Understanding relationship commitment and continuous knowledge sharing in online health communities: a social exchange perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xing Zhang ◽  
Shan Liu
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
Perceived Health ◽  
Relationship Commitment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Health Communities ◽  
Health Communities ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose Online health communities (OHCs) have become increasingly popular sources of health information in recent years. However, little is known about the factors that affect the relationship commitment and continuous knowledge sharing intention among OHC members. Thus, this study aims to integrate social exchange and commitment-trust theories to establish a theoretical model to fill the gap. Design/methodology/approach A research model that integrates social exchange theory and commitment-trust theory is developed. Quantitative data from 519 valid questionnaires are collected via an offline survey. Statistical product and service solutions 20.0 and analysis of a moment structures 20.0 software are used to test the hypotheses. Findings Relationship commitment directly influences continuous knowledge sharing intention, partially mediates the relationship between social support and continuous knowledge sharing intention, and fully mediates the relationship between perceived health risks and continuous knowledge sharing intention. Informational and emotional supports are identified as benefit factors that positively affect relationship commitment and perceived health risks are regarded as cost factors that negatively influence relationship commitment. Informational and emotional supports of OHC members produce different effects on relationship commitment when members obtain social support from different sources. Moreover, trust moderates the influences of informational support and perceived health risks on relationship commitment. Originality/value The findings provide additional insights that can augment the knowledge management literature by indicating how people are driven to share knowledge continuously in the context of OHCs. This study empirically clarifies the relationships of benefits (i.e. social support) and costs (i.e. perceived health risks) to continuous knowledge sharing intention by demonstrating the significant mediating effect of relationship commitment. In addition, the findings of this study highlight the importance of the social support source in OHCs and provide additional insights into commitment–trust theory by integrating the moderating effect of trust on the relationships between relationship commitment and its antecedents.

scholarly journals Antecedents and consequences of the perceived usefulness of smoking cessation online health communities

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenglong Li ◽  
Hongxiu Li ◽  
Reima Suomi
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Smoking Cessation ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Emotional Support ◽  
Perceived Usefulness ◽  
Informational Support ◽  
Continuance Intention ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Health Communities ◽  
Health Communities

PurposeAn empirical study investigated the antecedents to perceived usefulness (PU) and its consequences in the context of smoking cessation online health communities (OHCs).Design/methodology/approachTo validate a research model for perceived informational support, perceived emotional support and perceived esteem support, the authors conducted a partial-least-squares analysis of empirical data from an online survey (N = 173) of users of two smoking cessation OHCs. The proposed model articulates these as antecedents to PU from a social support perspective, and knowledge sharing and continuance intention are expressed as consequences of PU.FindingsThe empirical study identified that the PU of smoking cessation OHCs is influenced by perceived emotional support and perceived esteem support, and perceived informational support indirectly affects PU via these factors. In turn, PU exerts a positive influence on both knowledge sharing and continuance intention. Also, knowledge sharing positively affects continuance intention.Originality/valueThe study contributes to scholarship on users' postadoption behavior in the context of smoking cessation OHCs by disentangling the antecedents to PU from a social support perspective and pinpointing some important consequences of PU. The research also has practical implications for managing smoking cessation OHCs.

Knowledge has no value until it is shared: an empowering leadership perceptive

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Misbah Hayat Bhatti ◽  
Umair Akram ◽  
Muhammad Hasnat Bhatti ◽  
Tabassum Riaz ◽  
Nausheen Syed
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
No Value ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Empowering Leadership ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Affective Trust ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The effect of empowering leadership on knowledge sharing is well defined, but factors that stimulate employees for knowledge sharing are still limited. Therefore, this study aims to address to what extent empowering leadership is desirable to create a trustful and fair environment that is conducive for an employee’s knowledge sharing. Design/methodology/approach Through integration of social exchange, equity and uncertainty management theories develop a moderating mediating model that links empowering leadership to knowledge sharing. Three-wave data collection from the sample of 375 managers–subordinates’ dyads was done in Pakistan textile industries. Findings Hierarchal regression analysis and bootstrapping method were applied to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that affective trust partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and knowledge sharing. More especially, the findings demonstrate that the relationship between empowering leadership and knowledge sharing becomes strong with high level of distributive and procedural justices. Practical implications This research study uses empowering leadership as a proposed motivational pathway for stimulating employee’s knowledge sharing through development of affective trust and buffering effect of distributive and procedural justices. Originality/value Most of previous research in knowledge sharing just cynosure organizational-level elements like leadership and organizational justices but deteriorate individual factors like trust. Therefore, this study will combine both organizational- and individual-level factors for urging employees for knowledge sharing.

scholarly journals Knowledge sharing in online smoking cessation communities: a social capital perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenglong Li ◽  
Hongxiu Li ◽  
Reima Suomi ◽  
Yong Liu
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Smoking Cessation ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Health Communities ◽  
Structural Capital ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Communities ◽  
Social Capital Perspective ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeAlthough knowledge sharing in online communities has been studied for many years, little is known about the determinants for individuals' knowledge sharing in online health communities (OHCs) surrounding smoking cessation. Examining the determinants of knowledge sharing in such OHCs from the social capital perspective may prove particularly enlightening.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire-based online user survey of two smoking cessation OHCs, one based in Finland and one based in China, was performed. Performing data analysis with partial least squares (SmartPLS 3.0), the authors developed a model conceptualizing the structural, cognitive and relational dimensions of social capital as drivers for knowledge sharing in smoking cessation OHCs, with users' stage in giving up smoking as a moderator.FindingsThe results show that structural capital (social ties) and relational capital (reciprocity) are important motivators behind knowledge sharing in smoking cessation OHCs, and the authors found a moderating effect of the stage in quitting on the antecedents' relationship with knowledge sharing in these OHCs.Originality/valueThe study enriches understanding of knowledge sharing in smoking cessation OHCs, contributing to theory and identifying practical implications for such groups' administration.

