Abstract

Parents’ interest and care are very important for their children in the process of growing up, but parenting is also very unfamiliar and difficult for themselves. Parents constantly need information related to parenting, and in order to solve this problem, they try to obtain information through informal meetings or social relationships among parents at an individual level, which often brings up conflicts and stresses. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics of social networks among parents and to understand the influence of the network characteristics on information-sharing intention and information-sharing satisfaction. To this end, a survey questionnaire was developed based on previous studies and was administered among parents whose children are in a daycare center. Then, the data was analyzed using social network analysis (SNA) method. Findings indicate that the correlation among the social networks, the information -sharing intention, and the information-sharing satisfaction was significant, but the influence of the social networks on the information-sharing intention, and the information-sharing satisfaction was not established. It was also found that the intention to receive help was higher than the desire to help others. Policy suggestions to meet parents’ information needs and the need to reconsider the role of local public libraries were presented.