1 Introduction

Social commerce, which is defined as “the delivery of e-commerce activities and transactions via the social media environment, mostly in social networks and by using Web 2.0 software” (Liang et al. 2011, p. 6), has recently received significant attention from both academic and professional communities. Traditional e-commerce sites started shifting toward social commerce by integrating various social media features into their core functionalities. For example, in the first half of 2013, the biggest Chinese e-commerce enterprise—the Alibaba Group—announced a strategic alliance with the most popular Chinese microblogging website—Sina Weibo—by launching a common social commerce site for exploring and exploiting social commerce opportunities (Anonymous 2013). The latter developments in social media put forward social commerce as a relatively new business model for online communities (e.g., Kaboodle.com, Thisnext.com, Meilishuo.com, etc.) that focuses on sharing and exchanging product- or consumption-related information and/or experiences.

The emergence of social commerce has changed the way communities, organizations, and individuals communicate with each other about products or services. Traditionally, the purchase process ended when the transaction was completed. The social media features of social commerce sites further extended the purchase process by offering a “fertile ground” for users to share personal opinions and product- or service-related information before and/or after the completion of a transaction. User-generated content is a valuable resource for online communities and consumers as it facilitates or hinders purchase intentions and behaviors, directly contributing to the growth and sustainability of online communities (Kim and Park 2013).

Despite the growing popularity and importance of this new social media platform, information sharing behavior in social commerce sites remains underexplored in the information systems (IS) literature. Majority of the previous IS studies investigate the effects of psychological motivations on information sharing intention in different organizational contexts (Moon and Sproull 2008; Kankanhalli et al. 2005; Wasko and Faraj 2005). However, studies exploring the information sharing in social commerce sites are still rare. To fill this research gap, we intend to extend the traditional information sharing literature by examining the context of social commerce. In particular, we attempt to identify the psychological motivations that facilitate individuals’ intentions to share information in social commerce sites.

In addition to the psychological motivations, some studies acknowledge that contextual factors (e.g., organizational climate and interpersonal trust) influence individuals’ knowledge contributions to online communities (Bock et al. 2005; Lin et al. 2009; Hsu et al. 2007). A recent study by Charband and Navimipour (2016) conducts a comprehensive review of online knowledge sharing behaviors studies and concludes that future research should explore the features of online environment, such as social norms. These findings imply that the community climate should also be considered when investigating users’ information sharing in social commerce sites. Community equity is one of the most important climate dimensions contributing to the development of trust between individuals in online communities (Porter and Donthu 2008). Trust in e-commerce sites fosters user-to-user social interactions and commercial exchanges, which in turn lead to the establishment of a high-equity climate (Gefen et al. 2003). Hence, we attempt to examine the effect of community equity on information sharing in social commerce sites. Furthermore, considering that behavioral intention formation in knowledge sharing is dependent on both psychological and environmental factors (Bock et al. 2005), we further investigate the moderating role of community equity on the relationship between psychological motivations and information sharing intention in social commerce sites.

Two key differences distinguish our paper from previous IS work on information sharing and knowledge contribution in online communities. First, previous studies have focused primarily on information sharing in traditional online communities, whereas our paper examines users’ intentions to share information in the context of social commerce sites. Second, we take community equity into account and examine its moderating effect on the relationship between psychological motivations and users’ information sharing, which to best of our knowledge has not been previously explored in the IS literature. Therefore, considering our contributions to the existing IS literature, we aim to answer the following two research questions with our paper:

  • RQ1: Why are users willing to share information in social commerce sites?

  • RQ2: How does community equity influence the relationship between psychological motivations and information sharing intention in social commerce sites?

We organize the rest of this paper as follows. First, we introduce our specific research context by reviewing relevant literature on information sharing in online communities. Second, we layout the theoretical background of our research and discuss how we address the identified literature gap. Third, we present our research model on users’ information sharing intentions in social commerce sites. Forth, we describe our data source, explain the empirical strategy, and show the results of our data analysis. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the research and managerial implications, and limitations and future research.

