Title: Physicians social capital aids their medical decisions when they virtually share knowledge

Authors: Anjum Razzaque; Tillal Eldabi

Addresses: Management Information Systems, College of Business and Finance, Ahlia University, Manama, Bahrain ' Department of Business Transformation, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2-7XH, UK

Abstract: Knowledge sharing is daunting to physicians with unclear benefits of improving diagnoses/reducing medical errors. This study explores one aspect of shared knowledge sharing by assessing the effect of physicians' social capital on their decision making mediated by shared knowledge in virtual communities. This study followed a deductive approach. It quantitatively tested 14 hypotheses via a framework based on an adapted survey. This survey was distributed to 204 VC-physician-members. Empirical evidence suggested social capital positively influences physicians' decision making, through trust and identity, during the virtually shared knowledge. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in our article. The model of our study is the first of its kind: holistically assesses the role of social capital theory, knowledge sharing, and decision making of virtual community physician members. Empirical findings extend current methods and understanding of the role of virtual community physicians' social capital of resources for decision making when mediated by their knowledge sharing behaviour.

Keywords: virtual community; physicians knowledge sharing; social capital; medical decision making; structural equation modelling; SEM; confirmatory factor analysis; CFA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKMS.2020.109088

International Journal of Knowledge Management Studies, 2020 Vol.11 No.3, pp.229 - 257

Received: 03 Jan 2019
Accepted: 13 Nov 2019
Published online: 19 Aug 2020 *

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