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| User Interaction and Engagement in Content-based Virtual Communities:The Mediating Mechanism of Identity |
| YAO Shanji1,WANG Fujia1,LIU Dewen2 |
1. School of economics and management, Nanjing Tech University
2. School of International Business Administration, Shanghai University of Finance＆Economics
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Abstract User interaction in a content-based virtual community is divided into two key dimensions: help seeking and interpersonal interaction. And the identity consists of the two dimensions: self-identity and social identity. Constructing a theoretical model that user interaction indirectly affects user engagement through the mediating effect of identity. Using the survey data of 270 registered users in the Zhihu community, the theoretical model was tested empirically. The results show that the help seeking in content-based virtual communities has a significant positive impact on promotion and cooperation engagement; interpersonal interaction only has positive impact on cooperation engagement; the help seeking has a significant positive impact on social identity; interpersonal interaction has positive impact on both self-identity and social identity; At the same time, self-identification and social identity have positive impact on promotion/cooperation engagement; identity plays a mediating role in the influence of user interaction on the engagement. This paper clarifies the impact of user engagement in content-based virtual communities, providing insights for organizations to build and create better content-based virtual communities.
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Received: 23 September 2017
Published: 15 February 2018
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Corresponding Authors:
WANG Fujia
E-mail: 1136477751@qq.com
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2018, Vol. 38 
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