2 Literature Review and Theoretical Background

2.1 Social Commerce Sites

The merge of online shopping sites and social networking sites lead to the creation of a new form of online communities, namely the social commerce sites (Hajli 2015; Olbrich and Holsing 2011). Social commerce is defined as “a subset of e-commerce that involves using social media to assist in e-commerce transactions and activities” (Liang et al. 2011, p. 6). Enabled by the ubiquitously accessible and scalable communication techniques, social commerce has changed the way customers and retailers communicate in online communities. Social commerce sites integrate social functionalities—customer ratings and reviews, user recommendations and referrals, social shopping tools and online communities—that differentiate social commerce from traditional e-commerce. Being brought about by the integration of Web 2.0 technologies, e-commerce opportunities, and online communities, social commerce has several representative functionalities: user profile, information sharing, giving “like” to others, and direct social networking. These social functionalities create a trusted environment in which friends, families, and acquaintances dynamically interact, and contribute content to the referral and promotion of products or services through positive or negative feedback, reviews, ratings, and testimonials (Huang and Benyoucef 2013).

2.2 Information Sharing

According to the knowledge management literature, information sharing or knowledge contribution in online communities is viewed as a public good phenomenon (Wasko and Faraj 2005). A public good is defined as “a shared resource from which every member of a group may benefit, regardless of whether or not they personally contribute to its provision, and whose availability does not diminish with use” (Cabrera and Cabrera 2002, p. 693). The fundamental problem with public goods is that they may be consumed by individuals who do not necessarily contribute to the community in return. In the context of social media sites, all users can access and consume the available information/knowledge without making any contribution in return. It is very likely that some individuals will free-ride on the given opportunity, which damages the sustainability of social media sites (Bock et al. 2005; Cheung and Lee 2012; Kankanhalli et al. 2005). Therefore, motivating users to share information or contribute knowledge in social media sites is of great importance.

Numerous studies in the IS field seek to understand the factors affecting information sharing in online communities (Cazier et al. 2007; Cheung and Lee 2012; Chiu et al. 2006; Ma and Agarwal 2007; Sun et al. 2012; Wasko and Faraj 2005). Most of these studies focus on exploring the psychological factors that affect information sharing or knowledge contribution in online communities by considering various theoretical perspectives (see Table 1). Wasko and Faraj (2005) adopted the social capital perspective to explain the amount and quality of knowledge contribution among professional members of electronic practice networks. Sun et al. (2012) distinguished psychological motivations with personal and social motives. Kankanhalli et al. (2005) focused on how extrinsic and intrinsic motivations affect knowledge contribution in organizational knowledge repositories.

Table 1 Summary of literature on information sharing behavior in online communities
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Other studies investigated the knowledge contribution behaviors of user participants in open source software communities. Hertel et al. (2003) explored the knowledge contribution behaviors of user participants in open source software communities from perspective of VIST model. Roberts et al. (2006) investigated the effects of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on user participation behaviors in in open source software communities.

2.3 Social Exchange Theory

Social exchange theory (SET) is a widely used theory to explore users’ information sharing or knowledge contribution in online communities (Kankanhalli et al. 2005; Lee et al. 2006; Cheema and Kaikati 2010). Social commerce sites are described as “a more social, creative and collaborative approach used in online marketplaces” (Huang and Benyoucef 2013, p. 247). They connect users of a social group and enable sharing and exchange of product- or consumption-related information and experiences. Thus, we believe it is appropriate to adopt SET to study users’ information sharing in social commerce sites.

According to SET, sharing behavior is a form of social exchange that is based on the assessment of social rewards/benefits and costs (Song and Walden 2007). Benefit is defined as the positive outcome of an exchange that consists of extrinsic and intrinsic benefits, while a cost refers to the negative outcome during social exchange (Kankanhalli et al. 2005). The nature of sharing product information or consumption experiences is more public than traditional knowledge sharing in organizations or other online communities. Sharing such information does not occur any loss (e.g., loss of power associated with knowledge sharing). Hence, we focus on the benefits that can be obtained through information sharing in social commerce sites as the individual psychological motivations.

