Understanding intention to continuously share information on weblogs

Purpose – Weblogs, or blogs, have been a significant new development in recent years. Many businesses have begun using blogs to stimulate discussions, garner ideas, and provide further visibility. Thus, blog usage as well as individual motives behind continued usage is an important area of research. This research aims to examine behavioral motivations underlying individual intention to keep using blogs. Design/methodology/approach – Based on social cognitive theory and related technology adoption literature, this study considered knowledge self-efficacy, subjective norms, feedback, and personal outcome expectations as the determinants of continuing to share information on blogs. The proposed model was empirically evaluated using randomized survey data collected from 155 users of a popular web site in Taiwan (WRETCH blog). Findings – The results revealed that although both self-efficacy and personal outcome expectations affected directly the intention of sharing information on blogs, personal outcome expectations had stronger impacts on behavioral intention. In addition, social persuasion has no direct but indirect impact via self-efficacy and personal outcome expectations on the intention of sharing information. Practical implications – This study contributes to a theoretical understanding of the factors that promote the usage of weblogs. For web log service providers, the results help them better develop tools to enhance people’s intention to share information. Originality/value – The paper verifies the effect of knowledge self-efficacy, personal outcome expectations, and social persuasion on the behavior of blog users. Furthermore, it verifies the determinants of knowledge self-efficacy.