Multi-Self Presentation and Knowledge Contribution in Platform Operations: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
Prof. Yingpeng ZHU
Assistant Professor in
Business Intelligence and Analytics
FBA, UM
Date: 15 October 2024 (Tuesday)
Time: 13:00 to 14:00
Venue: FBA Lobby
Abstract
We examine a novel design deployed by user-generated content (UGC) platforms to address underprovision, an important issue encountered by managers in platform operations. This design involves the implementation of an additional supplementary free-form content tool that allows users to share diverse content types and thus build additional selves apart from the standard one on the platform. Leveraging a quasi-experiment on a large Chinese online knowledge-sharing platform, we assess the effects of introducing a supplementary free-form content tool on users’ formal knowledge activity (i.e., writing answers to others’ questions) on the platform in a difference-in-differences framework. We find that if users adopted and more frequently used the tool to post content, they also showed a stronger incentive to contribute answers without compromising the quality of each answer. Further analyses suggest that such a complementary effect might be because of two mechanisms related to the new content tool’s multi-self presentation function: First, the new tool increased adopters’ engagement on the platform and led them to consume more knowledge content, which in turn facilitated knowledge contribution; Second, adopters attracted the attention of a larger audience by building a more complete self with the new tool. We also find the complementary effect to be more pronounced for adopters who posted a more balanced composition of serious and casual content using the new tool. Our results have novel implications for platform design and operations to motivate users to contribute valuable content.
All are welcome!
