Creating intellectual capital within social media communities: the mediating role of social media enrolment and engagement
Mengmeng Guo, Sushant Kumar Vishnoi, Jehan Saleh Lardhi, Irma Potháczky Rácz, Anoop M. AbrahamPurpose
This study grounds in the Social Capital Theory to examine how social capital resources embedded within social media communities combine and exchange knowledge to drive the creation of intellectual capital, while subsequently shaping user's social media community stickiness and empowerment.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employed an online crowdsourcing platform to collect data from 289 social media users. The proposed framework was tested using covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM).
Findings
The findings reveal that community connectedness, identification and shared vision significantly influence user's social media enrolment and engagement decisions. Further, social media enrolment and engagement decisions positively mediate the relationship between social capital dimensions and social media stickiness and empowerment.
Originality/value
The novelty of this study lies in contributing to social capital and intellectual capital literature by examining how users make social media community enrolment and engagement decisions. Further, this study also differentiates between users' enrolment and engagement decisions and extends social media community outcomes by examining both social media stickiness and empowerment.