User role and perception of requirements in a web‐based community of practice

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between users' role and users' perception of requirements in a web‐based community of practice. Design/methodology/approach – Online survey and social network analysis were adopted in this study. Findings – The study classified user roles as advisors and two types of regular users (both aware of advisors and not); each type of user demonstrated different sets of requirement perceptions. The findings showed that user roles and the level of user involvement did have a significant effect on users' perceptions of requirements. Advisors paid less attention to the interface, communication and recommendation links than the regular users. Practical implications – It implies that high involvers (core members) are more appropriate for requirement elicitation, even though high involvers might not be the only candidates for requirements elicitation. Originality/value – Few articles discuss the relationship between user roles and requirements; therefore, the originality of this study is high.