Stimulating innovation by user feedback on social media: The case of an online user innovation community

With firms' increasing use of social media platforms, such as online user innovation communities (OUICs), customers are actively participating in firm-sponsored innovation activity by posting and commenting on new ideas for improving the firms' products and services, or to develop new ones. While it has been suggested that OUICs promote user interactions, it is largely unclear how other users' feedback may stimulate a focal user's contribution to such OUICs. Drawing on a media usage theory, we identify multifaceted benefits from user feedback that are cognitive, integrative and affective in the archival comments received by a focal user, and examine their individual and joint impacts on the user's future contribution in terms of both ideating and commenting behavior. We conduct a longitudinal study by collecting a large-scale, quantitative data set from a leading OUIC between 2008 and 2015, which reveals novel findings on the nuanced role of user feedback on social media in stimulating innovation.