Social capital and knowledge creation in Patient Online Communities: The externalization process and combination process

The emergence of internet technology has radically transformed people’s medical information seeking behavior and has accelerated the growth of Patient Online Communities (POC). POC are a special type of Virtual Communities (VC) with characteristics of higher levels of interaction and empathy that comes from members’ similar experiences. POC provide a means of communication that the traditional health care infrastructure cannot achieve. Recently, POC have attracted research interest. However, few have examined knowledge creation in a POC context or in other VC contexts. In the information society, knowledge creation is an important source for an organization’s sustainable competitive advantage. Therefore, this study aims to shed light on knowledge creation in a POC context by addressing the following three research questions. First, what are the knowledge creation activities in a POC context? Second, how does social capital affect knowledge creation in a POC context? Third, what is the consequence of the members’ knowledge creation? An online survey was conducted in eight health related online communities. Each community focuses on a specific disease and the types of diseases vary from life threatening illnesses (e.g., breast cancer) to non life threatening illness (e.g., headache). 353 respondents took the survey and 265 final responses were deemed usable for data analysis. A structural equation modeling was conducted to test the hypothesized model. Results indicated that trust and shared language within the community are necessary antecedents to the development of a dense network, which in turn influences members’ knowledge creation through externalization and combination. There is a significant positive relationship between externalization and member’ willingness to continue their membership. In addition, trust directly influences members’ membership continuance intention. Findings highlight the importance of trust, shared language, network density, and knowledge creation through externalization in POC. This study will contribute to the literature on knowledge creation in online health settings and the impact of social capital on knowledge creation in the VC context. The findings of this study will also allow POC owners and administrators to design and incorporate organizational mechanism and practices to enhance social capital in POC to further increase members’ willingness to continue their membership