Research On Academic Bloggers’Behavior And Its Influencing Factors

Many ideas and technologies of Web2.0have been widely spread and applied in recent years, and have exerted influences in various areas. It also impacts academia and changes have been undergoing. Scientific organizations, groups and researchers are actively applying various academic Web2.0technologies and platforms. And academic blog has received increasing attention due to its characteristic. Prior literature show that, academic blog has huge potentials and values, and can provide effective services for researchers. In practice, researchers in other countries try to use academic blogs to show research results, discuss questions, share ideas, seek for possible cooperations, publish online or establish academic identity. Academic blog usage in China, however, is relatively less. In the meantime, western countries have already regarded online academic communication as an important strategy for fostering scientific development. And China is also paying more attention on online academic communication, and is exploring suitable ways for online communication for researchers, such as academic blogs. From this point of view, it is necessary to investigate academic bloggers’ behavior and its influencing factors.This dissertation aims to investigate users’ link behavior, knowledge behavior and continuance blog usage behavior in the context of academic blog. It employs theories such as social exchange theory, social capital theory, motivation theory, expectation-confirmation theory (ECT), theory of experiencial value, interactive model, theory of flow and trust-related theories. With methods of literature review, questionnaire design, structural equatation modelling (SEM) based on PLS, case study and content analysis, this dissertation conducts five empirical research, identifying the role of trust and satisfaction that affect academic bloggers’ behavior, so as to provide support for designing open and effective mechanisms.This dissertation is organized as follows. Chapter1is introduction. It explains research background, put forwards research questions and discusses the theoretical and managerial implications of this study. Based on literature review, it further proposes research technology map, main contents, research methods and its contributions. Chapter2is related to theories basis. It illustrates the definition and types of academic bbgs, and analyzes its functions for academia. Furthermore, it presents those theories that are employed in this research In Chapter3, drawing from prior literature on hyperlinks, it presents a hyperlink classfication system for academic blogs, further refines types of hyperlinks through investigating35academic blogs in different disciplines, and analyzes their functions. Chapter4proposes a research model to investigate how psychological factors affect academic bloggers’knowledge communication and knowledge sharing behavior, using data of229users from Sciencenet.cn to empirically test the model. Chapter5explores antecedents and effects of trust in academic blog context from the perspective of building online trust, and empirically tests the model with data from235online questionnaires. In Chapter6, the ECT-IS model is extended to include the relationship between experiential value and satisfaction, and data from217academic bloggers are used for empirically testing the model. Chapter7explains the relationships among interactivity, flow, satisfaction and academic blog continuance intention, and further utilizes data from241online questionnaires to empirically test the model. Chapter8refers to conclusions, lim itations and future research work.The research findings of this dissertation are as follows. Firstly, a variety of hyperlinks are used by academic bloggers, and reference links account for the most. The hyperlinks play the roles of scholarly and social for several purposes, among others to provide relevant information, to organize and manage contents, to create scholarly identity and improve academic credibility, to form communities and build relationships, and to foster knowledge communication and sharing. Secondly, interpersonal trust and enjoyment in helping others positively affect individuals’knowledge communication and knowledge sharing behaviors, greed exerts a strong negative effect on individuals’ sharing behaviors, and interpersonal trust has a moderate effect on greed. In addition, reputation, fear and doubt of knowledge value have no relationships with individuals’behaviors. Thirdly, familiarity with others and perceived reputation of others positively affect ability-based trust of others and benevolence/integrity-based trust of others, while familiarity with service providers, perceived reputation of service providers and structural assurance of service providers based on institutions positively influence trust of service providers. The positive relationships between disposition to trust and trust of others as well as trust of service providers are also confirmed. Additionly, it relies on ability-based trust of others and trust of service providers for academic bloggers’desire to aquire and share information/knowledge. Fourthly, ECT-IS model can also be adapted in the context of academic blog, and three constructs of experiencial value, i.e. enjoyment, service excellence and consumer return on investment, positively affect satisfaction. Finally, flow and satisfaction also positively influence acamic blog continuance intention, and various types of interactivity play different roles in affecting satisfaction and flow. Satisfaction is positively affected by user control and connection, while connection and responsiveness influence flow.The contributions of this dissertation are as follows:first, it explains characteristics and functions of hyperlinks in academic blogs through examples using case studies and content analysis. Second, by employing theory of public goods dilemma from economics, it focuses on roles that psychological factors play in academic bloggers’knowledge communication and knowledge sharing behavior. Third, it explores different types of trust and factors affecting building them, and presents a model of antecedents and effects of trust in academic blog context. Fourth, through integrating experiencial value from marketing into ECT-IS model, it empirically tests relationships among various constructs of experiencial value and satisfaction. And fifth, it emphasizes interactivity and users’ flow experience, and investigates how different types of interactivity affect flow and satisfaction.This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (71073066) and excellent doctorial dissertation cultivation grant from Central China Normal University.