Abstract
BackgroundRewarding health knowledge and health service contributors with money is one possible approach for the sustainable provision of health knowledge and health services in online health communities (OHCs); however, the reasons why consumers voluntarily reward free health knowledge and health service contributors are still underinvestigated.ObjectiveThis study aimed to address the abovementioned gap by exploring the factors influencing consumers’ voluntary rewarding behaviors (VRBs) toward contributors of free health services in OHCs.MethodsOn the basis of prior studies and the cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), we incorporated two health service content–related variables (ie, informational support and emotional support) and two interpersonal factors (ie, social norm compliance and social interaction) and built a proposed model. We crawled a dataset from a Chinese OHC for mental health, coded it, extracted nine variables, and tested the model with a negative binomial model.ResultsThe data sample included 2148 health-related questions and 12,133 answers. The empirical results indicated that the effects of informational support (β=.168; P<.001), emotional support (β=.463; P<.001), social norm compliance (β=.510; P<.001), and social interaction (β=.281; P<.001) were significant. The moderating effects of social interaction on informational support (β=.032; P=.02) and emotional support (β=−.086; P<.001) were significant. The moderating effect of social interaction on social norm compliance (β=.014; P=.38) was insignificant.ConclusionsInformational support, emotional support, social norm compliance, and social interaction positively influence consumers to voluntarily reward free online health service contributors. Social interaction enhances the effect of informational support but weakens the effect of emotional support. This study contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing in OHCs by exploring the factors influencing consumers’ VRBs toward free online health service contributors and contributes to the CEST literature by verifying that the effects of experiential and rational systems on individual behaviors can vary while external factors change.
Highlights
BackgroundWith the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the sharing economy (SE) has emerged as a market for collaborative consumption in which peer communities gain access to a pool of shared knowledge and resources [1,2,3]
On the basis of prior related studies and grounding our research in cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), this study has identified two health service content–related factors and two interpersonal factors and explored how these factors influence consumers’ voluntary rewarding behaviors (VRBs) toward free health service contributors in online health communities (OHCs)
Our empirical findings have demonstrated that informational support, emotional support, social norm compliance, and social interaction positively influence consumers to voluntarily reward free health service contributors
Summary
BackgroundWith the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs), the sharing economy (SE) has emerged as a market for collaborative consumption in which peer communities gain access to a pool of shared knowledge and resources [1,2,3]. In OHCs, health care professionals or enthusiastic consumers generally provide free health knowledge and health services They voluntarily contribute their time and knowledge to the community [11,22,26]. Objective: This study aimed to address the abovementioned gap by exploring the factors influencing consumers’ voluntary rewarding behaviors (VRBs) toward contributors of free health services in OHCs. Methods: On the basis of prior studies and the cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), we incorporated two health service content–related variables (ie, informational support and emotional support) and two interpersonal factors (ie, social norm compliance and social interaction) and built a proposed model. Conclusions: Informational support, emotional support, social norm compliance, and social interaction positively influence consumers to voluntarily reward free online health service contributors. This study contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing in OHCs by exploring the factors influencing consumers’ VRBs toward free online health service contributors and contributes to the CEST literature by verifying that the effects of experiential and rational systems on individual behaviors can vary while external factors change
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