User Information Satisfaction with a Knowledge-based Virtual Community: An Empirical Investigation

Building upon the expectation disconfirmation theory and prior satisfaction studies, this study proposes a research model explaining user information satisfaction in knowledge-based virtual communities. The proposed model was tested using an online survey that was conducted among the users of a non-profit-making Bulletin Board Systems established by a local university in mainland China. The results suggest that user information satisfaction with knowledge-based virtual communities is determined by four attributes of information quality, including accuracy, comprehensiveness, relevance and timeliness, and their disconfirmations.