Determinants of Successful Virtual Investment Communities

Online investing has seen a rapid growth. It has provided individual investors with the ability to control their own investments. Individual investors use virtual investment communities (VICs) to seek, disseminate and share relevant information. VICs are one of the largest subsets of virtual communities. Yet, very little is known about what contributes to the success of VICs. This research undertook a quantitative survey to explore the determinants of successful VICs. Based largely on the work of Lin (2008) which examined the success factors of virtual communities, this study explored the impact of system characteristics (information quality, system quality, service quality) on member satisfaction and social factors (trust, social usefulness) on a sense of belonging. The impact of member satisfaction and sense of belonging on member loyalty were then assessed. Some surprising results emerged which could be largely attributable to the very distinctive nature of VICs which differentiates it from most virtual communities.