Internet-based Knowledge Sharing Services: Investigations Of Self-construal And Sharing Behavior

Self-construal is an important theory explaining how individuals construct the self.Interdependent self-construal places the self among the network of social relationships;while independent self-construal constructs the self as an independent entity separatefrom the others. In internet-based knowledge sharing services, self-construal hasfundamental influences on users’ knowledge-sharing motivation, interpersonal trust andsharing behavior. A deep understanding of users’ self-construal can provide importantimplications for the management and design of internet knowledge sharing services.Since the knowledge-sharing scholars just get started in investigating self-construal, thecurrent research proposed three objectives:(1) to develop a theoretical modeldescribing the role of self-construal in internet knowledge sharing;(2) to investigate andverify the influences of self-construal on internet knowledge sharing process andsharing behavior; and (3) to provide suggestions for the management and design ofinternet-based knowledge sharing services.The research involved two phases. In the first phase, the researcher systematicallyreviewed the important studies on self-construal and internet knowledge sharing. Basedon the reviews, a theoretical model and several hypotheses were developed to predictthe influences of self-construal on internet knowledge-sharing. The second phasevalidated the model and hypotheses through three experiments.Experiment1investigated the influences of company employee’s self-construal onknowledge sharing media choice. The experiment compared the online knowledgerepository service (WIKI) and the social question and answer service (Q&A).232employees took part in the scenario-based experiment. The results indicated that:(1)when interdependent employees sharing their knowledge with outgroup members, theyhad higher knowledge sharing motivation, self-efficacy and sharing intention on WIKIthan on Q&A; and (2) for interdependent employees’ ingroup sharing, as well asindependent employees’ ingroup and outgroup sharing, both media can provide goodsupports.Based on the results above, experiment2predicted interdependent individuals tobe less influenced by media differences when sharing with close others. The experiment involved text messaging and face-to-face mediums.40Chinese students (interdependent)and40German students (independent) participated in a social dilemma gameexperiment. The main findings were:(1) in close relationships, Chinese participants hadhigher interpersonal trust and knowledge-sharing performance than German participants;and (2) the media differences did not influence Chinese participants’ interpersonal trustand sharing performance in close relationships.Experiment3extended the research to social networking services, and investigatedthe influence of status difference on microblog knowledge-sharing motivation andleadership.32Chinese students participated in a three-week online experiment. Theresults revealed that:(1) the Chinese student sample had a tendency of interdependentself-construal;(2) low status students had higher personal-benefit motivations than highstatus ones; and (3) high status students did not reveal more leadership behaviors, butwere more likely to be nominated as the group leader.This study validated the important influence of self-construal on internet-basedknowledge sharing. The research suggested that:(1) using the WIKI service topromote interdependent employee’s interdepartmental knowledge sharing;(2) fosteringthe development of close relationships among interdependent users; and (3) increasingthe media richness of knowledge-sharing services to reduce uncertainty amongindependent users.