Personality traits and knowledge sharing in online communities

Adopting diffusion theory and the concept of social value orientation, the effects of personality traits on knowledge sharing in a virtual open content community are investigated. In addition to the main effects of personality, it was hypothesized that intrinsic motivations would moderate the effects on knowledge sharing. A sample of N = 256 active users of Wikipedia provided measures of personality, motivation, and knowledge sharing. Latent regression analyses support the notion that authorship of Wikipedia is associated with higher levels of trendsetting and a prosocial value orientation. Moreover, moderation analyses demonstrate that the effect of the latter is moderated by individual differences in motivations to write. Differences with regard to opinion leadership could not be confirmed.

► Knowledge sharing in Wikipedia is analyzed using diffusion theory and the concept of prosocial value orientations.
► Individual differences in trendsetting and prosocial value orientations predict knowledge sharing in Wikipedia.
► The effects of prosocial value orientations are moderated by basic motivations to write.
► Hypotheses regarding differences in opinion leadership were not supported.