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OIR 35,5 Understanding music sharing behaviour on social network services 716 Dongwon Lee Institute for IT Convergence, KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea Received 31 July 2010 Accepted 6 March 2011 Jaimie Yejean Park Division of Web Science and Technology, KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea Junha Kim Department of Management Science, KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea Jaejeung Kim Institute for IT Convergence, KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea, and Junghoon Moon Program in Regional Information, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand music sharing behaviour on social networking services (SNS). This study suggests and examines a research model which focuses on the influences of user motivations, such as self-expression, ingratiation, altruism, and interactivity, on music sharing behaviour in SNS through social motivation factors. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 153 Korean SNS (i.e. Cyworld, Naver Blog, Daum Blog, and Tistory) users, who have experience in purchasing music and legally sharing it on SNS. The partial least squares method was used to analyse the measurement and structural models. Findings – The study shows that interactivity, perceived ease of use, self-expression, social presence, and social identity are significant positive predictors of music sharing intention on SNS. Research limitations/implications – This research is significant in light of recent interest in user activities in SNS. Better understanding of the music sharing behaviour on SNS can be prompted by reflecting cultural differences in selecting the SNS for validation with a larger sample size. Practical implications – The findings emphasise the importance of providing users with interactive, self-expressive, and easily manageable services in order to increase their intention to share music through SNS. Service providers need to focus on improving the user experience of the systems. Originality/value – SNS based online music services have been increasing and are a new business model of music content distribution. However no academic research has examined music related services on SNS. This study is the first empirical study analysing music sharing behaviour on SNS. Keywords Music sharing, Social networking service, Social identity, Social presence, Interactivity, Self-expression, Social networks, Music Paper type Research paper

Online Information Review Introduction Vol. 35 No. 5, 2011 pp. 716-733 Online social networking has been a globally dominant trend and a buzzword for the q Emerald Group Publishing Limited last couple of years. Through SNS, users can engage in sharing interests, information, 1468-4527 DOI 10.1108/14684521111176462 and media content such as images, videos, and music. The primary focus of this study is to examine what is behind the users’ behaviour or intention in sharing music online Understanding through legal ways. Sharing music, in the context of this study, means posting music music sharing the user purchased within the SNS to play the music for fellow SNS users. In fact this is a common activity among users of many different SNS such as Cyworld behaviour (www.cyworld.com), Naver Blog (http://blog.naver.com), Daum Blog (http://blog. daum.net), Tistory (www.tistory.com), and Myspace (http://myspace.com). The music industry is one of the areas that have been significantly affected by 717 digital technologies (Kwong and Lee, 2002; Bhattacharjee et al., 2003, 2006; Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2006b; Zentner, 2003; Cha et al., 2007). According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry digital channels are now responsible for more than a quarter of all recorded music industry revenues worldwide (IFPI, 2010). New forms of music products and distribution processes have emerged to adapt to dynamic market demands, leading to greater investigation of customers’ sharing of music and digital content in the online environment. Most studies about music sharing in the online environment focus on why people pirate music files even though it is illegal and despite its impact on the music industry. That research provides explanations for online piracy through concepts such as value maximising (Conner and Rumelt, 1991), moral reasoning ability (Chen et al., 2008), and demographic affects (Coyle et al., 2009). Other researchers have investigated music sharing from the industrial perspective (Bhattacharjee et al., 2003; Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, 2007; Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2006b). Some studies use technological analyses to figure out which elements facilitate sharing activities, such as interface components, bandwidth availability, compression technology, and connection speed (Ahern et al., 2007; Cha et al., 2007; Mislove et al., 2007). There have been attempts to investigate the sharing phenomenon’s behavioural aspect, mostly focusing on the piracy issue as well (Chiou et al., 2005; Gopal et al., 2004). Although many researchers have focussed on the problem of online piracy and its impact on the music industry, few have concentrated on understanding the users’ motivation to share music through legal means in the online environment. In this research we empirically examine the possible personal motivation factors underlying user intention including self-expression, ingratiation, altruism, and service characteristics of the SNS including interactivity and perceived ease of use. Furthermore we take into consideration the social psychological dimensions such as social identity and social presence to acquire a better understanding of how they affect users’ music sharing intentions in SNS. This research is the first empirical study that investigates the music industry based on SNS, which has significant sales in the online music market. Moreover it could be useful for businesses intending to provide music services via SNS.

