2.1. Motivations for Sustained Knowledge Contribution
The most asset of a virtual community is the sustained knowledge contribution from the community participants. This has driven great academic efforts to examine sustained contributions in virtual communities. Basically, the extant literature concludes that different types of motivation can lead participants to contribute [
6,
7,
11,
16]. For instance, Dong et al. [
3] and Jin et al. [
11] suggested that extrinsic motivations—social learning and peer recognition—positively influence people’s sustained knowledge contribution. Sun et al. [
16] found that extrinsic and intrinsic motivations both positively relate to sustained knowledge contribution, but implied that their interaction effect might be complex. Building upon the conceptualization of previous research [
17], our study investigates three types of extrinsic motivation—normative motivation, social motivation, and symbolic motivation. Specifically, we examine how these extrinsic motivations interact with intrinsic motivation—manifested as the hedonic motivation, to influence sustained knowledge contribution.
Table 1 summarizes the different types of contribution motivations discussed in this study.
Normative Motivation. Prior research suggested that an individual’s contribution is largely driven by community norms [
20,
21] because norms implicitly establish agreement among members regarding when and how to engage in group activities [
22]. Norms are widely shared beliefs regarding how group members should behave, and they push one to adjust behavior to conform to community norms. A commonly upheld community norm is generalized reciprocity [
6,
15], which obligates participants to give back to the community by contributing their own knowledge. Reciprocity involves the general community members, and the exchange of knowledge, to some extent, reflects the ultimate value of fairness [
23,
24].
Social Motivation. Social motivation refers to people’s desire to maintain a learning relationship with others [
17]. As a typical type of social motivation, social learning occurs because of observing the behavior of others and the outcomes of that behavior [
11,
24]. An individual can form and maintain a learning relationship with others through social learning. This learning relationship can help improve one’s own knowledge and promote long-term knowledge exchange.
Symbolic Motivation. Symbolic motivation indicates that individuals may take on certain actions for symbolic reward. Peer feedback is deemed an important exemplar of symbolic reward [
7]. Peer feedback refers to perceived support (e.g., encouragement or positive feedback) from a community or individual members [
6,
7,
25]. It is not only an acknowledgment of the value of one’s contribution but also an incentive for future contribution [
6,
26]. For example, in a Q&A community, knowledge contributors may get recognized by other members, who “vote” for or “like” their contribution.
Hedonic Motivation. In contrast to normative, social, and symbolic motivations, which are different types of extrinsic motivational mechanisms, hedonic motivation reflects an intrinsic motivation [
17]. Hedonic motivation stems from the intrinsic reward to engage in an activity. That is, the behavior of contribution itself can reward participants with feelings of inherent satisfaction because contribution could help one to gain attractiveness, a good reputation, and enjoyment [
17,
27,
28]. In a Q&A community, a knowledge contributor can obtain intrinsic rewards as his or her audience increases [
29], because a large size of audience indicates a high level of online attractiveness. Online attractiveness reflects how popular the contributor is in a community, and is directly related to how rewarding the contribution behavior is to the contributor [
5].
Although it is well documented that different types of motivation play a significant role in influencing participants’ sustained knowledge contribution in Q&A virtual communities, relatively little research has studied how different motivations interplay with each other. To better understand this issue, we draw on motivation crowding theory [
14].
2.2. Motivation Crowding Theory
Motivation crowding theory (henceforth MCT) [
4,
14] posits that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations coexist in driving individuals’ decision-making. Intrinsic motivation is geared toward internal rewards and reinforcers, such as enjoyment, achievement, and a sense of competence, while extrinsic motivation is geared toward external rewards and reinforcers, including monetary incentives, some forms of praise, or policies. MCT states that the two types of motivation interact and jointly affect behavior through the crowding-out and crowding-in effects. Motivation crowding out refers to the effect that extrinsic motivators (e.g., payment) can undermine intrinsic motivation, while the
crowding-in effect suggests that extrinsic motivators may strengthen the effect of intrinsic motivation [
30]. Whether external motivators crowd out or crowd in intrinsic motivation depends on individuals’ perception of the external motivators [
14]. Take monetary incentives as an example, if a monetary incentive is perceived as a means to control people’s self-determination and thus infringes on their autonomy, the incentive reduces, or crowds out, their intrinsic motivation to engage in the focal activity [
31]. If the monetary incentive is seen as a supportive resource, it will become a positive factor that boosts, or crowds in, intrinsic motivation [
30].
MCT has been acknowledged by economists and social psychologists as a highly useful explanatory framework for understanding people’s behavioral performance. The theory has been extensively tested in many behavior domains, such as public service [
32], online product reviewing [
33], and prosocial behavior [
34]. For instance, Zhao et al. [
4] argued that monetary incentives and reciprocity weaken the influence of willingness to help and self-efficacy on contribution attitude. Zhang et al. [
9] suggested that material incentives undermine the influence of intrinsic motivation on contribution behavior. Hausberg and Spaeth [
19] argued that reputation undermines the influence of intrinsic motivation on contribution. Andersen et al. [
10] demonstrated that external reward strengthens the effect of enjoying helping others. Although MCT has been recognized as a valuable framework to explain the interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, it has not been applied to test the intricacies across different types of extrinsic motivation, nor has it been tested in online contexts such as virtual communities. Inspired by previous studies such as [
6,
12,
18,
19], we examine three types of extrinsic motivation that embody different underlying mechanisms, namely, normative motivation, social motivation, and symbolic motivation. To this end, we potentially contribute to MCT.
In addition, studying different forms of extrinsic motivations in virtual communities is important because, in virtual communities, participants devote time and effort to contribute knowledge voluntarily without receiving essential monetary compensation [
35,
36,
37]. Thus, to motivate members to contribute, the design of other types of incentive mechanisms deserves more attention. However, little research has analyzed the potential interaction effects among various types of motivations in promoting sustained knowledge contribution through the motivation crowding perspective. Moreover, as the member participates in the community over time, members’ participation motivation, values, and attitudes may change [
22]. For example, Xia et al. [
38] suggested that the intensity of initial motivations may change over time. Sun et al. [
16] argued that initial motivation factors for contribution might not be sufficient to account for sustained contribution. Zhang et al. [
39] suggested that the antecedents of initial contribution behavior may differ from those of sustained contribution since the factors may change based on subsequent behaviors. It is thus important to investigate the nuanced impacts of various types of motivational mechanisms on sustained contribution over time.