To distinguish between different types of benefits, our study considers the classification of Kankanhalli et al. (2005) and explores the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic benefits on users’ intentions to share information in social commerce sites. Extrinsic benefits are “means to ends desired by people” (Kankanhalli et al. 2005, p. 116). Two extrinsic benefits are identified as relevant to our study context: anticipated extrinsic rewards and anticipated reciprocal relationships (Bock et al. 2005). Intrinsic benefits are regarded as benefits “sought after as ends by themselves” (Kankanhalli et al. 2005, p. 116). When individuals share information with others, they gain the benefit of increasing their self-efficacy (Kankanhalli et al. 2005). Information sharing satisfies contributors through derived pleasure or enjoyment, thus enjoyment in helping others is an intrinsic benefit (Kankanhalli et al. 2005; Song and Walden 2007). Benefits act as behavioral motivators (Kankanhalli et al. 2005). Hence, we propose that these four benefits—anticipated extrinsic rewards, anticipated reciprocal relationships, knowledge self-efficacy, and enjoyment in helping others—encourage users to contribute information to social commerce sites.

2.4 Equity Theory

Equity theory (ET) explains the importance of fairness in life. It posits that individuals seek to balance their social exchanges by comparing the ratio of output and input with others (Messick and Cook 1983). An individual feels dissatisfied when he/she thinks that his/her input did not receive equivalent output relative to that of others. In the IS field, ET is widely used to explain users’ satisfaction and intention to use IS. Joshi (1989, 1992) revealed that employees’ perceptions of equity in terms of IS resource allocation is the most important predictor of information satisfaction. Joshi (1991) pointed out that employees’ perceptions of equity loss hinder IS implementation in organizations. Au et al. (2008) proposed that end users’ impartial perceptions of needs’ fulfilment influence their satisfaction of IS use. Chiu et al. (2007) suggested that equity influences Web-based learners’ satisfaction and continuance of use intention. Messick and Cook (1983) theorized that individuals seek a fair balance between input and output, and are satisfied and motivated whenever they feel that their inputs are being fairly rewarded.

Equity has also been proven to affect one’s knowledge or information sharing behavior in organizations and online communities. Users of electronic knowledge repositories or online communities of practice contribute knowledge or share information with other users. They make judgments about whether their inputs are fairly rewarded in comparison to others. Wolfe and Loraas (2008) indicated that employees’ inequity perceptions prevent knowledge sharing in organizational knowledge repositories. Chiu et al. (2011) showed that users’ information sharing satisfaction and continuance of use intention are largely determined by their perceptions of equity in open professional online communities. Hennig Thurau et al. (2004) proposed that consumers like to share their opinions about an organization in electronic opinion platforms whenever they perceive a higher output/input ratio relative to others.

2.5 Theoretical Gap: Lack of Understanding of Contingent Effects

Previous studies on the antecedents of information sharing in online communities show mixed results. Cheung and Lee (2012) found that a sense of belonging has a significant influence on the intention to share information in online consumer-opinion sites. Conversely, Lee et al. (2006) revealed that a sense of community is an insignificant antecedent of knowledge sharing on web-based discussion boards. A possible reason for this inconsistency may be the lack of a thorough understanding of the process of online shopping in the context of social commerce sites. The process of resource accessibility is likely to be related to the contingent effects that better define the boundary conditions under which the applicable theory improves the understanding of the phenomenon under study. Therefore, we investigate the contingent effects of social cognitive theory that moderate the relationship between psychological motivations and information sharing in social commerce sites.

Social cognitive theory indicates that behavior is determined by internal interactions and the external environment. In other words, the external environment influences the relationship between individuals’ psychological motivations and their behavior. However, our review of the IS literature shows that only a few studies consider how contextual forces (e.g., organizational climate) affect information sharing (Bock et al. 2005) in online communities. Therefore, we address this theoretical gap by providing a better understanding of users’ information sharing in social commerce sites from the perspective of community climate.

