ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of material incentives on the knowledge-sharing networks and information lifecycles of a public online forum. The users’ interaction data were collected from two similar sub-forums, and one of them provided material incentives for sharing knowledge. After collecting user behaviors for one natural year, the interaction data from 18,079 main posts and 326,024 replies were coded using social network analysis. Results showed that both sub-forums have significant small-world effects, but the effect is more obvious in the incentive intervention, with higher density, larger network cohesion, shorter average path length, and larger power-law index. Also, the material incentives made the whole interactive network more connected, with less isolated clusters. According to the K-core analysis, marginal users in the incentive intervention relied less on core users and had been motivated toward the network center. However, the information lifecycle for both conditions was about 46 days, with no significant difference. These findings indicated that the material incentives have a significant spatial effect that helps widening knowledge-sharing scopes and deepening the interaction, while it has limited time-line effects on prolonging knowledge-sharing sustainability.

摘要

本研究的目的是检验物质激励对公共在线论坛的知识共享网络和信息生命周期的影响。用户的交互数据是从两个类似的分论坛收集的，其中一个为分享知识提供了物质激励。在收集一个自然年的用户行为后，使用社交网络分析对 18,079 个主要帖子和 326,024 个回复的交互数据进行编码。结果表明，两个分论坛均具有显着的小世界效应，但在激励干预方面效果更为明显，密度更高、网络凝聚力更大、平均路径长度更短、幂律指数更大。此外，物质激励使整个互动网络更加紧密相连，孤立的集群更少。根据K核分析，激励干预中的边缘用户对核心用户的依赖程度较低，被激励向网络中心靠拢。然而，两种情况下的信息生命周期约为 46 天，没有显着差异。研究结果表明，物质激励具有显着的空间效应，有助于扩大知识共享范围和加深互动，但对延长知识共享可持续性的时间线效应有限。