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In the early days of online communities, researchers tended to view lurkers negatively and considered them illegitimate and peripheral members. However, the tide of opinion about lurkers has gradually become more positive. To take a broad view, lurkers should be included in the knowledge sharing context because while they may not share knowledge directly, they are still stakeholders in online communities who benefit from the knowledge shared. This study aims to review the literature from a knowledge sharing perspective to provide a comprehensive understanding of lurkers in online communities and identify additional reasons behind lurking behavior.

Previous studies that examined reasons behind lurking behavior in the literature were reviewed.

A four-dimensional model is provided, which categorizes the additional reasons for lurking into four domains: individual, social, organizational and technological.

The model serves as a roadmap for future researchers in examining lurkers and lurking behavior. Lurkers should be redefined. De-lurking strategies were suggested following the reasons for lurking behavior in the four-dimensional model, but de-lurking strategies were not recommended in all circumstances. An increase in active lurkers is another option to bring more value to online communities.

This study aims to examine the differences in the impact of three leadership styles (transactional, transformational and creative) on intraorganizational online knowledge-sharing and employee creativity. Specifically, we use self-determination theory (SDT) to examine the impact of these three leadership styles on four aspects of online knowledge sharing (knowledge donating, knowledge collecting, lurking and active lurking) and the moderating role of organizational innovation on these relationships.

Data were collected from 361 employees of business-to-business organizations in Vietnam to support all our hypotheses. Structural equation modelling was used for data analysis.

Transformational, transactional and creative leadership were found to affect online knowledge sharing, wherein creative leadership had the most potent effect. Online knowledge sharing was found to mediate the impact of three types of leadership on employee creativity. The results also showed that organizational innovation moderates the influence of leadership on online knowledge sharing.

This paper extends the current knowledge management research on online knowledge sharing by studying two new behaviors (lurking and active lurking), linking diverse leadership styles to these behaviors and employee creativity, and exploring the moderating role of organizational innovation. Our findings shed light on the complexity of the relationship between leadership and online knowledge sharing. This study also provides valuable implications for practitioners to help them choose the most appropriate leadership style for their digitalization process to ensure optimal outcomes.

In this chapter, the authors provide a critical exploration of the concept of lurking in online learning spaces through a phenomenological inquiry. The authors begin from a position that lurking is often misunderstood – or perhaps not understood – in education, and that the term itself is quite problematic, as it is typically applied to a disparate range of behaviors by those who perceive them as problematic. The authors then propose three heuristic lenses to make sense of lurking behaviors: lurking as troublesome, lurking as ordinary, and lurking as political. These lenses demonstrate that lurking behaviors not only stem from a range of different motivations but are also situated in a variety of contexts, that is, lurking is personal and contextual. The authors’ aim is not to define or redefine lurking for readers but to provide a critical analysis of what digital silence might mean for their students based on their contextual experience and in the light of critical literature. The authors invite readers to be part of the reflexive analysis by considering what lurking might mean in their own teaching contexts.

Drawing on the transactional model of stress, this study develops a theoretical model to understand the lurking behavior on enterprise social media (ESM).

Based on a questionnaire survey, this research study collected valid data from 301 ESM users in the workplace. Hierarchical regression analyses are used to analyze the conceptual framework.

The results show that Zhongyong thinking is a significant predictor of lurking and emotional exhaustion and that lurking can cause emotional exhaustion. Lurking mediates the relationship between Zhongyong thinking and emotional exhaustion. Additionally, communication overload moderates the relationship between lurking and emotional exhaustion as well as the indirect relationship between Zhongyong thinking and emotional exhaustion through lurking.

This article examines the antecedents of lurking by considering Zhongyong thinking and explores how lurking on ESM influences emotional exhaustion. This research contributes to the literature on techno-stressors, lurking and ESM and hopefully contributes to the growing dialog about the consequences of lurking in the workplace.

Drawing on sensemaking and emotion regulation research, the purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize core contributor withdrawal (CCW) in the context of online peer-production communities (OPPCs). To explain the underlying mechanisms that make core contributors withdraw from these communities, the authors propose a process theory of contributor withdrawal called the core contributor withdrawal theory (CCWT).

To support CCWT, a typology of unmet expectations of online communities is presented, which uncovers the cognitive and emotional processing involved. To illustrate the efficacy of CCWT, a case study of the English version of Wikipedia is provided as a representative OPPC.

CCWT identifies sensemaking and emotion regulation concerning contributors’ unmet expectations as causes of CCW from OPPCs, which first lead to declined expectations, burnout and psychological withdrawal and thereby to behavioral withdrawal.

CCWT clearly identifies how and why important participation transitions, such as from core contributor to less active contributor or non-contributor, take place. By adopting process theories, CCWT provides a nuanced explanation of the cognitive and affective events that take place before core contributors withdraw from OPPCs.

CCWT highlights the challenge of online communities shifting from recruiting new contributors to preventing loss of existing contributors in the maturity stage. Additionally, by identifying the underlying cognitive and affective processes that core contributors experience in response to unexpected events, communities can develop safeguards to prevent or correct cognitions and emotions that lead to withdrawal.

CCWT provides a theoretical framework that accounts for the negative cognitions and affects that lead to core contributors’ withdrawal from online communities. It furthers the understanding of what motivates contributing to and what leads to withdrawal from OPPC.

The biggest obstacle to the sustainable development of online brand communities is social loafing. Based on 3M Hierarchical Model of Personality, this paper aims to discuss the influence of the Big Five on social loafing in online brand communities, and consider the mediating role of dehumanization from the perspective of moral disengagement theory, so as to alleviate social loafing and promote the sustainable development of online brand communities.