Social commerce sites integrate social functionalities (such as customer ratings and reviews, customer recommendations and referrals, etc.) and shopping possess which distinguish social commerce sites from traditional social media sites and e-commerce sites. Through building directed social network structure among users in a commercial context, social commerce sites provide an unbalanced social network structure in which users communicate and make deals. Hence, it is important for users to be equally treated when they are involved in sharing activities in social commerce sites. We thus argue that community equity, which is defined as the extent to which users perceive that community practices are fair, is an appropriate perspective to understand the relationship between psychological motivations and information sharing in the context of social commerce sites. When users perceive high community equity, they are more likely to go beyond the received benefits and share more product- or consumption-related information and/or experience due to high perceived trust in the commercial exchange. Furthermore, taking into consideration equity perceptions could provide IS researchers with additional valuable insights into users’ attitudes and behavior. Hence, in our study we consider community equity as a moderator that serves to identify the circumstances under which such motivations work (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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Research framework

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3 Research Model and Hypotheses

We theorize that users’ intentions to share information in social commerce sites are motivated by both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, and these relationships are much stronger for users who perceive high community equity (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Research model

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3.1 Extrinsic Motivations

According to the IS literature, there are two major extrinsic motivations to information sharing or knowledge contribution in online communities: anticipated extrinsic rewards and anticipated reciprocal relationships (Bock et al. 2005). We use SET to explain that the action of information sharing or knowledge contribution in communities is a public good. Individuals seek returns (e.g., pay, prizes, reputation, and promotion) by maximizing their benefits during the process of exchanging information with others (Bock et al. 2005; Ghobadi et al. 2015; Kankanhalli et al. 2005). Wasko and Faraj (2005) indicated that individuals share information and contribute their knowledge because they want to gain informal recognition and establish a reputation in online communities. Thus, anticipated extrinsic rewards are expected to encourage users’ information sharing intentions:

  • H1: Users who have greater anticipated extrinsic rewards are likely to share more information in social commerce sites.

Reciprocity is defined as “actions that are contingent on rewarding reactions from others and that cease when these expected reactions are not forthcoming” (Blau 1964, p. 6). SET suggests that individuals in online communities justify their information sharing or knowledge contribution efforts through the expectation of reciprocity. According to Organ and Konovsky (1989), a reciprocal relationship is a major determinant of attitudes when two individuals are influenced by the social context. Prior research shows that intention to share information is facilitated by individuals’ anticipated reciprocal relationships (Bock et al. 2005). Therefore, we hypothesize that:

  • H2: Users who have greater anticipated reciprocal relationships are likely to share more information in social commerce sites.

3.2 Intrinsic Motivations

Individuals may also receive intrinsic motivations from sharing information in social commerce sites. Self-evaluation is an important intrinsic motivator that drives engagement in activities (Bandura 1986). Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s personal judgment of the capability to execute actions that are required for designated types of performance. According to social cognitive theory, self-efficacy influences individuals’ intentions and behavior (Bandura 1986). Individuals who have high knowledge self-efficacy are more likely to engage in certain types of behavior. Previous studies acknowledge the influence of knowledge self-efficacy on individuals’ intentions to contribute knowledge in online communities (Bock et al. 2005; Cheung and Lee 2012). Thus, we posit that:

  • H3: Users who have high knowledge self-efficacy are likely to share more information in social commerce sites.

Individuals who feel good about helping others should be more willing to share information in online communities without expecting any direct rewards in return. Wasko and Faraj (2005) suggested that individuals are intrinsically motivated to share information with others because they find pleasure in helping others. This enjoyment in helping others is regarded as an intrinsic motivation in online social spaces, which explains individuals’ willingness to share knowledge (Hennig Thurau et al. 2004; Kankanhalli et al. 2005). Based on this line of research, we expect that:

  • H4: Users who enjoy helping others are likely to share more information in social commerce sites.