The online music industry and online music sharing Online music industry New forms of music products and distribution processes have emerged to adapt to changing market demands, and now the music industry depends heavily on such digital channels. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reported that more than 27 percent of the music industry’s revenues come from digital channels; the total revenue from music sales through digitised channels was US$4.2 billion in 2009 (IFPI, 2010). Apple’s iTunes Music Store, the world’s largest digital music retailer, OIR accounts for three quarters of the digital music sales with its growing impact on the 35,5 music industry (Waldfogel, 2010). This research focuses on the users’ intentions to share music online through legal means. The legal ways of accessing music files online are either through music purchases in online music stores such as iTunes or through subscription service providers which let users listen to unlimited streaming audio for a fixed subscription 718 fee (Bockstedt et al., 2005; Zentner, 2003). Nowadays SNS providers also offer music sales and streaming services, enabling users to freely purchase music and share purchased music through background music on their homepages or blog posts. This research focuses on the users’ intentions to share music online through legal means, especially through SNS.

SNS and music sales SNS have grown rapidly in recent years, allowing individuals to present themselves through profiles, show their social connections, and establish or maintain connections with others (Ellison et al., 2007; Kim and Yun, 2007). Users can express themselves in SNS through a wide variety of features including editing profiles, posting blogs, uploading multimedia content, and creating personal layouts. One of the many features offered by SNS providers is music sales and streaming services. SNS such as Myspace and Korea’s Cyworld and Naver Blog let users explore new music, sample songs, and purchase songs or albums (Chen et al., 2009). After purchasing, users can freely share the purchased songs with others in the form of background music or blog posts. Cyworld, a leading social networking service in South Korea with more than a third of the nation’s population registered as users (Choi, 2006), offers a music market through which users can explore and purchase music. Cyworld utilises an exchange system which involves cyber currency. Users can purchase music, wallpapers, gifts, and other items for decorating their mini-homepages using cyber currency called dotori, the Korean word for acorn, and each acorn costs approximately US10 cents (Jung et al., 2007). Cyworld users can listen to 45 seconds of sampled music before making a decision to purchase music. Each song costs six acorns for unlimited streaming service and eight acorns for unlimited streaming service plus a downloadable MP3 file. Consequently a user can legally share the purchased music with others by setting it as the background music for their Cyworld mini homepage. Kim and Yun (2007) have noted that Cyworld’s highly successful acorn business model resulted in average daily sales of $300,000 worth of acorns and 200,000 songs in 2007. As of that year the Cyworld music market had accumulated sales of 160 million songs; this is the second largest sales record, second only to iTunes, by the number of songs sold (Kim and Chang, 2007). Furthermore SNS are “linking music producers to consumers through taste profiling, artist similarity, and recommendation data as well as linking listeners with shared tastes and interests” (Knowles, 2007, p. 4). MySpace is just one of many SNS which serve as a bridge between artists and fans. Artists and bands can upload songs, display music videos, build relationships with fans, and even sell MP3 downloads through MySpace (Chen et al., 2009). In addition MySpace allows users to tag, rate and leave comments about content (Knowles, 2007). The active involvement of both artists and users builds a community of artists and music fans, and helps artists to successfully promote their music (Chen et al., 2009). Understanding the user behaviour Understanding in SNS, which will facilitate more meaningful artist-artist, fan-fan, and artist-fan music sharing interactions (Wendel, 2008), is an essential task in determining its impact on the music industry. behaviour Cyworld, Naver Blog, Daum Blog, Tistory, and Myspace are popular SNS in Korea that support systems for users to legally purchase and share music online. For these SNS the mechanism through which users can legally share music is similar to that of 719 Cyworld; they support systems for users to first purchase music and pay for it, then share the purchased music with others in forms of background music for blog posts. This research is based on the data collected from the users of those five SNS. Although Facebook is also widely used in Korea, it is not included in this research because it does not support any system or service that enables users to legally share music online.

