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You scratch someone's back and we'll scratch yours: Collective reciprocity in social Q&A communities

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  • Philip Fei Wu
  • Nikolaos Korfiatis

Abstract

Taking a structuration perspective and integrating reciprocity research in economics, this study examines the dynamics of reciprocal interactions in social question & answer communities. We postulate that individual users of social Q&A constantly adjust their kindness in the direction of the observed benefit and effort of others. Collective reciprocity emerges from this pattern of conditional strategy of reciprocation and helps form a structure that guides the very interactions that give birth to the structure. Based on a large sample of data from Yahoo! Answers, our empirical analysis supports the collective reciprocity premise, showing that the more effort (relative to benefit) an asker contributes to the community, the more likely the community will return the favor. On the other hand, the more benefit (relative to effort) the asker takes from the community, the less likely the community will cooperate in terms of providing answers. We conclude that a structuration view of reciprocity sheds light on the duality of social norms in online communities.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip Fei Wu & Nikolaos Korfiatis, 2013. "You scratch someone's back and we'll scratch yours: Collective reciprocity in social Q&A communities," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(10), pages 2069-2077, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamist:v:64:y:2013:i:10:p:2069-2077
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.22913
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    Cited by:

    1. Donald Amoroso & Ricardo Lim & Francisco L. Roman, 2021. "The Effect of Reciprocity on Mobile Wallet Intention: A Study of Filipino Consumers," International Journal of Asian Business and Information Management (IJABIM), IGI Global, vol. 12(2), pages 57-83, April.
    2. Mercy Mpinganjira, 2019. "Willingness to reciprocate in virtual health communities: the role of social capital, gratitude and indebtedness," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 13(2), pages 269-287, June.
    3. Bing Wu & Shan Jiang & Hsinchun Chen, 2015. "The impact of individual attributes on knowledge diffusion in web forums," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 49(6), pages 2221-2236, November.

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