Value cocreation behavior of users in an online social question-and-answer community

Online social question-and-answer (Q&A) communities provide a platform for people to acquire high-quality knowledge and have become an important mode through which users can cocreate value. We applied self-determination theory and the stimulus–organism–response framework to develop a model of how platform characteristics influence users’ self-determination in virtual communities, thereby influencing their value cocreation behavior. Data obtained from a survey of 385 users in an online social Q&A community show that personalized recommendations, social interaction, and information richness each had a positive impact on user self-competence, self-autonomy, and self-relatedness, which subsequently affected their knowledge-sharing and knowledge-integration behaviors. Moreover, self-determination had a mediating effect in the relationship between platform characteristics and users’ knowledge-sharing and knowledge-integration behaviors. Our findings provide evidence for how to promote value cocreation in a social Q&A community.