory building in virtual community continuance and practice in virtual community management.