The Interpersonal Relationship Perspective on Virtual Community Participation

Understanding virtual community (VC) participation is of importance to VC organizers and VC researchers. Although VC participation has been explored from diverse perspectives, few studies offer a comprehensive theoretical framework to explain why people participate in VCs. This paper contributes to virtual community research by proposing and empirically validating an exploratory theoretical framework based on the interpersonal relationship perspective using two interpersonal relationship models—the Triandis interpersonal behavior model, based on a social psychological perspective, and the Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation (FIRO) model, based on a communicational perspective—to explain two types of VC participation: behavior to obtain information (BOI) and behavior to give information (BGI). The data analysis results showed that the two interpersonal relationship models are effective in explaining VC participation. The interpersonal relationship perspective of VC participation not only offers a comprehensive theoretical framework but also opens up a new avenue of VC research.