Understanding physicians' motivations for community participation and content contribution in online health communities

Qin Chen · Jiahua Jin · Xiangbin Yan

28 citations0/0 files storedOnline Information Review

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Knowledge Management and Sharing Health Literacy and Information Accessibility Expert finding and Q&A systems

Abstract

Purpose Since the success of online communities depend on physicians' participation, understanding factors that influence community participation and content contribution are critical for online health communities (OHCs). Drawing on the self-determination theory (SDT), an empirical model was proposed to explore the effects of social returns and economic returns on physicians' community participation, private content contribution and public content contribution, and the moderating effect of their online seniority. This paper aims to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach Empirical data of 4,343 physicians were collected from a Chinese OHC, and ordinary least squares (OLS) and negative binomial regression models were employed to verify the proposed theoretical model. Findings The authors’ results indicate that both social and economic returns have a positive effect on physicians' community participation and private content contribution, and their online seniority strengthens the positive effects of economic returns on community participation and private content contribution. Originality/value The authors’ research extends physicians' community participation by dividing content contribution into private and public, and enhances our understanding of the determinants of physicians' participation in OHCs by exploring the effects of social and economic returns, as well as the moderating effect of online seniority. Their findings contribute to the literature on e-Health and user participation, and provide management implications for OHC managers. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0615/

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 28 citations exist upstream.

References

2000Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.1997Toward A Hierarchical Model of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 2002Some antecedents and effects of trust in virtual communities 2009Virtual Customer Environments: Testing a Model of Voluntary Participation in Value Co‐creation Activities 2007Applying Common Identity and Bond Theory to Design of Online Communities 2012How to transform consumers into fans of your brand 2016Knowledge sharing in online health communities: A social exchange theory perspective 2011Understanding online community user participation: a social influence perspective

Cited by

2023Why are physicians willing to contribute knowledge? Evidence from online health communities 2023Understanding proactive knowledge sharing and knowledge withholding in physician-driven online health communities – a professional role identity perspective 2023Do peers really influence doctors' knowledge contribution behavior? Evidence from online health communities

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.