Relationships Between User Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Community with Community Loyalty and Satisfaction

Abstract

Background: Ubiquitous social media usage makes virtual communities important platforms for people to exchange knowledge and information. The long-term sustainable operation of the virtual community depends on the scale and activity of users in the virtual community. However, in existing virtual communities, the number of easily lost users far exceeds the number of loyal users with the high frequency of knowledge sharing, thus there is a community management need to improve the frequency of knowledge sharing and user loyalty.

Methods: Based on the social capital theory and social exchange theory, this paper constructs a model of the influence of knowledge sharing on the loyalty and satisfaction of users in a virtual community and undertakes an empirical analysis based on survey data from 533 members of virtual communities.

Results: The results showed that trust, reciprocity, and reputation positively affected the quantity and quality of knowledge sharing, while social connectedness only positively affected the quantity of knowledge sharing; the quantity and quality of knowledge sharing positively affected community loyalty and community satisfaction.

Conclusion: This study takes the knowledge sharing of virtual community users as a new starting point to cultivate loyal consumers. It has important theoretical and practical value to improve the satisfaction of community users, cultivate loyal community users, and promote the knowledge sharing of members.

Keywords: community loyalty; community satisfaction; external motivation; knowledge sharing; social capital.