Why people share knowledge in virtual communities?: The use of Yahoo! Kimo Knowledge+ as an example

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to answer the question: why Google Answers and Yahoo! Kimo Knowledge+, both virtual communities built on users asking and answering questions with different rewarding mechanisms, have different outcomes.Design/methodology/approach – Based on the theory of reasoned action (TRA), the authors developed the constructs, including self‐efficacy, altruism, reward, and the sense of virtual community, that influence the intention of sharing knowledge in terms of answering questions on Knowledge+.Findings – The results show that users showing higher levels of contribution tended to be motivated by virtual rewards, such as advanced ranks, and the need for self‐fulfillment. Additionally, for these knowledge providers, altruism is also an important factor. Therefore, these users share not because of a reward but because of altruism and fulfillment. The findings can answer why Google Answers failed with its monetary rewards but Knowledge+ remains with its virtual rewarding mechani...

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