Paths of knowledge sharing of core and periphery users in online health communities: social support perspective

Purpose

What’s the flow path of knowledge sharing among members in online health community (OHC)? Exploration of this issue could shed light on mechanisms behind user knowledge sharing and interaction on OHC, but few studies have focused on it. This study is going to address this research gap and to provide richer support for subsequent knowledge management related research.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the core-periphery effect, this study combines content analysis and social network analysis to portray the paths of different types of social support for core and periphery users from social support perspective.

Findings

Results reveal that the core users follow a pattern of high-stage and low-stage users with distinct needs, while the path pattern of the edge user group mainly consists support from high-stage to low-stage users. Results show that there is apparent distinction between the paths of emotional and informational support between core and periphery users. For core users, emotional support flows from lower stage users to higher stage users, while informational support follows the opposite direction. For periphery users, the paths of emotional support and informational support are identical, with both flowing from higher stage users to lower stage users.

Originality/value

This study explores the flow paths of information support and emotional support for core and periphery users, and discovers the different patterns of these two types of users, providing theoretical guidance for platform administrators to manage users more efficiently and ensure the sustainable development of the platform.