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Knowledge-sharing communities are fundamental elements of a knowledge-based society. Understanding how different factors influence their sustainability is of crucial importance. We explore the role of the social network structure and social trust in their sustainability. We analyze the early evolution of social networks in four pairs of active and...
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... may explain why the official guidelines for SE community review have changed and have been applied inconsistently. Table 1 shows the values of some of these measures at 180 days point for considered communities. Although the Physics community had better metrics than Theoretical Physics and other considered communities, we see that these differences are not as apparent if we compare the remaining three pairs of communities. ...Context 2
... values of the measures shown in Tables 1 and A1 in Additional file 1, and Fig. 2 suggest that these simple measures are not good indicators of long-term sustainability. Therefore, we need a deeper understanding of the structure and dynamics of the community to understand the factors behind its sustainability. ...Context 3
... have a higher reputation generated through interactions with both core and nodes in the periphery, see Fig. 6. Furthermore, the overall levels of trust are higher in active communities, which is reflected in the fact that the mean user reputation is higher in these communities; see Fig. 5. Table A1 in the Additional file 1, guarantees, up to a certain extent, the generality of our results. However, there are certain limitations to the generalizability of our findings. ...Citations
... For example, social interaction ties, the norm of reciprocity [10], and the adoption of enterprise social media and blockchain technologies play pivotal roles in influencing trust. In prior trust research within virtual communities [4], the concepts of person-to-technology and person-toorganization have been extensively discussed to underscore the significance of trust in establishing sustainable knowledge-sharing virtual communities [11]. ...
This study is based on social exchange theory and the UTAUT model to develop a research model to investigate the impact of motivations under the background of established enterprise social media (ESM) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Motivations like organization rewards (OR), reciprocal benefits (RB), expectation fulfillment (EF), and job relevance (JR) have different impacts on the following two dimensions of trust: affect-based trust (ABT) and technology-based trust (TBT). This study considers the trust mechanism as the mediator in the relationship between motivations and knowledge sharing (KS). It also demonstrates the psychological element of social alienation (SA) as a moderator that influences trust level and its inhibitory effect on knowledge sharing within the organization. The authors in this study collected data from managers and employees in seven enterprises, including three retail enterprises and four information technology (IT) enterprises in China through three waves. In total, 509 responses were received, and 483 valid data were used to test the research model and hypotheses through the structural equation modeling (SEM) method to evaluate the impact of the potential elements on knowledge-sharing behavior. This research found that motivations like OR and RB promote ABT, thereby encouraging knowledge sharing when employees use ESM. The motivations of EF and JR have a direct effect on TBT, as well as promoting knowledge sharing. Both ABT and TBT have mediating roles between motivations and KS. In addition, the research also revealed the negative moderation effect of SA on the relationship between the two types of trust and KS. Specifically, SA gradually weakens the effects of ABT and TBT on KS, especially when employees are experiencing high levels of SA; ABT and TBT have no impact on KS. This study attempts to advance the theoretical and practical insights of motivations on knowledge sharing by exploring mediating effects of trust mechanisms. It also reveals the importance of SA’s moderation effect on the relationship between trust mechanisms and KS under the application of ESM.
