Partecipation in virtual communities

The main aim of this dissertation is to examine in depth some aspects of the participation process to a virtual community. We used the model of goal-directed behavior (MGB, Perugini & Bagozzi, 2001) to investigate the role of motivational factors in the processes of active contribution and use of web community resources in online communities. Given the social dimension of a virtual community, similar to other authors (Dholakia and Bagozzi 2002, 2006a, 2006b; Bagozzi, 2011) we introduced the concept of we-intentions from Toumela‟s work (1995) in addition to individual intentions. Nielsen (2006) analyzed the contribution process defining the inequality in the contribution as the tendency for most web community users to participate modestly, while only some community members represent the active part of content production (1% as active content producers, 9% as content modifiers). Drawing from this idea, our research question was to better understand what are the factors that may inhibit a user from participating in a virtual community. The first study, a longitudinal research, aimed at identifying the processes underlying the willingness to actively contribute to a virtual community. Users from a virtual community of practice (N = 263), namely HTCBLOG.com, were considered for this study. A first plus of the present study is that we used a measure of an actual behavior of contribution. We tested the MGB considering the we-intentions to contribute but the first model tested did not predict the observed behavior. The introduction of greed and anonymity constructs to the MGB led to an increase in the explained variance in the observed behavior. In the second study, which was longitudinal, following the suggestions offered by Antin & Cheshire (2010), we decided to deepen the meaning of participation to a virtual community considering the idea of participation not necessarily identified with active contribution. Indeed, an individual can feel as a part of the community, simply because as a member he/she may access and read community contents. Drawing from this assumption we hypothesized that participation might be divided in two distinctive behaviors: active contribution and the individual use of contents by reading. Respondent to our survey were members of a virtual discussion forum (N = 428), namely PIPAM.org. Also in this second study we used a measure of an actual behavior of contribution. Using the MGB rationale plus collective intentions, we focused our attention on the distinction of the three processes of contribution, use of community contents and participation. We found that the we-intentions to participate were promoted by the we-intentions to contribute and by the we-intentions to use community contents by reading. Moreover, the participation behavior was predicted by we-intentions to participate as well as by the behaviors of contribution but negatively by the community contents usage behavior. Greed confirmed the negative significant effects on contribution process, whereas it showed a positive effect on the use of contents by reading instrumental behavior.