Why Would I Share?

Abstract

Blogs are known for their information and knowledge sharing capabilities. Several theoretical frameworks have been proposed to study the factors that influence an individual's intention to use blogs for knowledge sharing. However, factors like content familiarity and design familiarity are lacking in the literature. Hence, this paper aims to extend past studies and investigate the influence of familiarity with blogs in knowledge sharing. Particularly, the purpose of this paper is twofold. The first objective is to explore the effect of familiarity in terms of content familiarity and design familiarity on individual intention to use a blog as a knowledge sharing tool. The second objective is to determine whether familiarity factors change with gender, blog experience, and cultural differences. The results show that content familiarity and design familiarity positively influence an individual's knowledge sharing behavior in blogs. In addition, content familiarity and design familiarity differ according to gender, blog experience, and cultural differences.