Prior Research
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Virtual Community
Definition
The term 'virtual community' was first used by Howard Rheingold (1992), who defined it as a "social aggregation that emerges from the net when enough people carry on public discussion long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationship in cyberspace." However, Hagel III and Armstrong (1997) have described it in a different way, as "groups of consumers united by a common interest." And Williams and Cothrel (2000) defined it as a "group of people who engage in many-to-many interactions online." Likewise, The Yankee Group defined virtual community as a large targeted audience of loyal and highly interactive users.
Taking all these into consideration, it is possible to categorize the above definitions in two groups, narrow and broad. The narrow definitions include those of Rheingold and the Yankee Group, while the broad definitions include those of Hagel III and Armstrong and Williams and Cothrel. Following the narrow definition, this research identified four requirements for a virtual community, based on prior research. These requirements are commonness, interactivity, continuance, and cyberspace (see Figure 1). Commonness suggests a similarity in terms of interest, experience, geographic feature, or demographics. Interactivity includes two types of interactions, one between system operator (SYSOP) and member and the other between member and member. Continuance refers to those interactions that have to continue for a certain period of time. Finally, cyberspace includes all aspects of the online world regardless of underlying infrastructure, such as IP (Internet, extranet, intranet) or mobile networks.
Figure 1: Four Requirements of a Virtual Community.
Managing Strategy
Then how does one build and operate a successful virtual community? There is little empirical research on this issue, but there are some ideas. Hagel III and Armstrong (1997) argued that people join in a virtual community to fulfill their needs for things such as information, transactions, relationships, and fantasies. Thus the virtual community should satisfy these needs through the use of content, communication, and commercialization.
Kim (2000) has focused more on the design and operation of communities by drawing on nine design principles for community-building from her own experience (see Table 1). These principles include: 'define and articulate the community's purpose', 'build flexible and extensible gathering places', 'create meaningful and evolving member profiles', 'provide a range of roles', 'promote effective leadership by developing a strong leadership program', 'define a clear-yet-flexible rule such as code of conduct and etiquette', 'organize and promote cyclic events', 'integrate a community with the real world through rituals', and 'facilitate member-run subgroups'.
| Strategy | Details |
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| Purpose |
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| Places |
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| Profiles |
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| Roles |
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| Leadership |
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| Rule |
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| Events |
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| Rituals |
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| Subgroups |
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Williams and Cothrel (2000) pointed out three keys to sustaining a virtual community: member development, asset management, and community relations. Member development means that communities should increase the size of their community membership and enhance member activities. Member development is important because communities need critical mass to remain active and to hold the attention of members. In addition, communities have to manage assets effectively, regardless of their source. Assets to be maintained include content, alliances, knowledge, experience, and the community infrastructure (hardware, software, and interface). Finally, communities can turn visitors into participating members by strengthening their relations. For example, off-line events could help cement relationships that have been established online.
While Hagel III and Armstrong (1997) explain basic ideas, Kim (2000) and Williams and Cothrel (2000) propose some solutions that can be followed by the community SYSOPs who want to create and manage virtual communities. In particular, the nine design principles of Kim (2000) cover most of the factors that were referred to by Williams and Cothrel (2000).
Sense of Community and Participation
Sense of Community
Sense of community has been studied by many sociologists and psychologists since the late 1970's. Sociologists have been interested in the factors that affect the sense of community, while psychologists have been interested in the relationship between sense of community and other psychological concepts such as satisfaction and happiness (Brodsky et al., 1999).
McMillan and Chavis (1986) developed the Sense of Community Index (SCI) based on prior research. They proved the reliability and validity of this index by applying the SCI to a real-world situation (Chavis et al., 1986). This SCI is composed of four constructs: membership; influence; integration and fulfillment of needs; and shared emotional connection. Each of these constructs has its own component factors (see Table 2). The membership construct consists of the dimensions of boundary and common symbols. Narrowing the boundary of the community leads to emotional safety and an increase in membership. Common symbols such as dress, ritual, and language also increase membership.
| Sense of community | Factors |
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| Membership |
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| Influence |
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| Integration and fulfillment of needs |
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| Emotional connection |
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The second construct is influence. There are two types of influences in communities. One is the influence of a community on its members and the other is the influence of members on a community. The first influence is contingent on members' cohesiveness and conformity to a community. Both could be reinforced when the community's norms and justice are consensually validated. However, the second influence is dependent on each member's nature. If a member fully understands the purpose of the community and participates in a community with a high level of leadership, he or she can increase his or her influence on the community.
The third construct is integration and fulfillment of needs. Because need fulfillment is a primary function of a cohesive community, each community should make efforts to first identify the members' needs. The best situation is when members and their community fit each others' objectives and have shared values. However, in a given situation, a community can better fulfill the members' needs by rewarding contributing members through elevated status and privileges.
The last construct is emotional connection. It can be consolidated by quantity and quality of interactions. Thus each community has to offer shared and worthwhile events as often as possible.
Participation
Participation in a community has been considered a measurement of the community's success because it shows member satisfaction, while at the same time advancing important community goals (Julian et al., 1997). A great deal of research has thus focused on developing strategies that promote participation, such as creating individual psychological benefits and a sense of community, power, and involvement (Zimmerman & Rappaport, 1988; Teo, Chan, Wei, & Zhang, 2003; Koh & Kim, 2003).
Participation is highlighted in virtual communities as well. Community leaders must have the necessary skills to stimulate member involvement and participation as well as to attract and shepherd new members (McWilliam, 2000). Since the measurement for community success is changing from quantity measurement to quality measurement, member activity is more important than the number of members in the community (Park et al., 2000; Kozinets, 2000). Sense of community, participation, and involvement were suggested as measurements for evaluating a community in terms of its quality (Cothrel, 2000).
Information System Quality and Its Use
Information System Quality
Information system quality can be divided into two aspects - system quality and information quality. System quality refers to the user's perception of the system and was first developed to measure system performance. Information quality refers simply to the quality of information generated by the system.
DeLone and McLean (1992) summarized dependent variables that had been used to measure system quality and information quality, and assumed that both are highly related to system use and its performance. These relationships were validated through later empirical research. Information quality and system quality were shown to have indirect influences on system use (Seddon, 1997; Kim & Ahn, 1998).
This relationship was studied with respect to Internet web sites by Liu and Arnett (2000). To explore factors associated with web site success, they combined the factors of information and system quality with four others. It was revealed that web site success was related to four major factors: quality of information and service, system use, playfulness and system design quality.
System Use
System use is one of the most frequently reported means of measuring the success of an information system, and it reflects the attitude of the user toward the system (DeLone & McLean, 1992). While DeLone and McLean argued that information and system quality have a direct influence on system use, Seddon (1997) maintained that they had an indirect influence on it by way of usefulness and user satisfaction. In this study, system use can be viewed as a "visit" to the community.
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EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 207