Who Motivates My Participation in Virtual Interorganizational Communities of Practice: Self, Peers, or the Firm?

Virtual interorganizational communities of practice (IOCoPs) enable professionals in different organizations to exchange and share knowledge via computer-mediated interactions. Prior literature mainly focuses on internal motivating factors at the individual level. However, knowledge sharing requires social interactions thus influences from external entities play an important role in individuals’ community participation. In this research, we study external motivating factors generated from two different channels: peer effects within and organizational influences outside the virtual community. We apply a novel econometric identification method to analyze a virtual IOCoP in the financial trading sector. We find that external motivating factors from online peers and offline organizations are influential in determining community participation. In addition, our results suggest that virtual IOCoPs and organizations are two complementary learning channels. Differentiating motivating factors across multiple levels enables us to shed new light on various mechanisms with which IOCoPs can engage collective learning and knowledge management across organizations

The Antecedents and Impacts of Social Influence in Online Recommendation Systems

An increasing number of retail websites (e.g., Amazon) and online communities (e.g., Shopping.com) have implemented Web 2.0 to provide user reviews for consumers to make purchase decisions. Current IS and marketing literatures show that user reviews can form powerful social influence on consumers. However, few studies systematically examined how social influence is developed and its impacts. To bridge the gap, we propose that review quality, review consistency and social presence impact the formation of two types of social influence: informational and value-expressive influences, which ultimately determine consumers’ perceived decision quality and perceived usefulness of the system. This study will generate managerial insights on online marketing and system design in E-commerce

Building Social Capital in Online Communities: a Perspective of Information and System Quality

An Online Community (OC) is an IT-based social space where people are connected and access various resources during virtual social interaction. Previous IS research reveals that social capital can be a salient determinant of user participation and contribution to OCs. However, most such research assumes that social capital is given and has been built; limited attention has been paid on how social capital is developed within an OC. To bridge the gap, grounded on the Social Capital Theory (SCT) and IS quality literature, we argue that information quality and system quality influence social capital building in an OC from a multi-dimensional perspective in terms of cognitive, relational and structural capital. The potential results of this study will shed light on the design and management of OCs

The Formation of Social Influence in Online Recommendation Systems: A Study of User Reviews on Amazon.com

Thanks to Web 2.0, retail websites and online communities provide user reviews to help consumers make purchase decisions. Current IS and marketing literature reveal that user reviews can form strong social influence on consumers’ purchase decisions. However, few studies systematically examined how social influence is developed from user reviews. To bridge the gap, our research explores what factors impact the formation of social influence from user reviews. Based on a survey conducted in a controlled lab environment, the results suggest that review quality positively impacts informational influence while review consistency negatively impacts informational influence. Review consistency and social presence positively impact value-expressive influence. We also incorporate product expertise and self-monitoring as moderators into the model. Interestingly, product expertise weakens the relationship between social presence and informational influence. Self-monitoring does not impact value-expressive influence in online settings. Managerial implications are discussed