The Effect of Members' Satisfaction with a Virtual Community on Member Participation

Abstract : The authors develop a four-dimensional scale to measure members' satisfaction with virtual communities. The dimensions consist of members' satisfaction with member-member interactions, organizer-member interactions, organizer-community interactions, and the community's site. Using a sample of 3605 members of a virtual community the authors investigate the effect of each satisfaction dimension on member participation and the moderating effect of membership length on the links between the satisfaction dimensions and member particip ation. The results reveal that satisfaction with member-member interactions, organizer-member interactions and the community's site have positive effects on member participation. Satisfaction with organizer-community interactions has no effect on member participation. The findings also show that the linkages between the satisfaction dimensions and member participation are moderated by membership length.