A Meta-analysis of Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Communities - The Moderating Effect of Membership Types.

The willingness of individuals to share their knowledge in a virtual community has become an important issue for community success. However, when exploring the question "Why are people willing to share their knowledge with others in virtual communities," it appears that there are many inconsistent results, which include positive, negative, or no effects at all. Thus, it is necessary to conduct a meta-analysis to summarize the varied outcomes of relevant research. This study analyzed a total of 63 papers (including 52 journal papers and 11 conference papers) reporting empirical studies selected from several well-known databases, including ABI/INFORM, Business Source Premier, Elsevier ScienceDirect, Emerald, JSTOR, and Wiley InterScience, published between 2002 and 2016. These papers extensively discussed critical factors affecting knowledge sharing by members of virtual communities. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations (such as reputation, reciprocity, altruism, and knowledge self-efficacy), social-capital factors (such as social interaction, interpersonal trust, identification, and shared languages) and knowledge-sharing outcomes (such as intention, behavior, quantity, and quality) were considered. Membership types (all members versus contributors) were used as a moderating variable. The relevant analysis was conducted using Comprehensive Meta-analysis Software. Results show that membership types play an important role as they moderate or restrain relationships based on certain knowledge-sharing variables. Our findings provide a knowledge map for conducting relevant academic research, and we provide more specific suggestions to virtual community moderators and administrators.