Social capital and Facebook groups' members knowledge sharing behavior

Abstract EN

The main challenge of any virtual community is the supply of enough content through the active sharing of knowledge among community members.

This paper integrates the factors of social capital theory; namely, social ties, knowledge self-efficacy, fairness, identification, and openness; with individual motivations to share knowledge; namely, reputation, and enjoy helping; to explain why people share their knowledge on Facebook groups.

The models' efficacy was tested using online survey of 237 Facebook groups' members.

The model explained 34% of the variance in knowledge sharing behavior where knowledge self efficacy, identification with group, and perceived group openness were found to positively influence knowledge sharing behavior.

Contrary to expectations, social ties, perceived group fairness, and individual motivators showed no significant influence on knowledge sharing behavior.

Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.