Previous studies on online music sharing The few previous studies of online music sharing and its impact on the music industry used three approaches: economic, technical, and behavioural. Some studies examined whether end-user piracy and illegal music sharing is the main cause of the decline in music sales (Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, 2007; Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2006b). While some research revealed that the negative effects of illegal sharing are trivial and that they could be compensated for by the positive effect of sampling (Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, 2007), some argue that end-user copying leads to a reduction in profit (Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2006a). Blackburn (2004) studied the differences in music copying and sharing tendencies depending on the artist and genre and their impact on the industry in the short term. Bhattacharjee et al. (2003) concluded that price, distribution mechanisms, and the income of users have significant influence on consumers’ demand for music and online piracy. Other researchers have focussed on technical issues in the online music sharing environment, such as digitisation, compression, streaming, broadband technologies, availability of broadband connections, connection speed, and quality perception, and how they facilitate changes in the music industry (Bhattacharjee et al., 2003; Zentner, 2008). A few studies have aimed to increase understanding of the motivations for music sharing behaviour. Kwok (2002) proposed an enhanced license management model for online music. Voida et al. (2006) examined file sharing interfaces and made suggestions regarding better visibility of sharing settings in the user interface to foster sharing behaviour between users. Overall the literature has retained its focus on identifying technical aspects that facilitate piracy of music files and its economic impact on the music industry and economy. By contrast there have been almost no studies on what motivates people to share their music. This study concentrates on the factors influencing users’ tendencies to share music in the online environment through legal channels, and which service characteristics affect these tendencies.

Research model and hypothesis development Figure 1 shows the research model which seeks to examine how a user’s individual motivation and perception of SNS characteristics affect their music sharing intentions in SNS through social identity and social presence. The ultimate dependent variable of this research is music sharing intention in SNS. OIR 35,5

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Figure 1. Research model and hypothesised relationships

Interactivity A thorough review of past studies on interactivity suggests that interactivity is mainly associated with three elements: direction of communication, user control, and time (McMillan, 2000). Wu (2005) asserts that perceived interactivity in the online environment is defined in terms of perceived control over the system as well as perceived responsiveness and personalisation of the system. Furthermore Wu (2005) suggests that an individual’s attitude toward the website is positively related to perceived interactivity. Song and Zinkhan (2008) support this claim by asserting that perceived interactivity mediates the positive influence of websites’ features on users’ attitude toward the site. Thus we define the term interactivity as the navigability, control, and responsiveness of the service as well as two-way communication between the users involved in SNS. Teo et al. (1999) analysed the degree of interactivity and its influence on the satisfaction and efficiency ratings of a service. Kim et al. (2007) suggested that interactivity is composed of personalisation, control, and responsiveness, and carried out empirical studies on its effect on users’ perceived attitudes towards t-Commerce services. Thus we posit that the degree of interactivity has a significant influence on the individual’s perceived ease of use, which will be explained next.

Perceived ease of use Davis (1989, p. 320) defined perceived ease of use as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort”. Teo et al. (1999) referred to perceived ease of use as the degree to which the prospective user expects the use of the target system to be free of effort. They found a positive relationship between perceived ease of use and frequency and diversity of internet usage directly through perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. As mentioned earlier it is expected that interactivity will have a positive effect on the perceived ease of use in SNS: H1. The interactivity of SNS positively affects perceived ease of use of music related services in SNS. Self-expression Understanding The significance of the internet as a social medium is that individuals are allowed to music sharing “develop an individualised web presence that reflects facets of their personal style and idiosyncratic intellectual approaches” (Oravec, 2002, p. 225). Types of online media behaviour through which users can express their feelings include blogs, personal homepages, mini homepages, online communities and bulletin boards. A previous study supports the idea that individuals are able to express original and alternative forms of the self 721 through personal homepages and blogs (Moon et al., 2006). In this study self-expression is one of the three personal motivation factors which are believed to influence music sharing intention in the online environment such as blogs or homepages.

