Abstract:

Social Q&A community provides new avenues for users to acquire, communicate and share information. Studies on influencing factors of different user behaviors in social Q&A community will be meaningful for community practitioners to develop targeted strategies so as to better attract and retain users. In accordance with the characteristics of social Q&A community, this study decomposes user behaviors in social Q&A community into three types, i.e. consumption behaviors, participation behaviors and producing behaviors. In light of motivation theory, this study attempts to put forward research hypotheses and thus develops a theoretical model. 267 valid data were collected from Zhihu.com users via a questionnaire survey; and further analyzed with SmartPLS. The empirical results show that, different motivation factors foster different user behaviors in social Q&A community. In particular, entertainment and information seeking positively affect consuming behaviors in social Q&A community. Also, entertainment, socializing and altruism have positive influences on participating behaviors in social Q&A community. In addition, altruism, selfefficacy and reputation positively impact producing behaviors in social Q&A community.

Key words: Social Q&A community, