The Influence of Unrestricted Information Exchange on Willingness to Share Information With Outsiders

This study addressed how engaging in different forms of information exchange within a group is related to group members' willingness to share risk information with outsiders. Drawing from social exchange theories, we focused on 3 unrestricted forms of information exchange: pure‐generalized, group‐generalized, and productive. We hypothesized that individuals' intentions to share information with outsiders would be associated positively with engagement in pure or group‐generalized exchanges and negatively with productive exchange. The hypotheses were supported with data from a national survey of U.S. growers (N = 452) that examined their information‐sharing behaviors with other parties inside and outside their local region. The findings have broad implications for understanding information sharing within and across groups.