Exploring the contingent effect of community equity on users’ intention to share information

Advancements in social commerce sites have enabled users to share and exchange product- or consumption-related information and/or experiences. Despite the growing popularity of social commerce sites, theoretical understanding of users’ intentions to share information in this new social media platform remains largely unexplored. In this study, we address the question of what motivates users’ intentions to share information in social commerce sites. We extend the literature on information sharing behavior by considering the novel context of social commerce and examining the effects of psychological motivations. Drawing on the social cognitive theory and equity theory, we further explore the moderating role of community equity on the relationship between psychological motivations and users’ intentions to share information. The analysis of survey data collected from 1089 social commerce users confirms our hypotheses. Our study advances the theoretical understanding of information sharing in this new social media context and provides guidelines for improving the features of social commerce sites.