The Impact of Emotional Expressions on Knowledge Creation in Online Communities

People become involved in online communities (OCs) to obtain information, share ideas, or create knowledge. In an OC with a text-based and asynchronous communication environment, knowledge is created and embedded in the dialogues codified into text-format. While most extant studies in OCs focus on social, structural, and cognitive factors leading to knowledge creation, little effort has been made to investigate more affective factors leading to knowledge creation. In this paper, we investigate the role of Emotional Expression (EE) triggering knowledge creation processes. We hypothesize that EE in OC triggers two processes for the quality of knowledge creation: sharing experiences and sustaining dialogues. Moreover, recombining ideas moderates the relationship between “sharing experiences” and the “quality of knowledge”. The hypotheses will be tested with data from an OC on “Business Ph.D. programs”. We conclude with possible implications of this study for academy and practice.