3.3 Community Equity

Equity refers to fairness or justice. Equity has been recognized since the days of Aristotle and is extensively discussed in the field of social psychology. Equity is defined as “a belief that there are some things which people should have, that there are basic needs that should be fulfilled, that burdens and rewards should not be spread too divergently across the community, and that policy should be directed with impartiality, fairness and justice towards these ends” (Falk et al. 1993, p. 2). ET draws on the theories of exchange and social comparison to predict how individuals’ perceptions of fair treatment affect their motivations in social exchanges (Adams 1965). Individuals’ perceptions of fair treatment can affect their motivations, attitudes, and behavior. According to Adams (1965), input is an individual’s perceived contribution to an exchange for an expected return. ET literature suggests that an individual will feel distressed if his/her own inputs are greater than the attained benefits (Oliver 1980; Pritchard 1969). Equity is also regarded as an antecedent of satisfaction in consumer behavior research (Oliver and Swan 1989).

Community equity is a crucial element of social commerce sites because this new social media platform not only fosters social interaction but also commercial exchange. Equity in social commerce sites refers to the extent to which users perceive community practices to be impartial. An outcome of community equity is the development of trust between users of a social commerce site, which influences information sharing decisions. Equity is important because it can provide a fit between personal motivations (i.e., intrinsic and extrinsic benefits) and the prospect of sharing behaviors. Therefore, we expect the relationships between motivations and information sharing intentions to be stronger among users who perceive high community equity. Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:

  • H5a: Community equity positively moderates the relationship between anticipated extrinsic rewards and users’ information sharing intentions in social commerce sites.

  • H5b: Community equity positively moderates the relationship between anticipated reciprocal relationships and users’ information sharing intentions in social commerce sites.

  • H6a: Community equity positively moderates the relationship between knowledge self-efficacy and users’ information sharing intentions in social commerce sites.

  • H6b: Community equity positively moderates the relationship between enjoy helping others and users’ information sharing intentions in social commerce sites.

4 Method

An online survey was conducted to test the proposed research model. The unit of analysis was individual users of a social commerce site. The data collection and measurement procedures are described in the following sections.

4.1 Research Setting

Our research setting is Meilishuo.com, one of the most popular online social commerce sites in China. We chose this site because it is a typical social commerce site with more than 32 million current users.

Launched in November 2009, Meilishuo.com is now one of the most popular websites in China. In February 2015, the site was ranked as 863th in China in terms of its traffic. Meilishuo.com is an online platform where customers share pictures and information about their favorite products (e.g., product price, tags, and retailers). Customers are able to purchase their favorite products by simply clicking the hyperlinks that are available on the shopping site. It has several social interaction features (i.e., discovering, sharing, recommending and rating products or services) that enable users to communicate with one another about their favorite products and consumption experiences. It also possesses a commercial exchange functionality that facilitates purchase decisions. This platform provides rich data that allowed us to empirically explore how community equity moderate the relationship between psychological motivations and users’ intentions to share information in social commerce sites.

4.2 Measurement

The measures of the constructs used in our study were adapted from existing scales that the literature has shown to be reliable and valid. All items with minor wording modifications were applied to fit the research context (see Table 2). All constructs were measured using multi-item perceptual scales with 7-point Likert response scales ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). The questionnaire was originally designed in English, which after several rounds of translation and back-translation (Brislin 1970) was transferred to a Chinese version for users of Meilishuo.com. To ensure the items of the instrument were understandable to the respondents, we recruited some potential respondents to figure out whether our Chinese version of instrument was easy to understand. On the basis of their comments, we made several modifications regarding the wordings in the Chinese version of the constructs.

Table 2 Construct measurement
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4.3 Data Collection Procedure

In this study, we collected subjective data through an online survey. The questionnaire was distributed by a provider of online survey services in China. The service provider owns over 2 million samples recruited from search engines, online forums, and member recommendations. The survey respondents verified their identities by mobile phone SMS or email. The sampling pool covers various profiles and therefore the data collected from the sampling pools are reliable compared with other methods of data collection (Buhrmester et al. 2011). US$10 vouchers for respondents were offered as lucky draw prizes to increase the response rate. Screening questions were included in the questionnaire to ensure that the respondents were active users on Meilishuo.com. After screening the submissions for missing data, we obtained 1089 completed responses.

