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Research on the formation mechanism of product contribution in online product communities: content contribution as a mediating variable

Min Qin (Research Center of Management Science and Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China) (School of Software, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China)
Wei Zhu (Research Center of Management Science and Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China) (School of Software, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China)
Jinxia Pan (Research Center of Management Science and Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China) (School of Software, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China)
Shuqin Li (Research Center of Management Science and Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China) (School of Software, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China)
Shanshan Qiu (Research Center of Management Science and Engineering, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China) (School of Software, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China)

Aslib Journal of Information Management

ISSN: 2050-3806

Article publication date: 7 February 2023

Issue publication date: 21 March 2024

202

Abstract

Purpose

Enterprises build online product community to expect users to contribute: opinion sharing (content contribution) and product consumption (product contribution). Previous literature rarely focused on both. The purpose of this paper is to explain user contribution mechanism by identifying content contribution and product contribution.

Design/methodology/approach

This research chose Xiaomi-hosted online product community (bbs.xiaomi.cn) and Huawei-hosted online product community (club.huawei.com) where users can freely share ideas and buy products at the same time. Data were crawled from 109,665 community users to construct dependent variable measurement, and 611 questionnaires were used to verify research hypotheses.

Findings

The results indicate that both cognitive needs and personal integration needs have a significant positive impact on browse behavior; social integration needs and hedonic needs have a significant positive impact on content contribution behavior. Browse behavior not only directly affects but also indirectly influences product contribution through content contribution behavior.

Research limitations/implications

Findings of this research provide community managers with useful insights into the relationship between content contribution and product contribution.

Originality/value

This study explains the formation mechanism of user product contribution and reveals the relationship between user content contribution and product contribution in online product community. This paper provides a different way of theorizing user contributions by incorporating uses and gratifications theory into the “Motivation-Behavior-Result” framework.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71762018), Jiangxi University Humanities and Social Science Research Project (Grant No. GL20132) and Jiangxi Province Graduate Education Reform Research Project Key Project (Grant No. JXYJG-2020-041).

Citation

Qin, M., Zhu, W., Pan, J., Li, S. and Qiu, S. (2024), "Research on the formation mechanism of product contribution in online product communities: content contribution as a mediating variable", Aslib Journal of Information Management, Vol. 76 No. 2, pp. 329-352. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-04-2022-0217

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited

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