Purpose

As users often lack the motivation to contribute their ideas and knowledge in open innovation communities, it is necessary to identify the determinants of users’ contribution. This paper aims to examine users’ contribution in open innovation communities based on the social capital theory.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected 474 valid responses from a survey and adopted structural equation modeling (SEM) to conduct data analysis.

Findings

The results indicated that social interaction, which includes informational and emotional interaction, has a significant effect on social capital, which in turn affects users’ contribution.

Research limitations/implications

The results imply that companies need to facilitate users’ interactions and develop social capital to promote their contribution in open innovation communities.

Originality/value

Although previous research has found the effect of individual motivations such as perceived benefits and behavioural control on innovation community users’ behaviour, it has seldom considered the effect of social capital embedded within the social relationship networking. This research tries to fill the gap and the results disclosed the mechanism underlying open innovation community users’ contribution.

中文翻译：

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理解用户在开放创新社区中的贡献：社会资本视角

目的

由于用户往往缺乏在开放创新社区中贡献他们的想法和知识的动力，因此有必要确定用户贡献的决定因素。本文旨在基于社会资本理论考察用户在开放创新社区中的贡献。

设计/方法/方法

作者从调查中收集了 474 条有效回复，并采用结构方程模型 (SEM) 进行数据分析。

发现

结果表明，包括信息交互和情感交互在内的社会交互对社会资本有显着影响，进而影响用户的贡献。

研究限制/影响

结果表明，公司需要促进用户的互动并发展社会资本，以促进他们在开放创新社区中的贡献。

原创性/价值

虽然之前的研究发现了个人动机（如感知利益和行为控制）对创新​​社区用户行为的影响，但很少考虑嵌入社交关系网络中的社会资本的影响。本研究试图填补这一空白，结果揭示了开放创新社区用户贡献的机制。