Knowledge-sharing in virtual communities: familiarity, anonymity and self-determination theory

an article by Cheolho Yoon (Mokpo National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea) and Erik Rolland (University of California, Merced, USA) published in Behaviour & Information Technology Volume 31 Issue 11 (November 2012)

Abstract

Although the role of motivation has been emphasised in knowledge-sharing literature, traditional motivation theories, such as self-determination theory (SDT), have not been actively used as a research framework in knowledge-sharing research.

The purposes of this study are twofold.

The first objective is to propose a model, based on SDT, to test the effect of the three basic psychological needs – perceived competence, perceived autonomy and perceived relatedness – on knowledge-sharing behaviours in virtual communities.

The second objective is to explore the effects of familiarity and anonymity on the basic psychological needs to better understand individuals’ knowledge-sharing behaviours in virtual communities.

The results show that perceived competence and perceived relatedness influence knowledge-sharing behaviours in virtual communities; however, perceived autonomy does not influence knowledge-sharing behaviours; familiarity influences positively perceived competence and perceived relatedness, and anonymity influences negatively perceived autonomy and perceived relatedness.

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