An Empirical Study On Subsequent Use And Continued Use Of Members In Online Communities

Internet has eliminated the limitation of physical location within users, thus not only constructing an online environment in which more and more users assemble and communicate, but also facilitating the formation of online community. Particularly, the emerging online communities (i.e., online knowledge community, online review community, online game community, and online gambling community) provide individual a new life style. Although industries believe the business value of online community, little study provides a detailed framework indicating how to acquire business value from online community. Specifically, how to encourage users to perform the continued use or how to en-longer the users’lifetime is still a problem in the industry discipline.This study used the empirical research methodology and borrowed the statistical software package (i.e., R, Sas, and Stata) to generate the result of our study. In the realm of the methodology, prior studies mainly used self-reported data to investigate the behavior of online users; however, our study mainly used secondary longitudinal dataset and borrowed the sophisticated econometrics model (i.e., ordinal time-series model, hirachical bayesian model, and surviavl analysis model) to study the behavior of online users, thus objectively analyzing the behavior of online users. Regarding on the dataset, this study mainly used the following methods to collect data:using web crawler software to collect data, coding by myself to collect data, coding based on API interface to collect data, and communicating with well-know institutes to collect data.Although prior studies of online customer behavior mainly focused on how to generate high quality user-generated content (UGC), little study investigates the dynamic process of generating UGC. In other words, little study investigates the factors affecting the dynamic process of generating UGC. Therefore, this study not only focuses on how to generate the high quality of UGC, but also investigates the dynamic process of generating UGC in online community environment.The discussion forum/blog is the main form of the online community in the past, more and more emerging online communities, however, provide the social network Apps recently. Based on our knowledge, little study focuses on how social network affects UGC and continued use in online community. Thus, this study attempts to supplement the prior studies regarding on how social network affects UGC and continued use in online community. Past study indicates that the cost of acquiring a new customer is five times than the cost of retaining a new customer. This study thus attempts to investigate online customer behavior at the post-adoption stage. Specifically, this study mainly focuses on how to encourage the subsequent use and continued use at the post-adoption stage. Regarding on the study of online knowledge community and online review community, our study mainly investigates the factors affecting subsequent use. Moreover, regarding on the study of online gambling community and online game community, our study mainly investigates the factors affecting continued use, an indicator of stickiness of users within those communities. Finally, this study supplements the past studies by investigating the factors affecting subsequent use and continued use at the post-adoption stage.This study not only investigates the relationship between past behavior and subsequent behavior, but also explores some factors moderating such relationship. Thus, this study extends relative studies of subsequent use at the post-adoption stage. Although past studies mainly focus on the relationship between past online review and sales and the relationship between past online review and subsequent review, our study found that online users are not only affected by the prior online review, but also affected by the product characteristics and service characteristics. Thus, this study also supplements the studies of subsequent use at the post-adoption stage in the Information Systems (IS) discipline.Earlier studies in the IS discipline often relied on survey questionnaires to examine how people share their knowledge. Although this technique is fairly effective for the development and testing of a comprehensive theory, it has some weaknesses. For example, self-report data are susceptible to method biases such as social desirability, implicit theories, and miscellaneous measurement effects. Furthermore, such data are not well suited for long-term observations of individuals’ actions. Unlike traditional studies, our study used objective data, which are less susceptible to subjective biases than self-report data. Finally, our study used such objective data, thus supplementing the prior study of online customer behavior in the IS discipline.