The respondents were asked to complete a questionnaire based on their experiences with Meilishuo.com. We collected 1089 usable questionnaires in total. The respondents were 92.6% female and 7.4% male. The significantly higher percentage of female respondents is due to the business nature of Meilishuo.com that mainly focuses on female consumers. A majority of our respondents (87.3%) were aged between 20 and 29 and 76.2% had a university education level or above. The imbalance of gender and age can be mainly contributed to the business nature of Melishuo.com that targets younger female consumers and promotes sharing of products such as clothes, cosmetics, bags, and so on.

To test for nonresponse bias, we compared the differences in the means of key constructs between early respondents and late respondents (Sivo et al. 2006). Our online survey recorded the specific response date and time of every respondent, which helped us to distinguish early respondents and late respondents. We chose 250 early respondents and 250 late respondents, and compared the means of the anticipated extrinsic rewards, anticipated reciprocal relationship, knowledge self-efficacy, enjoyment in helping others, equity, and intention to share information with the independent-samples t test. The results in Table 3 show that there was no significant difference in the means of the constructs between early and late respondents.

Table 3 Non-response test
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5 Data Analysis and Results

The data analysis was performed in a holistic manner using structural equation modeling (SEM). SEM allows us to both specify the relationships among the conceptual factors of interest and the measures underlying each construct. The Partial Least Squares (PLS) method was used for the statistical analyses. PLS is a widely used SEM technique in IS research.

PLS, rather than other SEM tools (e.g., LISREL), was used in the present study for two reasons. First, given that LISREL is normally used for testing established theories (Chin et al. 2003; Gefen et al. 2003; Siponen and Vance 2010), PLS serves as a more appropriate tool in the present model that aims to predict relationships. Second, PLS is more suitable for the small sample size in the present research as there is no restriction on data distribution (Chin 1998). The analysis involved two stages: the measurement model was examined in the first stage and the structural model was evaluated in the second. The rationale of this approach was considered to ensure that the structural relationships are obtained from a set of measurements with desirable psychometric properties. The sections below provide details regarding the sample characteristics, measurement model, structure model, and common method variance.

5.1 Measurement Model

Reliability and validity tests were conducted to verify the measurement model. Reliability was tested using Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability (CR). Cronbach’s alpha and CR should be at least 0.700 for internal consistency to be retained. These two conditions were satisfied in our data sample, with CR ranging from 0.886 to 0.943 and Cronbach’s alpha from 0.809 to 0.909.

The convergent and discriminant validity of the constructs in the model were also examined. Convergent validity was tested using the following three criteria for all constructs: (1) the CR should be at least 0.700 (Chin 1998); (2) the average variance extracted (AVE) (Laudon and Traver 2009) should be at least 0.500 (Fornell and Larcker 1981); and (3) all of the item loadings should be greater than 0.700 (see Table 4). All three conditions of convergent validity were satisfied in the data sample, with CR ranging from 0.886 to 0.943 and AVE from 0.723 to 0.877. The item loadings were all higher than the 0.700 benchmark.

Table 4 Reliability and convergent validity
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Discriminant validity is the degree to which the measures of two constructs are empirically distinct. The discriminant validity between constructs can be verified if the square root of the AVE for each construct is greater than the correlations between the constructs (Fornell and Larcker 1987). The square root of the AVE for each construct in this study was greater than the correlations between the constructs and all other constructs. Hence, adequate discriminant validity was attained (see Table 5).

Table 5 Discriminant validity
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Several inter-construct correlations exceeded the 0.600 criteria, indicating possible multicollinearity (Grewal et al. 2004). This potential problem may create instability in the matrix inversion (Tabachnick and Fidell 2001). To examine multicollinearity, the tolerance values of the constructs and their respective variance inflation factors (VIFs) were calculated (see Table 6). The tolerance values were well above the 0.100 cut-off and the VIF values were less than 10.00 (Mason and Perreault 1991). These results suggest that there was no significant linear relationship between the constructs and therefore multicollinearity was not present.

Table 6 Multicollinearity statistics
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5.2 Common Method Bias

There is a potential risk of common method bias with self-reported data (Podsakoff et al. 2003). Following the examples of Podsakoff et al. (2003) and Liang et al. (2007), we examined common method bias by including an unmeasured latent method factor in our model and calculating the variance explained by the substantive constructs and the common method factor (see Table 7). The average variance explained by the substantive constructs was 0.807, while the average variance explained by the common method factor was only 0.010. These results suggest that common method bias was not a major concern in this study.

