International Journal of Information Management 30 (2010) 425–436 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Information Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijinfomgt Exploring the role of psychological safety in promoting the intention to continue sharing knowledge in virtual communities Yixiang Zhang a,b , Yulin Fang b,∗ , Kwok-Kee Wei b , Huaping Chen c a School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province, PR China b Department of Information Systems, College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong, PR China c School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province, PR China article info Keywords: Knowledge sharing Psychological safety Trust Self-consciousness Virtual community abstract Virtual communities play an important role in business, society, and education. At present, one of the great challenges faced by virtual communities is the availability of knowledge, which is mainly created through knowledge-sharing behavior. Although prior studies have extensively studied knowledge- sharing behavior in virtual communities from various perspectives, they largely ignored the important role of psychological safety in this process. We propose to address this gap by examining psychological safety and its effect on individuals’ intention to continue sharing knowledge. We also identify trust in the virtual community and self-consciousness as antecedents of psychological safety. The research model is empirically tested through a survey across two virtual communities in a major university. The results show that the condition of psychological safety has a positive influence on the intention to continue sharing knowledge. The level of trust has a positive impact on the intention to continue sharing knowl- edge not only directly, as documented in the literature, but also indirectly, through the mediating role of psychological safety. Finally, we find that self-consciousness exerts a negative influence on feelings of psychological safety. The implications of our findings and the need for future research are also discussed. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Knowledge has been recognized as the most strategically impor- tant resource for creating and sustaining competitive advantage (Fang, Wade, Delios, & Beamish, 2007; Fang, Jiang, Makino, & Beamish, 2010; Grant, 1996; Spender, 1996). Knowledge sharing is an important process, and one effective way to support it is to connect people (Alavi, 2000). Many Internet-based information and communication technologies have been developed for knowledge sharing, such as listervers, newsgroups, bulletin boards, Internet relay chats, and chat rooms (Preece, 2001). As these technologies grow in popularity, virtual communities, defined as “an aggrega- tion of individuals or business partners who interact based on a shared interest, where the interaction is at least partially supported and/or mediated by technology and guided by certain protocols and norms” (Porter & Donthu, 2008, p. 115), have thrived in recent years. Virtual communities have been widely recognized as compris- ing an important means to facilitate knowledge sharing (Dholakia, Bagozzi, & Pearo, 2004; Hazel & Dianne, 2004; Wasko & Faraj, ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: ylfang@cityu.edu.hk (Y. Fang). 2000). Recently, many organizations have established internal vir- tual communities to facilitate employees’ sharing of work-related information (Ardichvili, Page, & Wentling, 2003; Chiu, Hsu, & Wang, 2006). For example, Caterpillar Inc., a Fortune 100 corpora- tion, launched internal virtual communities to support employees’ knowledge sharing worldwide, and gained 200 percent return-on- investment (ROI) from this undertaking (Ardichvili et al., 2003; Chiu et al., 2006; Powers, 2004). However, the availability of virtual com- munities does not guarantee that their participants would share their knowledge. Hence, it is important to understand factors pro- moting knowledge-sharing behavior in virtual communities (Chen, 2007). Many prior studies have identified a number of factors that influence knowledge sharing in the context of virtual communi- ties (Ardichvili et al., 2003; Chen, 2007; Chiu et al., 2006; Hsu, Ju, Yen, & Chang, 2007; Wasko & Faraj, 2005). Despite this progress, a careful review of these studies uncovers that they have missed a factor which is considered highly important to knowledge sharing – the notion of psychological safety. In this regard, the objective of our study is to address this gap by exploring the role of psycho- logical safety in affecting knowledge-sharing behavior in virtual communities. The organizational behavior literature has long recognized the importance of psychological safety to promote learning and knowl- 0268-4012/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2010.02.003