What drives consumer knowledge sharing in online travel communities?: Personal attributes or e-service factors?

Consumer voluntary sharing of e-service knowledge in an online community is of great value to both business and consumers. This study develops and tests a research model integrating two personal attributes (consumer innovativeness and subjective knowledge) and two e-service factors (perceived ease of use and usefulness) in predicting consumer voluntary knowledge sharing in an online community. Data were collected using a web-based survey of 364 airline travelers recruited through an online travel community in China. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to analyze the data. The results reveal that personal factors are stronger drivers of knowledge sharing than e-service factors. This study advances consumer knowledge sharing in online communities, and has implications for enhancing a firm’s e-service strategies.