Value received from Participating in Virtual Communities and The Impact on Virtual Community Participation

Abstract

Wikipidia is a collaborative web site of knowledge sharing platforms. Based on a survey of 202 Wikipedians, this study develop a theoretical framework to examine the relationship between individual value (utilitarian/hedonic) received, group cohesiveness and virtual community participation. Result from structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis reveal that individual motivation has positive effect on virtual community participation. Hence, group cohesiveness moderates participants' motivations on virtual community participation. Most of the past studies on virtual networks knowledge contribution focused only on the individual level, this study address the literature gap by exploring group level and the mutual relationships between participants in virtual communities.