Understanding users’ contribution in open innovation communities: a social capital perspective

Abstract

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.

Citation

Zhou, T. (2022), "Understanding users’ contribution in open innovation communities: a social capital perspective", Kybernetes, Vol. 51 No. 3, pp. 937-951. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-10-2020-0665