Ingratiation Ingratiation is thought to be one of the five strategies of self-presentation: ingratiation, competence, intimidation, exemplification, and supplication (Dominick, 1999). Bortree (2005, p. 35) explains that an ingratiation strategy is “one used to win the affection and approval of others”, and Jones (1990) associates ingratiation with modesty, familiarity, and humour. An analysis of personal homepages found significant use of ingratiation strategies (Bortree, 2005). Thus we are led to the hypothesis that ingratiation has a positive influence on music sharing intention in SNS.

Altruism Subramani and Peddibhotla (2003, p. 2) define altruism as “motivations arising from the presence of intangible benefits such as reputation and name recognition and psychosocial rewards such as positive feelings from being a member of a community”. Hsu and Lin (2008) found that altruism is positively related to users’ attitudes toward blogging. Another study also suggests that users participate in online communities due to obligations resulting in altruistic behaviours (Utz, 2009). Based on this knowledge we posit that altruism may influence the music sharing intention of online SNS users.

Social identity Social identity is defined as: The individual’s knowledge that he belongs to certain social groups together with some emotional and value significance to him of this group membership (Tajfel and Turner, 1979, p. 292). Bagozzi and Dholakia (2002) introduced three components of social identity: cognitive, affective, and evaluative. Shen et al. (2010) found a positive relationship between social identity and knowledge contribution activities in virtual communities. Hence we expect that individuals with high social identity have greater intentions of music sharing in SNS. According to Moon et al. (2006) social interaction through blogs affects the virtual social identity. In this study interactivity means not only the navigability, control, and responsiveness of the service, but also the interaction among users via SNS. Therefore the interactivity of SNS is expected to positively influence social identity: H2. The interactivity of SNS positively affects the social identity of SNS. OIR SNS, including blog services, are the most popular medium through which individuals 35,5 express their thoughts, interests, and emotions (Gersch, 1998). Individuals can build relationships with various users via SNS and this network facilitates self-expression. Therefore it is expected that a user’s self-expressiveness in the SNS increases their social identity: 722 H3. Users’ self-expression positively affects the social identity of SNS. Ingratiation is a strategy for reaching the goal of being liked by others, by saying positive things about others, using statements indicating modesty, showing familiarity, and demonstrating humour. People using ingratiation strategies in interpersonal communication could increase their sense of belonging, affection, and intimacy with a group they are connected to via SNS: H4. Users’ ingratiation positively affects the social identity of SNS. Altruism is personal motivation to get psychosocial rewards such as reputation, name recognition, or positive feedback from community members. Hence individuals highly motivated by altruistic communication via SNS would exhibit greater relatedness, affection, and intimacy with the group: H5. Users’ altruism positively affects the social identity of SNS.

Social presence Social presence is “the feeling of ‘being with another’ or the degree of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships” (Biocca et al., 2003, p. 65). The term “social presence” in this context is defined as the belief that one’s social presence will be enhanced through blogging or posting activities. A study indicates that there is a positive relationship between the degree of interactivity of an advertisement and the social presence it conveys (Fortin and Dholakia, 2005). Therefore, applying this idea to the context of online SNS, we propose that interactivity is likely to create a feeling of social presence for online SNS users: H6. The interactivity of SNS positively affects the social presence of SNS. Rettie (2005) asserts that self-expression is strongly correlated to social presence based on the finding of Short et al. (1976) that communication media allowing higher degrees of self-expression, such as face-to-face interaction, are perceived to have higher degrees of social presence. Thereby we hypothesise that self-expression in the online environment would also affect social presence: H7. Users’ self-expression positively affects the social presence of SNS. Shen et al. (2010) empirically demonstrated the effect of social presence on knowledge contribution in the context of online communities with a mediating effect via social identity. They claimed that users with a higher degree of awareness of other members, or social presence, will be more likely to develop comparative fit than those with a lower degree of awareness (Shen et al., 2010). The term “comparative fit” is explained by Turner (1985) as part of social identity theory. It refers to the idea that the perceived difference among the intraclass entities is smaller than that of interclass entities. In other words: A set of stimuli are more likely to be categorised as a single entity when the intraclass Understanding differences between those items are seen to be smaller than the interclass differences between those items and others that are included in a given comparative context (Shen et al., 2010, p. 340). music sharing behaviour Therefore for the users with stronger social presence, the perceived difference among the intraclass members is smaller than the perceived difference among the interclass members. This concept of comparative fit is a determinant for social identity, indicating that a high correlation exists between social presence and social identity: 723 H8. The social presence of SNS positively affects the social identity of SNS.

