39 / 372
臺大管理論叢
第
26
卷第
2
期
39
helps improve current situations in an organization. Factors that affect individuals’
knowledge sharing in organizations (i.e., a physical environment), such as psychological
safety and self-efficacy, can also influence their behavior on SNSs (i.e., a virtual
environment). Yet scant research has addressed this issue. Thus, the goal of this article is to
investigate how psychological safety and self-efficacy mediate the effects of social capital on
individuals’ knowledge sharing behavior on SNSs.
Unlike previous studies, which mainly analyze correlates of individual knowledge
sharing behavior using an exploratory approach, this study aims to address the following
questions: (1) Does social capital encourage knowledge sharing behavior on SNSs? (2) Do
individuals’ perceived psychological safety and knowledge sharing self-efficacy encourage
their knowledge sharing behavior on SNSs? and (3) Do psychological safety and knowledge
sharing self-efficacy play mediating roles on the impact of social capital on knowledge
sharing behavior on SNSs? We test our proposed structural equation model using a sample of
439 Facebook users in Taiwan. The results show that cognitive social capital exerts the
strongest positive impact on Facebook users’ knowledge sharing behavior and that
knowledge sharing self-efficacy indeed acts as a mediator. Our findings provide academic
insights and highlight important implications for managers who are concerned about how to
stimulate knowledge sharing behavior on SNSs.
2. Literature Review and Hypotheses
2.1 The Emergence of SNS
Garton, Haythornthwaite, and Wellman (1997) define a social network as a social entity
comprising a group of individuals who share socially meaningful relationships and values.
Such relationships can represent friends, family, and others. The study of social networks is
to examine how a group of individuals are connected with one another, the hierarchical
levels among them, and their motivations to become connected. Researchers have examined
how individuals organize their social relations, how they act in response to one another, and
the density in their social relations (e.g., Feld, 1981). The Internet and the innovative forms
of computer-mediated communications (e.g., chat rooms) have not only affected the way
individuals connect with one another but also influenced their lives. For example, the
emergence of the Internet has led to the proliferation of SNSs, from the first recognizable site
in 1997 (i.e.,
SixDegrees.com)to the most popular site (i.e., Facebook) (Boyd and Ellison,
2007).