Corresponding Author

Ying Liu

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The number of literature on knowledge sharing in virtual communities has gained rapid growth during last decade; however, there have been few attempts to map the global research in this domain. In this study, the CiteSpace software package was used to conduct a series of content analyses to identify the state of the field and trends in knowledge sharing in virtual communities, including the distribution of core authors and institutions; high-frequency categories and keywords; highly cited papers and hot topics of research; and trends pertain to co-author analysis, co-word analysis, co-citation analysis, and particularly cluster analysis. We present all research focuses in a scientometric way and arrive at the following findings. First, the most significant developments and progress in knowledge sharing in virtual communities have occurred primarily in China, Taiwan, USA, Malaysia. Second, the existing studies in the field of knowledge sharing in virtual communities focus primarily on Business & Economics, Engineering and Computer Science. Third, five hot knowledge sharing in virtual communities topics were also disclosed, they are: knowledge sharing, virtual communities, trust, behavior, management and network.

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