Towards an understanding of assimilation in virtual worlds: the 3C approach

Andrew Schwarz, Colleen Schwarz, Yoonhyuk Jung, Begoña Pérez and Sonja Wiley-Patton

European Journal of Information Systems, 2012, vol. 21, issue 3, 303-320

Abstract: Virtual worlds are increasing in importance as more multi-national firms are investing heavily in these emerging communities. Although much excitement has surrounded the idea of virtual worlds, a gap exists between those who register and those who engage in virtual worlds. Our analysis of the gap between those who merely register to join a virtual world and those who ultimately engage the community on a regular basis derives from a lack of assimilation. We present the 3C approach, a high-level theoretical framework delineating the relationship between three classes of factors (namely the technology class of factors; the community class of factors; and the user class of factors) that we posit explain virtual world assimilation and employ theories to represent these classes of factors and the interaction between them. After discussing and integrating these three classes of factors, we test our model through a study of 223 new users of Second Life. The results provide empirical support for the 3C framework; specifically, our analysis indicates that the technology and community classes of factors in exert a direct influence upon a user's attitude towards the virtual world, and this relationship is moderated by the user class of factors.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/ejis.2011.49 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:21:y:2012:i:3:p:303-320

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjis20

DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2011.49

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Information Systems is currently edited by Par Agerfalk

More articles in European Journal of Information Systems from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().