• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.73-88
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• 2014

Online communities are getting more popular with the development of information technology. It is essential that community members participate actively and share their contents or opinions continuously for the success and growth of online communities. However, it is revealed that most of members just take the role of passive observer. They are lurking community information and contents without any contribution. In this sense, this study focuses on explore lurking behavior of online community members. This study investigates the effect of the characteristics of online community, community members, and personal traits on user's lurking intention. Member familiarity and community identity have a strong positive effect on de-lurking intention, while the perception of usefulness and ease of use for communities and member expertise have a negative effect on de-lurking intention. Interestingly, users with a low level of self-esteem have higher level of motivation of participation than those with a high level of self-esteem. Finally, this study proposes several strategies to enhance information and contents sharing in online communities.