Paper Number
ECIS2026-1923
Paper Type
SP
Abstract
A central challenge for online communities is incentivizing high-quality content without escalating dysfunctional behaviours such as high emotional arousal, polarization, and toxicity. We investigate how relative performance-based financial rewards function in communities where competitive advantage derives from social capital. Leveraging a natural experiment on Reddit—the introduction of Moons, a crypto token—and a difference-in-differences approach, we find these rewards to be a “double-edged sword”: they significantly boost content quantity and effort but also escalate aggressive, attention-grabbing content. This effect is not uniform. It is pronounced for creators with high bonding social capital, as they leverage their high-trust cliques for reliable in-group mobilization and support. In contrast, creators with high bridging social capital show a muted response to protect their reputational advantage as neutral information brokers. This study contributes to the relative performance evaluation model by integrating social capital theory and provides practical insights for enhancing the sustainability of online communities.
Recommended Citation
Tao, Cheng; Dong, Sichen; Hu, Jin; Hu, Daning; and Chau, Michael, "Motivation Or Distortion? How Relative Performance Rewards And Social Capital Shape User-Generated Content" (2026). ECIS 2026 Proceedings. 6.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2026/platforms/platforms/6
Motivation Or Distortion? How Relative Performance Rewards And Social Capital Shape User-Generated Content
A central challenge for online communities is incentivizing high-quality content without escalating dysfunctional behaviours such as high emotional arousal, polarization, and toxicity. We investigate how relative performance-based financial rewards function in communities where competitive advantage derives from social capital. Leveraging a natural experiment on Reddit—the introduction of Moons, a crypto token—and a difference-in-differences approach, we find these rewards to be a “double-edged sword”: they significantly boost content quantity and effort but also escalate aggressive, attention-grabbing content. This effect is not uniform. It is pronounced for creators with high bonding social capital, as they leverage their high-trust cliques for reliable in-group mobilization and support. In contrast, creators with high bridging social capital show a muted response to protect their reputational advantage as neutral information brokers. This study contributes to the relative performance evaluation model by integrating social capital theory and provides practical insights for enhancing the sustainability of online communities.