Abstract

The pervasiveness of live-streaming, especially in the period of Covid-19, has brought ample monetizing opportunities for content creators through viewers’ donation. Given that donation is commonly driven by the gained benefits to the donors, voluntary donation in live-streaming is still unstable due to the lack of constraints. Drawing on the dedication-constraint framework, we examined how streamer-viewer interactions, motivational feedback and self-regulation deficiency affect viewers’ donation intention in live-streaming. A survey was conducted among live-streaming users in Taiwan, and the collected data were analyzed by partial least squares. The findings show that the motivational feedback (dedication-based mechanism) has a stronger influence than self-regulation deficiency (constraint-based mechanism) in determining viewers’ donation intention. Responsiveness is proven as the most important interaction-based antecedent of motivation feedback and self-regulation deficiency, beside personalization and entertainment. In sum, our empirical findings have significant implications for research and practice to deepen the understanding of donation, encourage viewers to donate and maintain the relationship with content creators in live-streaming communities.

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