Research On Influence Of Competition And Cooperation On The Innovation Performance Of Users In Online Communities

With the development of Web 2.0 technology,the cooperation between firms and the crowd is not confined to the offline environment anymore.More and more online communities have been emerging through the use of network technology and have become the medium of communication and cooperation between firms and the crowd.Online communities can break through the limitation of time and space,which helps firms enhance the efficiency and quality of innovation by providing them innovative ideas and solutions with more potential from outside innovators.Although multiple online communities offer diversified methods and patterns to obtain outside innovation,they challenge firms to reasonably utilize these platforms.Since users in online communities are the main innovators and relationships among users will influence users' innovation process and performance,understanding the effects of relationships among users on the innovation by users in different types of online innovation communities is meaningful for the management and development of online platforms for innovation.Methods of achieving online innovation based on relationships among users include two types generally,one method is to obtain innovation through the cooperation among users,the other method is to obtain innovation through the competition among users.In addition,with the development of online communities,some competitive communities have allowed users to communicate and cooperate with each other while maintaining the competitive relationships.In other words,besides the methods of cooperation and competition,co-opetition has also become one of the methods to achieve online innovation.This paper defines competition,cooperation,and co-opetition among users,and builds the theoretical framework and model based on related theories to explore the effects of competition and cooperation among users on the innovation performance of users in online communities.Firstly,this paper explores the influence of cooperation among users on the users' innovation performance.Interaction reflects the cooperation among users,users could share information and knowledge,which then may influence the users' innovation performance.From the perspective of content characteristics of user interaction,this paper divides the interaction among users' into interaction breadth and interaction depth,and builds empirical model to explore the influence of interaction among users on users' innovation performance.The results show that interaction breadth is positively associated with innovation performance within certain limits,whereas excessively extensive interaction is not conducive to the improvement of innovation performance because it harms the absorption and transformation of knowledge.Interaction depth is negatively associated with innovation performance since it will lead to the cognitive fixation.Moreover,under the condition of constant interaction breadth,the innovation performance of users with lower interaction depth excels that of users with higher interaction depth.Secondly,this paper investigates the influence of users' competition on the users' innovation performance.In competitive online communities,competition among users would impact users enthusiasm and level of effort,and affect users' innovation performance together with other task characteristics(eg.task reward).This paper divides users' participation in innovation process into two stages,that is registration stage and submission stage,and explores the direct and indirect effects of competition on users' innovation performance based on expectancy-value theory.The research results verify that task reward is positively associated with the level of innovation participation and innovation performance,and competition intensity is negatively associated with users' innovation performance.In addition,competition intensity negatively moderates the relationship between task reward and innovation performance.Competition intensity is related to the possibility of winning the task,when the possibility of winning is relatively low,the influence of reward on solvers' behaviors decreases.When the competition intensity is relatively high,solvers may give up the task even if the reward is high.In contrast,when the possibility of winning is relatively high,the influence of reward on users' behaviors strengthens.Thirdly,this paper studies the effects of co-opetition on the users' innovation performance.In online communities competition and cooperation can not only exist solely,the co-opetition among users may influence users' innovation performance differently.This paper builds the influence model of effects of co-opetition relationship among users on users' innovat ion performance,explores the effects of emotional support and informational support on innovation performance from the perspective of social support and social network,and investigates the moderating effects of individuals' co-opetition orientation.The results show that both the emotional and informational support are positively associated with users' innovation performance.Centrality characteristics of users' social network position can positively influence innovation performance.Moreover,co-opetition orientation positively moderates the relationship between informational support and innovation performance.Finally,based on the results of empirical study,this paper provides suggestions for managers on how to improve innovation performance of users in online communities from the perspective of cooperation,competition and co-opetition among users respectively.