The effect of commitment on knowledge sharing: An empirical study of virtual communities

Due to the development of social media technologies, abundant online platforms have been established to facilitate users’ knowledge exchange behaviors. With frequent user interactions, these platforms gradually evolve into virtual communities, and users subsequently form a sense of commitment. Nevertheless, previous research has ignored the effects of commitment on knowledge-sharing behaviors. This study thus endeavors to fill this research gap by exploring the effect of commitment on knowledge contributors’ sharing intentions in virtual communities in China. By integrating the commitment model and social exchange theory, we demonstrate that user commitment mediates the effect of social-exchange benefits on users’ knowledge exchange behaviors in virtual communities. Our research model is validated using 751 valid responses collected from four prevalent virtual communities through an online survey. The statistical results show that affective and normative commitment can significantly influence users’ knowledge-sharing intention. In addition, relationships, reputation, and reciprocity, as three types of social-exchange benefits, serve as crucial antecedents to user commitment. Our findings contribute to the literature on commitment and virtual communities by shedding important light on the different components of user commitment and their distinctive mediating roles in knowledge sharing.