ROLE OF COGNITIVE ABSORPTION AND TRUST FOR COLLABORATION IN VIRTUAL WORLD

Abstract

Virtual worlds (VWs) have paved a new and important channel for user collaboration and information sharing. Businesses are now considering using VWs as innovative means for collaboration and information sharing among its organizational members. Despite the huge potential of VWs for harnessing and increasing the flow of ideas among organizations, research on the subject is rather sparse. Drawing on the social cognitive theory, we re-specify the concept of cognitive absorption (CA) in the context of VWs by theorizing environmental factors in addition to the individual factors as antecedents of CA. Further, by integrating CA with ‘trust’ we develop a VW usage model. We test the specified model with data collected from 197 VW users in Singapore. Results display the important roles that both CA and ‘trust’ play in the usage of VW. Further, through a post-hoc analysis we demonstrate the imperative need for considering both CA and ‘trust’, together in the proposed VW usage model. The study also delineates a set of implications for research and practice.

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