Promoting the Quality of User Generated Ideas in Online Innovation Communities: A Knowledge Collaboration Perspective

Enabled by Internet-based technologies, users are increasingly participating and collaborating in idea generation in online innovation communities. However, with the limited understanding of the phenomenon, few studies have investigated what determines the quality of ideas. This study aims at addressing the knowledge gap. We find that idea experimentation effort, i.e., the effort associated with creating the idea, and idea review, i.e., comments by other users, influence idea quality. Further, idea recombination, i.e. peer users participating in wiki-based edits, have a positive influence on idea Quality, in case idea experimentation effort was low, and a negative influence in case of high idea experimentation effort. These results contribute to idea generation, knowledge collaboration, and user generated content literature by investigating the mechanisms through which collaboration influences the quality of the collaborative outcome (i.e., idea quality) in online contexts for the first time. Advice for organizations running online innovation communities is provided.