社會資本、個人特質、虛擬社群意識與線上社會支持之關係探討

Abstract

虛擬社群意識在虛擬社群研究中是很重要的研究議題，深刻了解虛擬社群意識對於在虛擬組織、虛擬團體、或在資訊系統研究上有很大的幫助。 本篇研究的目的主要是探討在虛擬社群中成員的虛擬社群意識建立是否使成員有支持行為，以及從社會資本因素和群組因素探討建立虛擬社群意識的因素。在本篇研究中社會資本的構面包含社會互動連結、信任和共同語言，而群組特質包含群組創新性與歸屬需求。 本篇提出的研究架構是以使用臉書社群的使用者為例，臉書社群是目前在台灣最多人使用的虛擬社群，在台灣目前約有百萬人的用戶透過臉書來交流、互動與分享。本篇研究對象是針對有使用臉書社群來交流、溝通的上班族。問卷總共有135群組，每一群組共五人，總共有675份問卷。 本篇研究以線性結構方程式來分析所搜集的資料，以檢定社會資本、群組特質、虛擬社群意識和線上社會支持之間的關係。本研究結果發現大多的社會資本因素和群組特質可直接建立成員的虛擬社群意識，一旦成員們建立自己的虛擬社群意識後，成員會漸漸在特定的虛擬社群中給予支持與協助。

The sense of virtual community is a critical issue in virtual community research. For this reason, understanding it deeply is important for studies of communities-of-practice, virtual collaboration, virtual organization, and other critical organizational or information systems issues. The purpose of our study is to examine how member’s sense of virtual community makes virtual group support in virtual community and what factors contribute to members’ sense of virtual community from social capital factors (social interaction ties, trust, and shared language) and group traits(group innovativeness and need for affiliation). This study demonstrates that the members of Facebook experienced their own virtual community as a community, similarly to the way people experience effective face-to-face communities. The research model was examined with data from members in the Facebook which is the most popular virtual community in Taiwan. Facebook is a well-known virtual community in Taiwan which everybody has connected and shared with their members. Samples finally consist of 135 groups who are in employment, a total of 675 questionnaires collected. Structural Equation model was conducted to examine the relationship between social capital, group traits, sense of virtual community, and social support online. The result indicates that most of social capital factors and group traits can directly build sense of virtual community which can result in giving support in virtual community. The implications for practice and future research directions are discussed.