Las Comunidades Virtuales como apoyo en la toma de decisiones de Inversión Financiera

Abstract

Online Trading platforms are becoming a channel of investment with a huge spread among seasoned investors. From academic point of view, we must go deeply into the understanding of the factors involved in the acceptance and diffusion of these services among their users. In this study, we focus on the effects of outcome expectations, relative personal advantages, shared vision and the economic consequences of trust in the quality of knowledge, trading frequency and profitability, in the context of online trading. Our analysis shows that, in case of Online Trading, the confidence that the information originated from the Virtual Community (VC) will have positive economic consequences, it is the most influential reason so that the knowledge generated in the VC itself is perceived as quality. Another contribution of our study is the empirical proof that the Shared Vision also influences positively on the perception of the Knowledge Quality. Furthermore, we prove that relative personal advantages are an incentive to perceive that knowledge sharing in the VC is effective in improving investment performances. This is also one of the first studies that have shown that members of the VC, who trust heavily on the quality of knowledge acquired, increasing the frequency of trading on its securities. Finally, thanks to the two-way flow of knowledge that VC promote, specialized in financial investments, there is a positive effect on trading frequency and this, in turn, in the obtained and expected performances.