To answer or to ignore? The impact of questioners and questions on continuous knowledge contributions in virtual Q&A communities

Continuous knowledge contributions are a key component of the success of virtual question and answer (Q&A) communities. Continuous knowledge contributions comprise answerers’ responses to questioners and their questions. As antecedent information to continuous knowledge contributions, based on stimulus–organism–response theory and information dual-process theory, a research model that reflects the impact of the characteristics of questions and questioners on answerers’ continuous knowledge contributions is established. Then, the model is empirically examined by using short panel data containing 44,198 question and answer interaction data points collected from 1,830 answerers on the Chinese Software Developer Network. Meanwhile, the mediation effects of outcome expectations and perceived achievement on the characteristics of questions and questioners are investigated. The two-way fixed-effects negative binomial regression results show that (1) the label similarity, question readability, norms of reciprocity and reputation of questioners all have a positive impact on answerers’ continuous knowledge contributions in virtual question and answer communities; (2) outcome expectations fully mediate the effect of label similarity, while they partially mediate the effect of question readability, the norms of reciprocity and the reputation of questioners; and (3) perceived achievement mediates the effects of label similarity, the norms of reciprocity and the reputation of questioners.