| Summary: | 碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 大眾傳播學研究所碩士班 === 106 === Internet users nowadays are no longer just passive recipients of information. They can actively create and share information on the Internet; therefore, a type of virtual community for the purpose of knowledge sharing has emerged. Such platforms provide users with a space for communication and knowledge sharing, and assist members to find the information and answers they need through other users who share their knowledge, experience, and expertise on the platforms. This study examines users of “Zhihu”, the largest knowledge sharing community in China, and to investigate the relationships among knowledge quality, sense of virtual community, and stickiness; as well as the influence of these factors on users’ engagement in the community.
This study conducted an online survey with a sample size of 557 valid responses. After performing a factor analysis on online community engagement, the result showed that users’ online community engagement behavior can be divided into three categories: (1) browsing & searching; (2) QA & interaction; and (3) recommendation & forwarding. The study also conducted hierarchical regression analyses to examine the influence of knowledge quality, sense of online community, and stickiness on three types of user online community engagement. The findings indicate that (1) understandability in knowledge quality will positively affect users’ browsing & searching on Zhihu; (2) knowledge reliability will positively affect users’ QA & interaction; (3) knowledge usefulness will positively affect users’ recommendation & forwarding behavior on Zhihu; (4) community identity in sense of virtual community will positively affect the all of the three types of users’ online community engagement behavior; (5) exchange support in sense of virtual community, however, has no significant predictive power on users’ online community engagement; and (6) users’ stickiness will positively affect users’ “browsing & searching” as well as “QA & interaction.” Based on the research results the study provides future research directions and practical suggestions in the end of the thesis.
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