Exploring the Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Knowledge-based Virtual Communities

This study aims to examine what kinds of behaviors constitute virtual community citizenship behaviors (VCCB) and what factors influence community members’ willingness to engage in VCCB. In this paper, I propose a theoretical framework consisting of the main antecedents of VCCB (affective commitment, structural embeddedness and membership tenure) and a multi-dimensional VCCB construct (altruism, civic virtue, consciousness, courtesy and loyalty). Additionally, I develop a measure for assessing VCCB. Data are collected from an online discussion forum (The Grad Cafe) to address the research questions of this study. Results indicate that only affective commitment is found to be significantly predictive of the virtual community citizenship behaviors. Finally, implications and recommendations for practitioners in terms of improving the effective functioning of virtual community through the lens of VCCB are described.