Do inclusive incentive systems encourage prosocial or competitive behavior in online communities?

Abstract

Platform designers create and implement incentive systems to encourage users to contribute content to online communities. This article examines the effect of a multidimensional incentive hierarchy in motivating users to engage in competitive and prosocial activities. Utilizing an external change observed in the data science community, Kaggle, and applying a quasi-experimental design, we compared users’ engagement levels before and after introducing a multidimensional incentive hierarchy. We found that implementing a multidimensional incentive system directed users from submitting answers to Kaggle competitions to participating in Kaggle’s online forum discussions. However, our additional analyses suggest that the most and the least motivated users may be less likely to be impacted by such incentives.