Exploring The Antecedents Of Knowledge Withholding In Online Knowledge Community

The advent of knowledge economy era makes the value of information more significant.The wide spread of Internet provide the technical support for the exchange of information,which promote the emerging of a number of knowledge communities.Online knowledge community has become the platform for members to share experiences,gather together for searching information and co-create knowledge based on their common interests.In these communities,knowledge withholding is common.Knowledge withholding is the likelihood that an individual will give less than full effort when sharing knowledge,this behavior will do harm to the development of the comminity.Researches about knowledge sharing in virtual community is rich,while the study on the antecedents of knowledge withholding behavior in online knowledge community is quite scattered and lack a complete mechanism to integrate them,as well as the lack of research on moderation effect.This study explores the antecedents of this phenomenon and proposing ways to curb it.Through the empirical study on China's most influential Q & A community Zhihu,result shows that knowledge psychological ownership,knowledge sharing self-inefficacy and low quality knowledge are related to knowledge withholding,while the relationship between knowledge psychological ownership,knowledge sharing self-inefficacy with knowledge withholding can be moderated by psychological safety,respectively.This study integrates the social cognitive and psychological ownership theory,providing practical insights for community managers by suggesting ways to vitalize online knowledge communities.