Music sharing intention of using SNS Teo et al. (1999) asserted that perceived ease of use is positively related to the frequency and diversity of internet usage. Similarly a positive relation is expected between perceived ease of use of music related services in SNS and music sharing intentions of using blog services: H9. Perceived ease of use of music related services in SNS positively affects music sharing intentions of using SNS. Shen et al. (2010) claimed that social identity positively affects knowledge contribution in virtual communities. The effect of social presence on knowledge contribution in the context of online communities with a mediation effect via social identity suggests its impact on the music sharing behaviour as well. Therefore we expect that individuals with high social identity and social presence have greater intention of music sharing in SNS usage: H10. The social identity of SNS positively affects music sharing intentions of using SNS. H11. The social presence of SNS positively affects music sharing intentions of using SNS.

Data collection and analysis Instrument development and data collection The empirical model and 11 hypotheses described in the previous sections were empirically tested via a survey questionnaire composed of measures based on the literature review. The latent variables in Figure 1 were operationalised on a seven-point Likert scale. The initial version of the survey was pilot tested on 35 SNS users in South Korea and a few of the survey instruments were changed due to the pilot test’s results. The survey questionnaire items are provided in the Appendix. The unit of analysis in this research is the individual user of SNS. The population of interest is the individuals who share music through SNS. Data was collected from SNS users in South Korea by means of a web based survey and resulted in a total of 153 usable responses. The respondents were using Korean SNS such as Cyworld, Naver Blog, Daum Blog, and Tistory. A total of 77.78 percent of the respondents were using Cyworld, which is the most popular SNS in South Korea. Table I shows the demographic distribution of survey respondents. A total of 67.32 percent of the respondents were male (n ¼ 103) and 32.68 percent were female (n ¼ 50). The average age of respondents was 27.37 years old, and 67.97 percent of respondents OIR 35,5 Criteria Frequency % Gender Male 103 67.32 Female 50 32.68 Age 724 20-29 104 67.97 30-39 41 26.80 40-49 6 3.92 50 þ 2 1.31 No. of songs purchased 0-5 41 26.80 6-10 23 15.03 11-50 50 32.68 50-100 19 12.42 100 þ 20 13.07 Average amount spent on music purchases 50c-$1 105 68.63 $1-2 24 15.69 $2-3 9 5.88 Table I. $3-5 8 5.23 Demographic results $5 þ 7 4.58

were from 21 to 30 years old. In terms of music purchasing 41.83 percent of respondents had purchased 0 to 10 songs on SNS and 32.68 percent of respondents purchased 11 to 50 songs. Moreover 68.63 percent of respondents spent an average of 50 cents to $1 on music purchases. This means that more than half of the respondents bought one or two songs at a time on SNS. The sample reflects the demographic distribution of SNS users in Korea as other reports have indicated. The majority of the SNS users in Korea are in their 20s (Kim and Hwang, 2009), and Cyworld is the most prominent SNS in Korea, with 25 million users (Park et al., 2011).

