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Abstract
Online knowledge exchange platforms have become an important information technology (IT) artifact that empowers online learning for the Internet users. A key challenge for knowledge exchange platforms is how to motivate the desirable user engagement behaviors. Based on the motivation theory and the equity theory, we propose a set of hypotheses regarding the spillover effects of financial incentives on three types of desirable yet non-incentivized user engagement, namely, voluntary knowledge sharing, knowledge seeking, and social engagement. We obtain an archival data set from a major online knowledge exchange platform (Zhihu.com) to evaluate our hypotheses. Leveraging a quasi-natural experiment wherein the platform implemented a paid knowledge sharing feature, we employ difference-in-differences models in tandem with propensity score matching to evaluate the spillover effects of financial incentives on the abovementioned types of engagements. Our results show that the initial financial incentives on the paid knowledge sharing activities further motivate users to voluntarily share more knowledge and increase their social engagement in the platform. However, the financial incentives have no significant impact on users’ knowledge seeking behavior. Our study suggests that the financial incentives not just have an effect on incentivized engagement, but they spillover to users’ desirable non-incentivized online engagement behaviors. Therefore, the overall positive effect of financial incentives to a platform is likely under-estimated in prior research. Our research offers implications to practice that financial incentives can be an effective strategy to nurture users, to seed content, and to enhance sociality of a platform.
Acknowledgment
Authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. All authors made equal contributions to the paper. Zhijun Yan is the corresponding author of this paper.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.
Notes
1. Consistent with the extant literature [Citation17], we use “asker” to refer to users who ask questions and “answerer” to refer to users who answer questions.
2. In the fan club meeting on May 14th, 2016, Zhihu announced that it will launch of the “Zhihu Live” feature (http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2016-05-14/doc-ifxsenvm0417657.shtml). And the launching time of the first “Zhihu Live” on the website was May 16th, 2016.
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Notes on contributors
Lini Kuang
Lini Kuang ([email protected]) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Management Engineering at School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology. Her research interests include user behavior on online community, e-health, and social networks.
Ni Huang
Ni Huang ([email protected]) is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Information Systems at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Business Administration at the Fox School of Business, Temple University. Her expertise concerns IT artifact design on digital platforms, taking the research approaches of natural and field experimentation. Dr. Huang’s research has been published in such journals as Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Yili Hong
Yili Hong ([email protected]) is an Associate Professor of Information Systems, Co-Director of the Digital Society Initiative, and the Ph.D. Program Director in the Department of Information Systems at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration at the Fox School of Business, Temple University. He is an external research scientist for Freelancer, fits.me, Extole, Yamibuy, Meishi, Picmonic, among others. Dr. Hong’s research interests focus on sharing economy, digital platforms, and user-generated content. His research has received several awards and has appeared in Management Science, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, and Journal of the Association for Information Systems. He is an Associate Editor of Information Systems Research and on the editorial board of Journal of the Association for Information Systems.
Zhijun Yan
Zhijun Yan ([email protected]; corresponding author) is a Professor in the Department of Management Engineering at School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, China. He received his Ph.D. from that institution. His research interests include electronic commerce, social network analysis, and health care management. Dr. Yan has published in Information & Management, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, and Information Technology & People, among other journals.