Table 7 Common method bias
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5.3 Structural Model

5.3.1 Main Effects

The PLS results of the structural model are provided below (see Fig. 3). Only the main effects of the proposed four motivations with estimations of the overall explanatory power, path coefficients (significant paths are indicated with asterisks), and associated t-values are presented. The results indicate that the two extrinsic motivations—anticipated extrinsic rewards and anticipated reciprocal relationship—had significant effects on the intention to share information, with path coefficients of 0.148 (at 0.001 significance level) and 0.120 (at 0.01 significance level). Thus, H1 and H2 are supported. Similarly, the two intrinsic motivators—knowledge self-efficacy and enjoyment in helping others—positively influenced the intention to share information, with path coefficients of 0.302 (at 0.001 significance level) and 0.186 (at 0.001 significance level), supporting H3 and H4. These four motivations explained 38.3% of the variance in the intention to share information in social commerce sites.

Fig. 3
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Results of Direct Effects in PLS analysis

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5.3.2 Moderating Effects

Results of the moderating effects summarized in Table 8 suggest that community equity significantly moderated the relationship between proposed motivations and the intention to share information in social commerce sites (see Fig. 3). Specifically, equity strengthened the relationships between extrinsic motivations and intention to share information, with coefficients of 0.141 (at 0.05 significance level) and 0.181 (at 0.01 significance level), supporting H5a and H5b. Community equity also strengthened the relationships between intrinsic motivations and intention to share information, with coefficients of 0.188 (at 0.01 significance level) and 0.167 (at 0.05 significance level). Therefore, H6c and H6d are also supported. These interaction effects are also depicted in Figs. 4a, b, c and d. The line for high equity is slightly steeper than that for low equity.

Table 8 Moderating effects of equity
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Fig. 4
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a Interaction effect of anticipated extrinsic rewards and equity. b Interaction effect of anticipated reciprocal relationship and equity. c Interaction effect of knowledge self-efficacy and equity. d Interaction effect of enjoyment in helping others and equity

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6 Discussion and Conclusion

The main purpose of this study was to explore the factors motivating users’ information sharing in social commerce sites. Our results show that psychological motivations (i.e., intrinsic and extrinsic benefits) are key antecedents of information sharing intentions in social commerce sites. We also investigate the moderating role of a contextual factor—community equity—on the relationships between psychological motivations and users’ information sharing intentions. Our research model and hypotheses were empirically tested using data from 1089 users of a popular social commerce site in China. The results generally support our research model and hypotheses.

6.1 General Discussion

Social commerce sites enable individuals to share and exchange product- or consumption-related information and/or experiences. To survive and thrive in today’s online competitive environment, social commerce sites need to attract new users and encourage them to continuously share information about their favorite products or services related to the commercial exchange. Our results demonstrate that users’ intentions to share information in social commerce sites are largely driven by extrinsic (i.e., anticipated extrinsic rewards and anticipated reciprocal relationships) and intrinsic benefits (i.e., knowledge self-efficacy and enjoyment in helping others). These results are consistent with those of previous studies on psychological motivations (Sun et al. 2012; Kankanhalli et al. 2005), which emphasize the strong effects on users’ intention to share information. This indicates that these psychological motivations are crucial for information sharing in social commerce sites. Furthermore, our empirical results also reveal that intrinsic motivations play more significant effects (0.302 for knowledge self-efficacy and 0.186 for enjoyment in helping) than extrinsic motivations (0.148 for anticipated extrinsic rewards and 0.120 for anticipated reciprocal relationship). This gives us an insight that intrinsic motivations should be stressed on when promoting individuals’ information sharing intention.

We also considered the effects of contextual factors (i.e., community equity) on information sharing in social commerce sites. Our results show that community equity is an important moderator that influences the relationships between psychological motivations and users’ information sharing intentions. Users who perceive a community to have high equity are more likely to fit the community and go beyond the benefits to share more. Hence, the intention to share information is significantly influenced by psychological motivations.