Analysis Data analysis was performed using the partial least squares (PLS) method for the assessment of both a measurement model and a structural model, with PLS-graph version 3.0. The emphasis of PLS is on predicting the responses as well as understanding the underlying relationships between the variables. PLS is useful in identifying factors that have an insignificant effect on the dependent variable (Tobias, 1999). Thus PLS is suitable for both exploratory and confirmatory research (Gefen et al.,2000).Thisstudyis interested in each specific path coefficient and the variance explained rather than overall model fit. Therefore PLS is an appropriate method for this research. This study used a measurement model to test the composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE) and investigated convergent validity, cross-loading matrix, and correlation matrix with the square root of AVE. The composite reliability for each latent variable was higher than 0.80 and the lowest was 0.813. An acceptable threshold for composite reliability is 0.70 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Moreover the AVE for each latent variable was higher than 0.50; the Understanding lowest AVE was 0.521. The criteria for an acceptable level of convergent validity are music sharing individual item factor loadings greater than 0.60 and an AVE greater than 0.50 (Chin, 1998; Fornell and Larcker, 1981). These results show that the measurement model has behaviour strong convergent validity. In addition cross-loadings of each item were explored and compared across all latent variables. The lowest construct score was 0.664 and most construct scores were higher than 0.80. Each construct score loaded highly on its 725 theoretically assigned factor and did not load highly on other factors. According to Gefen and Straub (2005) this indicates that the measurement model has both strong convergent validity and discriminant validity. Table II examines the ratio of the square root of AVE of each latent variable over the correlation of this variable with respect to all the other variables. The diagonal elements in parentheses are the correlations of each construct with its own measure, which is the square root of AVE. Off-diagonal elements are correlations between constructs. Diagonal elements should be larger than the entries in corresponding rows and columns for adequate discriminate validity (Gefen and Straub, 2005). Table II shows that each construct is more highly correlated with its own measure than with any other constructs.

Results Figure 2 illustrates the results of model testing. Out of three paths six are significant at p , 0.01 and two are significant at p , 0.05. Except for H3, H4, and H5 the hypotheses were statistically significant. In particular the path coefficient of social presence to social identity is the highest (b ¼ 0:449). Moreover the path coefficients of self-expression to social presence (b ¼ 0:438), interactivity to perceived ease of use (b ¼ 0:400), interactivity to social identity (b ¼ 0:311), perceived ease of use to music sharing intention (b ¼ 0:232), and interactivity to social presence (b ¼ 0:222) are particularly high and statistically significant at p , 0.01. Further the path coefficients of social presence to music sharing intention (b ¼ 0:191) and social identity to music sharing intention (b ¼ 0:175) are statistically significant at p , 0.05. However the path coefficient of user’s motivation (self-expression, ingratiation, and altruism) to social identity is not significant.

Latent variable INTR PEOU SFEX INGRT ALTR SCID SCPR INTEN

INTR (0.796) PEOU 0.396 (0.894) SFEX 0.062 0.094 (0.849) INGRT 0.085 0.046 0.560 (0.722) ALTR 0.166 0.135 0.335 0.452 (0.812) SCID 0.422 0.263 0.282 0.123 0.151 (0.909) SCPR 0.238 0.303 0.449 0.313 0.237 0.547 (0.856) INTEN 0.171 0.333 0.352 0.259 0.201 0.337 0.356 (0.941) Table II. Notes: INTR ¼ Interactivity; PEOU ¼ Perceived Ease of Use; SFEX ¼ Self Expression; Correlations of the latent INGRT ¼ Ingratiation; ALTR ¼ Altruism; SCID ¼ Social Identity; SCPR ¼ Social Presence; variables and the square INTEN ¼ Music Sharing Intention root of AVE OIR 35,5

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Figure 2. Data analysis results

