Understanding Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Communities: A Network Perspective

Abstract

As more and more people are beginning to take virtual communities as effective communication channels and the main places to get information and knowledge, understanding the factors that can support or hinder one's knowledge sharing seems important. This paper adopts a network perspective to construct a research model for investigating people's knowledge sharing intention and behavior in virtual communities. The basic point made is that knowledge sharing can be seen as a channel to attain status and centrality in a community. Thus, people who are in periphery positions are more likely to transfer their community attachment into knowledge sharing intention. However, this moderation effect can also be contingent on the external environment. When the virtual community is not stable and has a lot of fluctuations in the number of members, central players are also in the need of using knowledge sharing as a way to maintain their central positions. Analyses using samples of seven virtual communities in China c...