How does the online innovation community climate affect the user’s value co-creation behavior: The mediating role of motivation

Abstract

Online Innovation Community (OIC) serves as a virtual space for users to exchange products and services, and share knowledge and information. Previous studies have indicated that community climate is an important factor affecting users’ value co-creation behavior, however, the influencing process has not been clearly revealed from the perspective of motivation. In this study, we explored the relationship between online innovation community climate (supportive climate and controlling climate), user motivation and value co-creation behavior (user’s participation behavior and user’s citizenship behavior) based on the SOR model. The study sample included 29,835 pieces of information from 3,315 users in 14 product sections of the OnePlus Community which were analyzed with Mplus8.1. The findings revealed that: (1) The supportive climate had a positive impact on user’s citizenship behavior(β = 0.042), while the controlling climate exerted a significant positive impact on user’s citizenship behavior (β = 0.078) and user’s participation behavior(β = 0.099); (2) The need for achievement played a suppressing effect between community climate and user’s participation behavior, the need for power played a suppressing effect between supportive climate and user’s value co-creation behavior, and the need for affiliation played a mediating role between supportive climate and user’s citizenship behavior (β = 0.010) and user’s participation behavior(β = 0.006); (3) Community trust positively moderated the relationship between the need for achievement and user’s participation behavior(β = 0.058) as well as between the need for power and user’s participation behavior(β = 0.043).