Abstract
With the support of network information technology, the Online Knowledge Community (OKC) has emerged. Among different OKC applications, some entered into the new era of popular knowledge production, while others experienced the process to decline. In order to solve the dilemma faced by the OKC platforms, the needs-affordances-features (NAF) perspective on OKC is proposed by taking Zhihu, one of the most popular OKC applications in China as an example. According to NAF, the psychological needs of individuals motivate the use of Zhihu to the extent to which Zhihu offers affordances that satisfy the individuals' needs. By collecting data through questionnaires and using SPSS and AMOS for data analysis, the relationship between individuals' psychological needs and Zhihu affordances is identified. This paper generates two aspects of implications. In terms of theoretical implications, a more comprehensive framework is developed for the affordances of OKC as a whole, and the NAF model is leveraged to identify related psychological needs which motivate the use of a specific OKC application—Zhihu. Further research can leverage NAF to identify different OKC platform features which satisfy the psychological needs of their targeting users to optimize the system of OKC platforms. As for practical implications, by building the relationship between the affordances of OKC platforms and users' psychological needs, marketers have to realize that although the digital platform system has a certain degree of imitability, the value positioning, user community, and core capabilities behind those platforms are all different. Thus, the platform system must also be differentiated. In order to determine the appropriate business model, a clear understanding of these organizational features should be identified.
Highlights
Knowledge management has attracted the attention of many researchers due to its close relationship with organizational performance [1]
In the view of practice, from the fact that Wukong Questions and Answers (Q&A) has invested billions in the construction of the community, it still fell to the ground, it can be seen that different platform affordances could create different community ecology. e research of this topic can guide more platforms to design more effective Online Knowledge Community (OKC) applications under the premise of unifying user needs and organizational characteristics, which could lead to avoiding waste of social resources and improving the success rate of Internet innovation
White [67] showed that individuals need to feel competent in controlling or altering the environment and finding opportunities to increase their own knowledge or skills. erefore, people who have a high demand for competence are more likely to seek affordances that provide them with opportunities to apply or expand their knowledge in the environment. us, we suggest that the affordances of meta-voicing, sourcing, and knowledge attributes can fulfill individuals’ needs for competence by providing feedback to others’ posts, responding to others’ questions, searching answers, subscribing to valuable content, attending online courses, and so on. us, hypothesis 3 is suggested
Summary
Knowledge management has attracted the attention of many researchers due to its close relationship with organizational performance [1]. Ere is the success of Zhihu, while there is the shutdown of Encarta, the failure of Google Answers, the decline of Wikipedia [5, 6], and the quit of Wukong Q&A, which operated less than four years independently Of these OKC platforms, why do high-quality creators prefer Zhihu? In the research of Facebook using motivations, the needs-affordances-features (NAF) model was first suggested by focusing on platform characteristics in the context of social media [10]. E research of this topic can guide more platforms to design more effective OKC applications under the premise of unifying user needs and organizational characteristics, which could lead to avoiding waste of social resources and improving the success rate of Internet innovation In the view of practice, from the fact that Wukong Q&A has invested billions in the construction of the community, it still fell to the ground, it can be seen that different platform affordances could create different community ecology. e research of this topic can guide more platforms to design more effective OKC applications under the premise of unifying user needs and organizational characteristics, which could lead to avoiding waste of social resources and improving the success rate of Internet innovation
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