From these results 25.5 percent of the variance in social presence is accounted for by interactivity and self-expression, and 39.7 percent of the variance in social identity is accounted for by interactivity and social presence. Moreover 16 percent of the variance in perceived ease of use is accounted for by interactivity. Finally 20.6 percent of the variance in music sharing intention is accounted for by perceived ease of use, social identity, and social presence. An individual’s music sharing intention in a SNS is driven primarily by the perceived ease of use of using music related services on that SNS. Moreover it appears that perceived ease of use is significantly affected by the user’s degree of interactivity. This result highlights the importance of providing users with a sense of interactivity within the service in order to enhance their intention to use music services. Thus service providers should focus on improving the user experience of the systems which can facilitate the interactions between people, devices, and events. Self-expression was the only factor positively influencing social identity through social presence. This suggests that SNS users are mainly concerned with self-serving motivation factors rather than peer-oriented factors such as altruism or ingratiation. Moreover the positive correlations between interactivity and social identity and social presence indicate that the degree of interactivity is determined by communicability between the users as well as communicability with the system.

Discussion The main goal of this study was to understand legal music sharing behaviour on SNS which is a new form of music distribution. This study empirically validates how users’ motivation and service characteristics of SNS influence music sharing intentions on SNS via social identity and social presence. While previous studies examined why people pirate music files and its impact on the music industry this study focused on legal music sharing behaviour on SNS. We found that self-expression is the most influential personal motivator and that SNS interactivity plays a crucial role in music sharing intention on SNS. The results are in line with Rettie’s (2005) paper on self-expression and social presence. Moreover Understanding this study reveals that SNS interactivity affects both social identity and social music sharing presence. This is in agreement with Fortin and Dholakia’s (2005) findings on web based advertisements and those of Moon et al. (2006) on blogs. In addition the results behaviour show that social presence positively affects social identity as did the study by Shen et al. (2010) on knowledge contributions to online communities. Thus this study applied these mechanisms to SNS and empirically validated the previous literature as 727 mentioned above. It was also found that social presence fully mediates the relationship between self-expression and social identity. As shown in Table II the correlation between self-expression and social identity is 0.282, which is significant and positive. However the results of the structural model analysis indicate that the causal relationships between those two variables are not significant; instead self-expression to social presence and social presence to social identity are significant. This finding implies that social presence is a mediator of the relationship between self-expression and social identity. In order for practitioners to foster music sharing activities on SNS, ease of use needs to be considered in providing music related service features such as music search, listening, purchasing and sharing. Ease of use can be enhanced by usability evaluation, service process reengineering, or user centred design. The research results also reveal that interactivity plays a major role as the antecedent of ease of use. The interactivity of a SNS can be improved by designing more a controllable user interface, eliminating unnecessary plug-ins, enabling easier communication among peers and organising the information architecture to enable users to more easily navigate its services. In addition the data analysis implies that music sharing on SNS is influenced by social identity and social presence, and their prior primary factor is interactivity. In order to increase social identity and social presence SNS providers need to increase interactivity by diversifying the types of communication among users. Such examples could be features for convenient grouping and forming of communities, sharing personal status in real time, or creating a channel for chatting. Interactivity and self-expression were mentioned as antecedents of social presence. Social presence can be augmented by providing service features that enable users to express themselves within the SNS. Such examples could be avatar creation and personalisation, or using music to express their status and interests. These activities may contribute to forming the user’s social identity, ultimately leading to more sharing and purchasing of music. This is the first empirical study examining music sharing intentions on SNS. The study explores the link between motivations and intentions to legally share music in the online environment while most of the prior research on music sharing (Chen et al., 2008; Coyle et al., 2009; Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, 2007; Peitz and Waelbroeck, 2006b) dealt with the issue of piracy. Moreover the results of this study support the previous literature on online communities (Shen et al., 2010) and SNS (Moon et al., 2006; Hsu and Lin, 2008; Jung et al., 2007). As a result the research model of this study could be used in not only music sharing on SNS but also other SNS related topics such as photo sharing and knowledge sharing. OIR Conclusion and limitations 35,5 The research examined service characteristics, personal motivations, and social motivations relevant to explaining the individual’s intention to share music through SNS. The results indicate that SNS users are willing to share music mainly because it is easy to use the service for sharing music. Moreover the motivation of self-expression and interactive aspects of the system played major roles in 728 determining social identity and social presence, leading to music sharing intention in SNS. This research is not free from limitations. We collected 153 responses, but a larger sample could exhibit more robust results. Moreover in Korea people tend to behave collectively, seeing themselves as defined by relationships with and duties to others (Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1989). The results indicated that self-expression plays a key role which means they could differ in Western cultures where people are more individualistic. Thus future research can explore cultural differences. In sum online music content in the past was for personal purposes only such as purchasing downloadable content and streaming service accounts. Today SNS allow users to legally share purchased music content with others, opening up new business opportunities and insights for service providers. There has not yet been an academic analysis of music sharing on SNS. The present research suggests the need to apply this type of study to other topics in the field and calls for new approaches to applying diverse theories.

