title: Factors influencing physicians' knowledge sharing on web medical forums.
abstract: Web medical forums are relatively unique as knowledge-sharing platforms because physicians participate exclusively as knowledge contributors and not as knowledge recipients. Using the perspective of social exchange theory and considering both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, this study aims to elicit the factors that significantly influence the willingness of physicians to share professional knowledge on web medical forums and develops a research model to explore the motivations that underlie physicians' knowledge-sharing attitudes. This model hypothesizes that constructs, including shared vision, reputation, altruism, and self-efficacy, positively influence these attitudes and, by extension, positively impact knowledge-sharing intention. A conventional sampling method and the direct recruitment of physicians at their outpatient clinic gathered valid data from a total of 164 physicians for analysis in the model. The empirical results support the validity of the proposed model and identified shared vision as the most significant factor of influence on knowledge-sharing attitudes, followed in descending order by knowledge-sharing self-efficacy, reputation, and altruism.
authors.affiliation: National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taiwan, ROC tungcheng@ntunhs.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Tung Cheng
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: National Taipei University of Business, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Ming Cheng
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Insurance Company of North America, Taiwan Branch, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Shu Wen
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D008297:Male; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D020377:Self Efficacy; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: extrinsic motivation; intrinsic motivation; knowledge sharing; physicians’ knowledge sharing; social exchange theory; web medical forum