TY - JOUR
T1 - Peer recognition, badge policies, and content contribution
T2 - An empirical study
AU - Han, Xintong
AU - Li, Yushen
AU - Wang, Tong
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to Allan Collard-Wexler, Yufeng Huang, Mandy Hu, Brad Larsen, Jia Liu, Oleksandr Shcherbakov, Lei Xu, Jipeng Zhang, Yue Zhu, and our colleagues at Concordia, Jinan, and Edinburgh, as well as seminar and conference participants at Concordia, the Chinese Economists Society annual meeting, the University of Edinburgh, the Bank of Canada, and Montreal IO reading group for their valuable comments. This research has been financially supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China [Grant No. 22YJC790065], the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [Grant No. 2022A1515110500], the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Grant [EDIN-19/20-P0007], Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grant No.23JNQN02], and National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 72192801]. We also thank Zhihu (Zhihu Inc.) for providing the data. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Zhihu Inc. We take full responsibility for any remaining errors.We are grateful for the financial support from the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China [Grant No. 22YJC790065], the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [Grant No. 2022A1515110500], the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Grant [Grant No. EDIN-19/20-P0007], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grant No. 23JNQN02], China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [Grant No. 2022M721345], and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 72192801]. We thank the Editor assigned to our manuscript, Joachim Winter, the anonymous Associated Editor and three Referees for useful comments and suggestions.
Funding Information:
We are grateful for the financial support from the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China [Grant No. 22YJC790065 ], the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [Grant No. 2022A1515110500 ], the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Grant [Grant No. EDIN-19/20-P0007 ], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grant No. 23JNQN02 ], China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [Grant No. 2022M721345 ], and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 72192801 ]. We thank the Editor assigned to our manuscript, Joachim Winter, the anonymous Associated Editor and three Referees for useful comments and suggestions.
Funding Information:
We are grateful to Allan Collard-Wexler, Yufeng Huang, Mandy Hu, Brad Larsen, Jia Liu, Oleksandr Shcherbakov, Lei Xu, Jipeng Zhang, Yue Zhu, and our colleagues at Concordia, Jinan, and Edinburgh, as well as seminar and conference participants at Concordia, the Chinese Economists Society annual meeting, the University of Edinburgh, the Bank of Canada, and Montreal IO reading group for their valuable comments. This research has been financially supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China [Grant No. 22YJC790065 ], the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [Grant No. 2022A1515110500 ], the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Grant [ EDIN-19/20-P0007 ], Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grant No. 23JNQN02 ], and National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 72192801 ]. We also thank Zhihu (Zhihu Inc.) for providing the data. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Zhihu Inc. We take full responsibility for any remaining errors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2023/10
Y1 - 2023/10
N2 - In this study, we explore the effect of peer recognition on content creation within a prominent Chinese Question-and-Answer (Q&A) platform, specifically focusing on whether votes from peers encourage influencers to engage in providing more answers. Using panel regression models with instrumental variables, our analysis reveals that peer votes have a substantial positive effect on content production. Additionally, we investigate the consequences of two distinct badge policies, the “self-authentication”and the “best-answerer” badge, on content production. Our results demonstrate that while badges aid users in recognizing the quality of an influencer, badges with strong connotations may constrain content creation due to concerns about reputation management and privacy. As such, strategies that enhance platform traffic by promoting voting could be counterproductive if they exacerbate privacy and reputation worries.Our findings provide valuable insights into the role of peer recognition and badge policies in shaping content
AB - In this study, we explore the effect of peer recognition on content creation within a prominent Chinese Question-and-Answer (Q&A) platform, specifically focusing on whether votes from peers encourage influencers to engage in providing more answers. Using panel regression models with instrumental variables, our analysis reveals that peer votes have a substantial positive effect on content production. Additionally, we investigate the consequences of two distinct badge policies, the “self-authentication”and the “best-answerer” badge, on content production. Our results demonstrate that while badges aid users in recognizing the quality of an influencer, badges with strong connotations may constrain content creation due to concerns about reputation management and privacy. As such, strategies that enhance platform traffic by promoting voting could be counterproductive if they exacerbate privacy and reputation worries.Our findings provide valuable insights into the role of peer recognition and badge policies in shaping content
KW - badge policies
KW - content provision
KW - peer recognition
KW - question-and-answer platform
U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.08.021
DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.08.021
M3 - Article
SN - 0167-2681
VL - 214
SP - 691
EP - 707
JO - Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
JF - Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization
ER -