Title: Factors affecting the performance of voluntary participants in the knowledge sharing virtual community

Authors: Hurnjin Cho; JungJoo Jahng

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, Seoyeong University, 170 Seoyeong-Ro, Wolrong-Myun, Paju, Gyunggi-Do, 413-811, South Korea ' College of Business Administration, Seoul National University, 1 Kwanak-Ro, Kwanak-Gu, Seoul, 151-742, South Korea

Abstract: Virtual community has gained much attention from academia and practice due to its great outcomes and potentials. One of the major issues is how the virtual communities make such enormous outcomes with little control and rewards, as Wikipedia or Linux have shown. This study assumes that the voluntary participant's performance has a direct impact on the productivity of the virtual community, and tries to find factors affecting the participant's performance in the virtual community. We employ the performance model of expectancy theory as a theoretical base, and this study identifies three factors, including expertise, goal congruence, and the posting effort triggered by the sense of virtual community. This study conducts an email survey from members of NHN, a major knowledge service community in Korea. The results provide support for most of our hypothesised relationships, except goal congruence.

Keywords: virtual communities; web based communities; online communities; expectancy theory; participant performance; knowledge sharing; voluntary participants; expertise; goal congruence; posting effort.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2014.062946

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2014 Vol.10 No.3, pp.339 - 356

Published online: 26 Jul 2014 *

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