Factors determining the flow of information among the online community users

The purpose of this descriptive study is to focus on the salient features of perceived sociability and perceived usability that motivates the members to participate repeatedly on social networking online community web site. The paper proposes that each individual relegate different importance on the dimensions of usability and sociability in terms of the quest of knowledge versus causal knowledge.

A self‐designed questionnaire administered among 600 sample respondents (users of Facebook.com) through online survey method. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine and improve the usability of the measurement tool followed by structural equation modelling to test the proposed framework.

The findings indicate that ease of use, behaviour and interaction is been given an equal level of importance by both the groups, while satisfaction is given the least consideration.

The community used to study the flow of the information belongs to the single general purpose category. Also the target sample size is restricted to active online users belonging to the category of professionals from India.

The results of this research work will provide a framework of user‐centric strategy for the online managers to maintain the dual directional flow of information, i.e. seeking and contributing, and achieve online success.

The study contributes to the existing knowledge of social networking process on online community web site promoting user participation through continuous flow of information.