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It is easy to learn to manage purchased music contents through this social networking website. . It would be easy for me to become skilful at managing music contents through this social networking website. Self-expression . I like to tell others about myself. . I tend to provide personal information about myself. . I try to well describe my personality to others. Ingratiation . I show familiarity. . I show humour. . I like to cover up myself before others. . I like to compliment or encourage others. Altruism . I like to share my experience with the others. . I like to inform others with my knowledge. . I like to recommend things for the others. . I enjoy helping others. Social identity . I feel a sense of belonging towards the user group of this social networking service. . I have a feeling of togetherness or closeness in user group of this social networking service. . I have a strong positive feeling towards the user group of this social networking service. . I enjoy being together with the user group of this social networking service. Social presence . I can inform others of my presence through this social networking website. . I can feel human sensitivity through this social networking website. . I can notify others of my feelings through this social networking website. . I can feel a sense of sociability in the social networking website. Intention to share music Understanding . I am willing to purchase music and share it with others through this social networking music sharing website on a regular basis in the future. behaviour . I will frequently use this social networking website to purchase music and share it with others in the future. . I will continue to share music with others through this social networking website. 733

About the authors Dongwon Lee is a Researcher of KAIST Institute for IT Convergence. He has a BS in Computer Science Engineering from KAIST and an MSc in IT Business from KAIST. His research interests include consumer behavior on ICT environment, user experience, human computer interaction, and ICT based service innovation. He has presented papers at several conferences, including Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Korea Society of MIS (KMIS) Conference, HCI Korea, Service Science Korea, IEEE International Conference on ICT Convergence, and IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communication (PerCom). He has published articles in Communications of the Korea Information Science Society and Food Business and IT Services. Jaimie Yejean Park is a Master’s student in Division of Web Science and Technology in KAIST. She received her BS degree in Computer Science from KAIST. Her research interests include semantic web, social network analysis, web data mining, information search and retrieval, and information evolution. Junha Kim is a Researcher of Department of Management Science, KAIST. His research interests include self-construal, intergroup dynamics, adult attachment, self-control, and regulatory fit. He has presented papers at several conferences, including International Conference on Social Science and Humanity (ICSSH) and Korea Society of MIS (KMIS) Conference. Jaejeung Kim is a Researcher of KAIST Institute for IT Convergence. He has a BS in Computer Science from Tsinghua University and an MSc in Culture Technology from Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST. His research interests include human-computer interaction, human-centered computing, pervasive computing, and web intelligence. He has presented papers at several conferences, including ACM Mobile Computing and Multimedia (MoMM), Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), IEEE Web Intelligent Systems (WIS), IEEE Pervasive Computing (PerCom), and HCI Korea. He has published articles in Communications of the Korea Information Science Society. Junghoon Moon is an Assistant Professor of the Program in Regional Information at Seoul National University in Korea. He received his PhD degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2006. He worked for several years as a system analyst and consultant. In addition, he is a member of Auto-ID labs sponsored by EPCglobal. His research interests include information management, e-Marketing, and food business management. He has published articles in many journals, including Online Information Review, e-Business Studies, Journal of Information Technology Management, Information Systems Frontiers, Scientometrics, Asia Pacific Journal of Information Management, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications. Junghoon Moon is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

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