What influences user participation in an online health community? The stimulus-organism-response model perspective
Aslib Journal of Information Management
ISSN: 2050-3806
Article publication date: 10 August 2022
Issue publication date: 23 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of platform characteristics (i.e. media richness and interactivity) on individual perception (i.e. outcome expectations) and consequent behavioral response (i.e. user participation in online health communities (OHCs)) based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model.
Design/methodology/approach
This study developed a research model to test the proposed hypotheses, and the proposed model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for which data were collected from 321 users with OHC experience using an online survey.
Findings
The empirical results show the following: (1) the three dimensions of media richness significantly affect the three outcome expectations, except that richness of expression has no significant effect on the outcome expectation of health self-management competence. (2) Human-to-human interaction significantly affects the three outcome expectations. Moreover, compared with human-to-human interaction, human-to-system interaction has a stronger impact on the outcome expectation of health self-management competence. (3) The three outcome expectations have a significant influence on user participation in OHCs.
Originality/value
This study extends the understanding about how platform characteristics (i.e. media richness and interactivity) motivate user participation in the context of OHCs. Drawing on the S-O-R model, this study reveals the underlying mechanisms by which media richness and interactivity are associated with outcome expectations and by which outcome expectations is associated with user participation in OHCs. This study enriches the literature on media richness, interactivity, outcome expectations and user participation in OHCs, providing insights for developers and administrators of OHCs.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Dr. Xie for her inspiration and discussion in topic selection and demonstration.
Funding: This work was supported by the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 72131006), the Key Program of National Social Science Foundation of China (grant number: 21AZD116), Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (grant number: 2208085MG182), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant number: JZ2021HGTB0066).
Citation
Zhou, P., Zhao, S., Ma, Y., Liang, C. and Zhu, J. (2023), "What influences user participation in an online health community? The stimulus-organism-response model perspective", Aslib Journal of Information Management, Vol. 75 No. 2, pp. 364-389. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-12-2021-0383
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited