The influence of social capital on users′ loyalty to virtual communities

Abstract

Abstract: As social media develops, virtual communities are becoming increasingly important platforms for registered users to exchange information. On the one hand, users can share their opinions about particular events, products or services, and on the other hand, they can collect the information they need to make behavioral decisions. With the increasing prominence and expansion of the influence of virtual communities, enterprises come to realize the importance of virtual communities and try to strengthen the operation of their virtual communities or to establish new ones. The users′ loyalty is particularly important to the long-term sustainable development of virtual communities, which in turn depends on the size and activities of the user population in a given virtual community. If users′ turnover rate is high, the virtual community may not survive. Therefore, it is imperative for enterprises to solve how to retain the existing users of their virtual community and how to continue attracting users to community activities and encouraging them to bring more potential users into the community.
With virtual community users as the research objects and knowledge sharing behaviors (quantity and quality of knowledge sharing) as the intermediary variable, this study explores the mechanism of how social capital (trust, social connection, shared visions) and external motivations (reciprocity motivation, reputation motivation) influence users′ loyalty to their virtual communities. The research data was collected through questionnaires．Then structural equation model was applied to empirically verify the theoretical model．The results show that trust and external motivation have significant positive effects on users′ loyalty, which is realized through both the quantity and quality of knowledge sharing, while social connection has a significant positive effect on users′ loyalty only through the quantity of knowledge sharing. Trust and external motivations have significant positive effects on the quantity and quality of knowledge sharing, the social connection has a significant positive effect just on the quantity of that, and shared visions have no significant effect on both, with the possible reasons that the virtual community itself is based on shared purposes and interest, which cannot be totally converted into the quantity and quality of knowledge sharing. It is also found that knowledge sharing behaviors have significant positive effects on users′ loyalty, and that the quality of knowledge sharing has more significant effects on users′ loyalty compared with the quantity of knowledge.
It can be concluded that this study will enrich the theoretical research on knowledge sharing and user′s loyalty to their virtual communities, and provides useful theoretical guidance for relevant application research. In addition, it may alert enterprises and virtual community operators to the importance of users′ knowledge sharing in virtual communities, and offer new methods in the practice of strengthening knowledge sharing and maintaining sustainable sound community relationships. Furthermore, this study may provide enterprises with intellectual support to attract and retain users to their virtual communities. Last, the findings of the paper may bring inspiration to the sustainable development of the enterprises and their virtual communities as well, which will contribute to the overall performance and competitiveness of enterprises.

Key words: social capital, external motivations, knowledge sharing, users′ loyalty to their communities

Zhang Jiemei, Ma Yuejie. The influence of social capital on users′ loyalty to virtual communities[J]. Science Research Management, 2021, 42(3): 139-149.

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