Examining users’ knowledge sharing behaviour in online health communities

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 442-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Research Model ◽  
Privacy Concern ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Health Communities ◽  
Community Platforms ◽  
Health Communities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to draw on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework to examine users’ knowledge sharing in online health communities (OHC). Design/methodology/approach Based on the 326 valid responses collected from a survey, structural equation modelling was employed to examine the research model. Findings The results indicated that both information quality and service quality affect trust in community, whereas both informational support and emotional support affect trust in other members. Both types of trust and privacy risk determine users’ sharing intention, which in turn affects sharing behaviour. Research limitations/implications The results imply that service providers need to improve their community platforms and create a supportive climate in order to facilitate users’ trust and their knowledge sharing behaviour. Originality/value Previous studies have examined a few determinants of OHC user behaviour such as privacy concern, trust and motivations. However, they have seldom disclosed the internal decision process underlying users’ knowledge sharing. This research tries to fill the gap.

scholarly journals Exploring the Relationship Between Users' Psychological Contracts and Their Knowledge Contribution in Online Health Communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenlong Liu ◽  
Xinting Chen ◽  
Xuanyu Lu ◽  
Xiucheng Fan
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Psychological Contracts ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Online Health Communities ◽  
Community Identification ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Knowledge Contribution ◽  
Health Communities ◽  
The Relationship

The knowledge contribution of members is essential and beneficial to both the business and users of online health communities (OHCs). This study explores and tests the effects of OHC users' psychological contracts on their community identification and knowledge-sharing behavior. A total of 367 valid responses from several well-known OHCs in China are used in the data analysis. The results of the path analysis with structural equation modeling show that users' transactional psychological contracts have a negative effect on their knowledge contribution both directly and indirectly by weakening their community identification. In contrast, users' relational psychological contracts can lead to increased active knowledge contributions both directly and indirectly by enhancing their community identification. Knowledge sharing self-efficacy can strengthen the relationship between relational psychological contracts and knowledge contributions, and the relationship between community identification and knowledge contributions. However, it has no significant impact on the path from transactional psychological contracts to knowledge contribution. The implications and direction of future works are presented on the basis of the results of the empirical analysis.

User recommendation in online health communities using adapted matrix factorization

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hangzhou Yang ◽  
Huiying Gao
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Matrix Factorization ◽  
User Behavior ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Healthcare Outcomes ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Online Health Communities ◽  
Health Communities ◽  
User Recommendation

PurposeOnline health communities (OHCs) are platforms that help health consumers to communicate with each other and obtain social support for better healthcare outcomes. However, it is usually difficult for community members to efficiently find appropriate peers for social support exchange due to the tremendous volume of users and their generated content. Most of the existing user recommendation systems fail to effectively utilize the rich social information in social media, which can lead to unsatisfactory recommendation performance. The purpose of this study is to propose a novel user recommendation method for OHCs to fill this research gap.Design/methodology/approachThis study proposed a user recommendation method that utilized the adapted matrix factorization (MF) model. The implicit user behavior networks and the user influence relationship (UIR) network were constructed using the various social information found in OHCs, including user-generated content (UGC), user profiles and user interaction records. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach based on a dataset collected from a famous online health community.FindingsThe experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method outperformed all baseline models in user recommendation using the collected dataset. The incorporation of social information from OHCs can significantly improve the performance of the proposed recommender system.Practical implicationsThis study can help users build valuable social connections efficiently, enhance communication among community members, and potentially contribute to the sustainable prosperity of OHCs.Originality/valueThis study introduces the construction of the UIR network in OHCs by integrating various social information. The conventional MF model is adapted by integrating the constructed UIR network for user recommendation.

How does individuals’ exchange orientation moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and knowledge sharing?

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1622-1639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuting Xiao ◽  
Xi Zhang ◽  
Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos
Keyword(s):  
Transformational Leadership ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Social Exchange ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Organizational Knowledge ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Exchange Ideology ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose This study aims to explore the complex relationship between leadership and organizational knowledge sharing by investigating the moderating role of exchange ideology on the relation between transformational leadership in attributed charisma and knowledge sharing and the influence of attributed charisma and knowledge sharing on task performance. The influence of leadership in organizational knowledge sharing process has been gradually highlighted. Design/methodology/approach Based on the review of relevant literature and survey, a structural equation model considering four factors in the model together is now constructed and provides four hypotheses which can be verified. Self-completed questionnaires were collected from 163 students in the context of a graduate class in China. Findings The findings illustrate the relationship between leadership theory and knowledge sharing from a perspective of social exchange theory. In particular, results show that both transformational leadership and knowledge sharing have positive impacts to task performance and for individuals with low exchange ideology the positive influence from attributed charisma to knowledge sharing is stronger. Originality/value This research introduces exchange ideology as a moderator and explains the complex relationship between transformational leadership and knowledge sharing with sufficient proof. Transformational leadership in attributed charisma is more effective to those individuals with low exchange ideology in facilitating their knowledge effort. This paper can be theoretically and practically helpful to researchers and enterprise leaders in organizational knowledge management.

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