Abstract:
Online health communities (OHCs) have now become a valuable
platform for people to seek health-related information. Knowledge sharing and
community promotion in the OHCs are critical to sustain their continuous use
and improve their engagement. This study aims to investigate factors influencing
knowledge sharing and community promotion in the OHC in the perspectives of
social support, commitment-trust, and trust transfer theory. A questionnaire
survey is employed as a collection data technique. The study results reveal that
informational support influences trust transfer, trust towards community and
members of the community. In addition, emotional support has a positive impact
on community commitment and trust in community members but not in the
community itself. Further, community commitment is positively related to both
knowledge sharing and community promotion. While trust towards the com munity is only positively related to community promotion, trust towards
members of the community does not have a positive influence on both
knowledge sharing and community promotion. This study contributes to the
understanding of the relationships among social support, community commit ment, and trust transfer towards knowledge sharing and community promotion
in the OHC. The findings of the study provide a research model that could be
implemented in other contexts that share similar technology landscape.
