Acta Informatica Pragensia 2020, 9(1), 4-17 | DOI: 10.18267/j.aip.1283322

Factors Influencing Researcher Cooperation in Virtual Academic Communities Based on Principal Component Analysis

Jiangang Pang ORCID...1,2, Jan Capek2
1 School of Economics and Management, Southwest University of Science and Technology, 59 Qinglong Ave Middle Section, Fucheng District, Mianyang, Sichuan, People's Republic of China
2 Institute of System Engineering and Informatics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Pardubice, Studentská 84, Pardubice 2, Czech Republic

As a professional virtual community, the virtual academic community meets the new needs of scholars for academic cooperation in the network environment. It provides a more convenient way for scientific research cooperation. The purpose of this paper is to combine the factors influencing researcher cooperation in virtual academic communities and to verify and improve the index system of the factors influencing researcher cooperation in virtual academic communities with data support. Data for the research was obtained in an online questionnaire survey wjx.cn from forum muchong.com, which is the largest virtual academic community in China. Using principal component analysis method provides an in-depth data analysis of individual factors. The SPSS 20 was used to conduct a preliminary descriptive statistical analysis of the questionnaires. The results obtained show that community trust plays the most important role in the collaboration of researchers in virtual academic communities and that group interaction factors and individual factors also affect the cooperation of researchers in virtual academic communities. The conclusion suggests that the virtual academic communities need to establish and improve management norms and trust mechanisms, and also need to refine and improve the forum section and community incentives.

Keywords: Virtual Academic Community, Research Cooperation, Community Trust, Group Interaction Factors, Individual Factors, Principal Component Analysis

Received: January 1, 2020; Revised: February 20, 2020; Accepted: February 22, 2020; Prepublished online: February 22, 2020; Published: July 29, 2020  Show citation

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Pang, J., & Capek, J. (2020). Factors Influencing Researcher Cooperation in Virtual Academic Communities Based on Principal Component Analysis. Acta Informatica Pragensia, 9(1), 4-17. doi: 10.18267/j.aip.128
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