A Study of Sharing in Consumer Communities
A Study of Sharing in Consumer Communities Abstract: In this paper we study sharing behavior in consumer communities. Using Netnographic approach, deep interviews and focus group we propose a causal model of sharing behavior and we suggest it is constituted of three types of sharing: (1) motivated sharing, (2) spurious sharing, and (3) inadvertent sharing. In addition, motivated sharing is impacted negatively by perceptions of costs, and positively by: identification with members, user’s sense of personal responsibility, user’s overall engagement in the community, consumer’s sense of reciprocity, consumer’s belief in the organizational principles, and beliefs that one is going to gain personally from sharing. Keywords: Consumer Networks, Sharing Behavior, Consumer Communities, Consumer Behavior Track indication: New Technologies and e-Marketing 1 A Study of Sharing in Consumer Communities Introduction Over the last decade or so, consumer communities have been in ascendance (e.g., Kozinets, 2002; Muniz & O’Guinn, 2001). These communities take many forms. Some consumer communities, such as those found on the eBay web site, have primarily commercial purposes of buying and selling gainfully. Others, such as Gnutella and BitTorrent, are peer-to- peer (P2P) networks of consumers who share digital information like music or video files, software programs, videogames, images, documents etc., with one another. Still other consumer communities are found in the chat rooms and user groups that congregate to discuss experiences, and share knowledge regarding a particular product or service. For example, in the MUSE chat- room devoted to the Apache server software (http://ws.apache.org/muse/contact_info), experienced developers help novices with specific software installation and usage issues.
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