Factors influencing the change in customer knowlegde sharing behavior in online customer communities

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a theory thar describes the factors affecting the change in customer knowledge sharing behavior in online customer communities as well as to verify the theory. This study consists of two parts. The first part involves qualitative research using grounded theory approach. The data were gathered through interviewing 17 members of a website of a child care-related discussion community as well as participant observation and content analysis of discussion thread of the community. The resultant theory posits that intrinsic motivation factors, which include perveived self-efficacy, directed altruism, and reciprocity, the extrinsic motivation, preceived useful tangible rewards, and community attachment, have positive effects on customer knowledge sharing behavior. All of these relationships, except that between community attachment and knowledge sharing behavior, are moderated by received self-efficacy. The second part of the study involves quantitative research to test the theory using quantitative study with data collected through an online survey of 101 members of two online game discussion communities. The results of the quantitative study statistically confirm all the hypothesized relationships between independent variables and dependent variables. However, perceived self-efficacy signficantly moderates only the relationship between knowledge sharing behavior and directed altruism.