Start Date

10-12-2017 12:00 AM

Description

Online community-based Question and Answer (Q&A) websites is popular in recent years. The main challenge for Q&A websites is how to motivate the participatory behaviors. Drawing on economic theory, we examine how the emergency of a financial incentive activity affect the free knowledge sharing behaviors and social activities. We apply difference-in-differences model with propensity score matching to evaluate the effect using a natural experimental dataset collected from a Chinese Q&A website. Our results show that the paid-for activity allows users to share more knowledge freely and build more social ties in the website. The results suggest that the financial incentive can increase users’ participatory behaviors significantly.

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Dec 10th, 12:00 AM

Do Financial Incentives Induce More Online Participatory Behaviors?

Online community-based Question and Answer (Q&A) websites is popular in recent years. The main challenge for Q&A websites is how to motivate the participatory behaviors. Drawing on economic theory, we examine how the emergency of a financial incentive activity affect the free knowledge sharing behaviors and social activities. We apply difference-in-differences model with propensity score matching to evaluate the effect using a natural experimental dataset collected from a Chinese Q&A website. Our results show that the paid-for activity allows users to share more knowledge freely and build more social ties in the website. The results suggest that the financial incentive can increase users’ participatory behaviors significantly.