EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ONLINE USER COMMUNITY STATUS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF SELF-EFFICACY AND OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFICATION

Abstract

The online user community has become an important platform for users to share knowledge, communicate with each other, and voluntarily participate in community activities. This paper investigates the influence of users' status in online user communities on their entrepreneurial intention. We focus on the mediating role of self-efficacy and opportunity identification in this relationship.

Using the CSDN community as the research object, we conducted a questionnaire survey on users in the community through major social platforms. The results show that users' status in online user communities has a significant impact on their self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. Specifically, users with a higher status in the community have a stronger self-efficacy, which in turn leads to a higher level of entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, entrepreneurial self-efficacy was found to influence entrepreneurial intention through the mediating effect of opportunity identification.

Our study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship by providing insights into the role of online user community status in shaping individuals' entrepreneurial intentions. The findings suggest that policymakers and practitioners should focus on promoting users' status in online communities to enhance their self-efficacy and foster entrepreneurial intention. Future research could examine the impact of other factors such as network ties, community structure, and cultural values on the relationship between online user community status and entrepreneurial intention