6.2 Research Implications

As mentioned, this study makes two contributions to the IS literature. First, most of the information sharing literature focuses on traditional online communities. This study adds to the literature by examining information sharing behavior in a new social media context, namely the social commerce sites. As social commerce is becoming a trend in the e-commerce domain, there is a need for studies that focus in social commerce implementation to figure out whether previous theoretical understandings are still applicable in this new context. With the extension of previous extrinsic/intrinsic frameworks, we demonstrate that the intention to share information in social commerce sites is driven by both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, which further confirms the applicability of the previous theoretical underpinning (i.e., social exchange theory) in this new research context.

Second, social commerce sites encompass both social interactions and commercial exchanges relative to other social media. When participating in community practices, trust development is a critical factor that is influenced by contextual variables such as the community climate. This study advances our understanding of information sharing by considering community equity as a key contextual variable. Drawing on social cognitive theory, our study provides insights into the role of contextual factors in information sharing behavior by examining the moderating role between psychological motivations and users’ intentions to share information. Our results demonstrate the boundary conditions on the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations (i.e., by explaining the conditions in which extrinsic and intrinsic motivations exert a stronger influence on the intention to share information in social commerce sites). Such a contribution might encourage future studies to explore other contextual factors and their interactional effects with individual motivations.

6.3 Managerial Implications

Social commerce sites represent a new social media platform. Administrators of social commerce sites constantly attempt to improve the community features to attract new members and retain current members. The results of our study provide valuable guidelines for community administrators on how to improve the features of social commerce sites. First, administrators should develop strategies that facilitate user-to-user interactions and relationship development, which will in turn enhance reciprocal relationships. For instance, administrators should consider simplifying their feedback systems to encourage more customer feedback. Second, improving members’ knowledge self-efficacy will encourage more contributions to the community. We suggest that administrators should improve some publicly visible cues (i.e., length of membership and membership status in social commerce sites) to promote knowledge self-efficacy. Finally, administrators should create an equitable climate that fosters long-lasting and trusting relationships by integrating and hosting both online and offline events with existing members to promote long-term relationships that should, in turn, increase commercial exchanges.

6.4 Limitations and Future Studies

Several limitations of this study are worth mentioning. First, most (over 90%) of the survey respondents were female and more than 87% of our respondents were between the ages of 20 to 29, because our data were collected from a social commerce site that targets on young female users. Thus, a gender bias might exist. Future studies should test our model with data samples that have gender neutral or male populations and have a broader range of age-related sample to enhance the generalizability of our results. Also, studies that compare differences between males and females will also be interesting.

Second, as the data were cross-sectional rather than longitudinal, the proposed causal relationships can only be inferred rather than proven. Future studies should empirically test the influence of psychological motivations and community climate using longitudinal data, and should include actual rather than self-reported information sharing. Third, this study collected data from a social commerce site in China that is embedded in Asian cultural context. Hence, the test of our hypotheses should be replicated in other cultural contexts, such as the Western, to further validate our justifications in future research.

Third, the research model explained 38.3% of the variance in the intention to share information in social commerce sites. As this study based on social exchange theory, the research model only included extrinsic motivations and intrinsic motivations. There are others variables may lead to intention to share information in social commerce sites, such as social capital. For example, Liu et al. (2016) found that user information sharing is influenced by both individual (i.e., reputation and the enjoyment of helping others) and social capital (i.e., out-degrees’ post, in-degrees’ feedback, customer expertise and reciprocity) factors. Future studies can explore more related factors that influence users’ intention to share information in social commerce sites and the corresponding contingent conditions.

6.5 Conclusion

In this study, we addressed the question of what motivates individuals to share information in social commerce sites. We extend the information sharing literature by considering the novel context of social commerce sites and examining the effects of psychological motivations on users’ intentions to share information. In particular, we explore the contingent effect of the relationship between individual motivations and information sharing intentions, and the moderating role of community equity. This study not only enriches the theoretical understanding of information sharing in this new social media, but also provides guidelines for administrators of social commerce sites on how to improve the design of their community features.