The data were collected utilizing the online self-report questionnaires. Community members of mobile phone brands represented by HUAWEI and Xiaomi completed the questionnaire sets. Based on the responses of 214 participants, a structural equation modeling was applied to examine the relationship between Big Five on social loafing in online brand communities. Later, bootstrap analysis was used to further explore the indirect effect of dehumanization.

Only two personality traits, neuroticism and extroversion, have direct effect on social loafing, while agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness not. However, all the Big Five personality traits can indirectly influence social loafing through dehumanization.

This study introduces the concept of social loafing into online brand communities, and analyzes social loafing from the unique research perspective of moral disengagement theory, which can not only contribute to the development of moral disengagement theory and social loafing theory but also provide guiding points for relieving social loafing in online brand communities.

Knowledge is the main product of professional service firms; therefore, knowledge is the key to success. Due to the nature of this organizational type, management in professional service firms has faced many challenges in encouraging employees to share knowledge. The diffusion of technologies has facilitated technology-mediated knowledge sharing (TMKS), which helps the transfer of knowledge become easier without time and space limits. This study aims to unfold the impact of transformational leadership as an antecedent of TMKS under the interplay with perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness in using technology.

An online survey was distributed to employees in professional service firms through the snowball sampling method. Three hundred forty employees, who had experience with technology-mediated knowledge sharing, participated in the survey.

The findings showed that transformational leadership had a significant impact on TMKS, which was moderated by perceived usefulness and gender. TMKS influenced organizational innovation, and the mediating effect of TMKS was identified.

This study provides solutions for management in professional service firms to motivate their employees to share knowledge via technology, which drives organizational innovation. More caution about gender differences and the low levels of perceived usefulness from employees need to be considered when adopting transformational leadership.

Online knowledge sharing is a popular activity worldwide and can be leveraged by organisations to innovate, create and sustain competitive advantage. Although there have been a number of studies examining knowledge sharing to encourage employees to convey their skills and experiences to others in an organisation, few attempts have been made to investigate the key motivators of online knowledge sharing in an organisation. Based on the theory of planned behaviour and technological acceptance model, this study aims to review the literature to establish a conceptual framework examining motivators of online knowledge sharing in organisations.

Previous studies that investigated motivators of online knowledge sharing in organisations in the literature were reviewed to propose a conceptual framework.

Four-dimensional model, which includes four types of key motivators of online knowledge sharing, namely, individual, social, organisational and technological, was established.

The model serves as a roadmap for future researchers and managers considering their strategy to enhance online knowledge sharing in organisations.

This research investigates the impact of learners' non-substantive responses in online course forums, referred to as online listening responses, on e-learning performance. A common type of response in online course forums, online listening responses consist of brief, non-substantive replies/comments (e.g. “agree,” “I see,” “thank you,” “me too”) and non-textual inputs (e.g. post-voting, emoticons) in online discussions. Extant literature on online forum participation focuses on learners' active participation with substantive inputs and overlooks online listening responses. This research, by contrast, stresses the value of online listening responses in e-learning and their heterogeneous effects across learner characteristics. It calls for recognition and encouragement from online instructors and online forum designers to support this activity.

The large-scale proprietary dataset comes from a leading MOOC (massive open online courses) platform in China. The dataset includes 68,126 records of learners in five MOOCs during 2014–2018. An ordinary least squares model is used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.

Online listening responses in course forums, along with learners' substantive inputs, positively influence learner performance in online courses. The effects are heterogeneous across learner characteristics, being more prominent for early course registrants, learners with full-time jobs and learners with more e-learning experience, but weaker for female learners.

This research distinguishes learners' brief, non-substantive responses (online listening responses) and substantive inputs (online speaking) as two types of active participation in online forums and provides empirical evidence for the importance of online listening responses in e-learning. It contributes to online forum research by advancing the active-passive dichotomy of online forum participation to a nuanced classification of learner behaviors. It also adds to e-learning research by generating insights into the positive and heterogeneous value of learners' online listening responses to e-learning outcomes. Finally, it enriches online listening research by introducing and examining online listening responses, thereby providing a new avenue to probe online discussions and e-learning performance.

Although digital content marketing (DCM) research and industry-wide expenditure is growing very rapidly owing to the positive outcomes associated with this new pull marketing strategy, research has not completely mapped how DCM activities can be optimized in the social media brand community context. This paper seeks to understand how social media DCM activities can be optimized to achieve greater relational and monetary outcomes for different products.

A structural equation modeling procedure was used to analyze 416 survey responses obtained from members of Facebook brand communities in South Africa.

The results reveal that social media DCM consumption motives exert significant differential effects on both relational and monetary marketing outcomes in search and experience product contexts while also demonstrating the mechanism through which social media DCM consumption motives lead to contributing social media engagement behaviors.

The study findings call for the need for firms to understand the motives that drive the consumption of DCM in social media brand communities. Specifically, marketers of search products should deploy more of hedonic contents such as images while simultaneously keeping highly textual DCM to a minimum in Facebook brand communities as this works better for experience products. Finally, more authentic SM-DCM activities that effectively address the authenticity SM-DCM consumption motive can result from the DCM activities of social media opinion leaders and genuine consumer–brand interactions in the context of Facebook brand communities.

This paper broke new grounds in three unique directions in terms of: (1) the relative salience of SM-DCM consumption motives in enhancing WTP and different aspects of SMBE; (2) the contextual influence of product type on SM-DCM activities optimization and (3) the mechanisms that underlie the effects of SM-DCM consumption motives on contributing SMBE in the Facebook brand community context.