ABSTRACT

In the past decade, studies showed that many consumers innovate for themselves. Sometimes their innovations are useful to others and potentially enhance social welfare. Unfortunately, diffusion fails as consumers lack incentives to inform others. Online knowledge sharing platforms (OKSPs), which can be stimulated with government support, may alleviate this problem. Platform communication may trigger passive consumers into active knowledge contributors. It is however uncertain if and how platform communication affects consumers who never shared designs before. We conducted a randomised controlled experiment with 715 members of an OKSP in 3D printing. Our intervention included a series of general and personal messages, tailored to various motives to share knowledge: altruism, status, ideology, learning and community. Platform members who never uploaded designs before are positively influenced by our intervention. Specifically, messages tailored to altruism, ideology and learning made platform members upload more designs. Hence, platform communication can improve the availability of innovative designs to potential adopters, and is a useful step to alleviate diffusion failure of consumer innovations.

摘要

在过去十年中，研究表明，许多消费者为自己进行创新。有时他们的创新对其他人有用，并有可能提高社会福利。不幸的是，由于消费者缺乏告知他人的动机，传播失败了。在线知识共享平台（OKSPs）可以在政府支持下得到刺激，可以缓解这个问题。平台交流可能会触发被动的消费者成为主动的知识贡献者。然而，平台交流是否以及如何影响以前从未共享过设计的消费者尚不确定。我们在 3D 打印中对 OKSP 的 715 名成员进行了随机对照实验。我们的干预包括一系列一般和个人信息，针对分享知识的各种动机量身定制：利他主义、地位、意识形态、学习和社区。之前从未上传过设计的平台成员会受到我们干预的积极影响。具体来说，针对利他主义、意识形态和学习的信息使平台成员上传了更多设计。因此，平台沟通可以提高创新设计对潜在采用者的可用性，并且是缓解消费者创新传播失败的有用步骤。