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Top1. Introduction
In the past few years, online communities have attracted significant attention from scholars and practitioners (Bressler and Grantham, 2000; Kim, 2000; Shafer, 2001). This is due to the fact that these communities have dramatically transformed the manner society operates, from communication, to learning, to production and commerce (Castells, 2011). However, although online communities have increasingly pervasive natures and voluntary structures, it still remains the choice of the individual to determine the nature and amount of participation (Moon and Sproull 2008). Therefore, individuals might participate in one-off transactions driven by general search and retrieval of relevant information (Pirolli and Card 1999). Indeed, research indicates that several participants in online communities soon disengage with these communities (Arguello et al. 2006). However, other studies demonstrate that online communities are not purely temporary collections of casual foragers that sustain themselves, but some participants return repeatedly and participate in the online community (Bagozzi and Dholakia 2002, Lee and Cole 2003).
Although the importance of online communities is continuously increasing, there aren’t enough studies that empirically analyze online communities participants motive to behave in a manner to increase satisfaction (intrinsic motivation-motivational) or reduce dissatisfaction (extrinsic motivation-hygiene). Indeed, most studies regarding communities have been conducted at a conceptual level (Koh and Kim, 2004) and from a sociological perspective (e.g. Barnes, 2007; Chen, Chang and Liu, 2012). In addition, several existing studies in the extant literature adopted multiple theories, such as technology acceptance model (TAM), trust theory, social cognitive theory, social capital theory and social network theory, to examine online community user participation (Ridings et al., 2002; Hsu and Lu, 2007; Hsu et al., 2007; Koh et al., 2007; Toral et al., 2009). However, none of these studies differentiate between motivational factors that encourage participation and hygiene factors that reduce dissatisfaction to sustain members’ participation. This differentiation is significant to the understanding of the underlying psychological mechanisms of members’ motivation to participate in online communities. Furthermore, this differentiation assists in designing and managing effective motivational and hygiene incentives to encourage members’ participation in online communities.
To fully comprehend individuals’ motivation to participate in online communities, three relevant objectives have to be addressed. The first objective is to provide an overview of the literature on online communities’ participation, Maslow Hierarchy of Needs Theory, and Herzberg Two-Factor Theory. The second objective is to synthesize the existing literature with Maslow Hierarchy of Needs Theory and Herzberg Two-Factor Theory into a conceptual model framework that distinguishes between hygiene and motivational factors. The third objective is to derive proposals explaining individuals’ motives to participate in online communities. Therefore, this work extends the current existing knowledge on online community in several important ways.