Many organizations seek to establish online innovation communities (ICs) to obtain valuable knowledge and innovative ideas, though both research and practice suggest that they also struggle to sustain continued, high-quality member participation. Designated IC moderators might be able to stimulate IC members to participate regularly and make high-quality contributions. In response to calls to integrate organizational behavior and IC research, this study addresses the impact of community moderators’ uses of transformational leadership (TFL) language on member participation. By operationalizing the TFL dimensions—charisma, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation—with language cues, this article uses an automated text analysis approach to review 64 firm-hosted ICs with 538,805 posts, analyzed with two hierarchical linear models. The findings show that moderators’ charismatic language cues enhance members’ participation quality and quantity. Although individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation increase participation quality, they decrease participation quantity. Organizations thus should assign moderators to lead ICs by using TFL language strategically, in accordance with the focal IC goals, in terms of the quality and quantity of member contributions to their innovation processes. This article contributes to the literature by exploring how leadership language in online communities can facilitate the development of innovative ideas. In addition, this study offers a more nuanced view on the effects of TFL by revealing both positive and negative outcomes in firm-hosted online ICs and it introduces a new, objective measure of TFL built on linguistic markers. This article also includes specific guidelines for how moderators can achieve effective leadership through their language use, as well as managerial implications for the effective selection, training, and support of IC moderators.

中文翻译：

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创新社区的领导力：变革型领导语言对成员参与的影响

许多组织寻求建立在线创新社区 (IC) 以获得有价值的知识和创新理念，尽管研究和实践表明它们也难以维持持续、高质量的成员参与。指定的 IC 版主或许能够激励 IC 成员定期参与并做出高质量的贡献。为了响应整合组织行为和 IC 研究的呼吁，本研究探讨了社区版主使用变革型领导 (TFL) 语言对成员参与的影响。通过将 TFL 维度（魅力、个性化考虑和智力刺激）与语言线索进行操作，本文使用自动文本分析方法来审查 64 个公司托管的 IC，其中包含 538,805 个帖子，并使用两个分层线性模型进行分析。研究结果表明，主持人的魅力语言提示提高了成员的参与质量和数量。虽然个性化考虑和智力刺激提高了参与质量，但它们降低了参与数量。因此，组织应根据 IC 的焦点目标，根据成员对其创新过程的贡献的质量和数量，通过战略性地使用 TFL 语言来指派主持人来领导 IC。本文通过探索在线社区中的领导语言如何促进创新思想的发展，为文献做出贡献。此外，这项研究通过揭示公司托管的在线 IC 中的正面和负面结果，对 TFL 的影响提供了更细致入微的观点，并引入了一种基于语言标记的新的、客观的 TFL 测量方法。