Factors Influencing Professional Associations' Member Engagement Online: An “Information Practices” Approach

ABSTRACT Member engagement can benefit professional associations, their members, and the profession. Rarely any studies adopt the “information practices” approach to identify the factors influencing professional associations' member engagement. The experiences, epiphanies, and the frequency of 11 information practices of six SIG‐III officers and volunteers when planning and implementing 184 activities of eight initiatives from 2020 to 2023 helped this autoethnography study identify 99 sub‐factors and 18 factors influencing the member engagement online. Information production, dissemination, recording, use, and discovery emerge as the top 5 information practices of officers and volunteers, in the same order, for influencing the SIG member engagement. Managing member attendance, Sharing knowledge, Managing member attention, Meeting member needs, and Building trust serve as the top 5 factors, in the same order, for affecting the member engagement. We propose a theoretical model and provide guidance to associations to enhance and sustain member engagement.