同侪影响视角下创新社区中用户群体创新行为的形成机理研究

Research on the User Group Innovative Behavior in Innovation Communities Based on the Perspective of Peer Influence

创新社区中用户群体创新现象十分普遍,对社区运营成功具有举足轻重的作用,然而学术界针对这一现象却鲜有相关的理论解释。基于此,本研究基于同侪影响视角探究原本相互独立的用户个体如何聚集为群体并激发用户群体创新行为,同时挖掘用户群体创新行为的内涵和维度。本文基于嵌入式多案例研究并以六个创新社区用户群体的帖子作为资料来源,运用程序化扎根理论方法进行编码分析,揭示了“同侪影响→群体认同→群体创新就绪→用户群体创新行为”的理论模型,从中提炼出“群体创新就绪”这一新构念;同时解构了用户群体创新行为的内涵及维度。

Today,user innovation behavior at the group level exists widely in innovation communities and has been recognized as critical to the successful operation of innovation communities.However,there are few theoretical explanations for this in the academic community.On the one hand,despite extensive research on the connotation and dimensions of user innovative behavior,there is no clear definition of those of user group innovative behavior,as group behavior cannot be simply taken as a collection of individual behaviors.On the other hand,although existing studies have revealed the existence of user groups in innovation communities and discussed the formation mechanism of their innovation ability,there is no definitive theoretical explanation for what other factors trigger user group innovative behavior.Besides,the question of why previously independent individuals in innovation communities converge into user groups has been largely ignored.In view of this,this paper explores the formation of user groups from the perspective of interpersonal influence based on the social psychology research on the convergence of individuals into groups and the specific context of innovation communities.Due to the characteristics of users in innovation communities,such as similar interests,equal relationships,and knowing or not knowing each other in reality,they form peer relationships and generate peer influence different from general interpersonal influence.Therefore,this paper adopts the perspective of peer influence to analyze how individual users aggregate into user groups and motivate user group innovative behavior,and to identify the connotation and dimensions of such behaviors.In this paper,we conduct embedded multiple case studies with user group as the primary unit of analysis and innovation community as the secondary unit of analysis.Following the theoretical sampling principle,we select six innovation communities,namely,MIUI Community,Huawei Fan Club,Deepin Community,Kingdee Community,DJI Community,and DF ROBOT Community.Then,we choose a typical user group from each innovation community,with 911 posts and 1278 replies from these community members collected as qualitative data.Finally,we form a coding team,and then introduce the proceduralised grounded theory method to analyze qualitative data for open coding,spindle coding,and selective coding.The findings are as follows.(1)User group innovative behavior in innovation communities involves three dimensions,namely,contributing innovative resources,generating innovative ideas,and implementing innovative ideas,which are distinguished from user innovative behavior.(2)Peer influence contributes to user group innovative behavior through two stages,namely,user group formation and user group action.In the stage of user group formation,peer influence among users promotes group identification of individual users to the user group,thus making them ready to be involved in group innovation as a member of the user group.That is,the user group’s group innovation capability,group innovation motivation,innovation role play and group emotional state are formed.In the stage of user group action,with the regulation of the community’s innovation climate,the above readiness for group innovation is further translated into user group innovative behavior.(3)Since group innovation capability,group innovation motivation,innovation role play and group emotional state represent the user groups’four readiness states for innovative activities,namely,what they can do,what they want to do,what they need to be do and what they are willing to do,we employ the readiness theory in consumer behavior to propose the new concept of group innovative readiness.(4)In the online context of innovation communities,apart from the information influence and normative influence in traditional offline scenarios,peer influence among users also includes comparative influence and emotional contagion.The theoretical contributions of this paper are as follows.(1)Unlike previous studies’emphasis on individual user innovative behavior,this paper interprets the connotation of user group innovative behavior and deconstructs its dimensions,thus making an effective supplement to relevant research.(2)This paper adopts the perspective of peer influence to reveal the formation mechanism of user group innovative behavior in innovation communities,which inspires subsequent research and extends the scope of peer influence theory to the field of management.(3)This paper proposes the new concept of group innovative readiness,and finds that different from the three dimensions of readiness theory focusing on individual consumers,namely,ability,motivation and role,user group readiness also includes user group emotional state,thereby extending the study of readiness theory from individual consumers to user groups.