Knowledge sharing behaviors in social media

Purpose: Users on Social Media (SM) platforms make many decisions related to content sharing, such as whether to create or reuse content, whether to label for easy access by an interest group or not, and whether to disseminate to targeted individuals or broadcast to general audiences. In this study, we investigated if these content-related strategies on SM, called social media knowledge sharing behaviors, are determined by user characteristics. Methodology: Using concepts from Self-Motivation Theory and the Affordance Theory, we examined if the knowledge sharing behaviors are influenced or correlated with user characteristics, such as the intensity of engagement on SM, a strong preference attitude for a SM platform, and multiple functional intentions for using SM. Based on this survey study of one hundred and twenty-three subjects, we developed hierarchical regression analyses to test if the SM user's knowledge decisions (Creation, Framing and Targeting) are corelated with the user's online usage intensity, their SM online platform preferences, and their functional intentions (Intensity, Preferences and Functionality). We complemented the regression models with a more comprehensive path analysis for an integrative hypothesis testing. Findings: The main findings show that knowledge creation and knowledge targeting behaviors were correlated with multiple functional intentions (or needs) of users, meaning that users who utilized SM in order to fulfill many needs create and broadcast knowledge more than users that utilized SM in order to fulfill fewer needs. Originality: The study investigates the relationship between detailed knowledge sharing behaviors afforded by the social media tools and different user self-determination factors, such as intensity, preference and needs. This study further describes the attributes of social media sharing as a bundle of content sharing strategies of creation, sharing and targeting, which are used differently based on different user characteristics and motivations.