Law, Sally Pul-Man, and Man Kit Chang. "Fostering knowledge exchange in online communities: a social capital building approach." (2008).

This research explores the gap in understanding how social capital, crucial for knowledge contribution in online communities, is built initially. Focusing on the technological facilitation of social capital formation, the study introduces four key technology-based social capital builders: identity profiling, sub-community building, feedback mechanisms, and regulatory practices. It theorizes that the utilization of these IT artifacts by individuals leads to the development of social capital components such as network ties, shared language, identification, trust, and cooperation norms, which subsequently encourage knowledge sharing. Evidence from 253 online community users supports the structural model proposed, demonstrating that IT artifact usage indirectly influences knowledge contribution through the mediation of social capital.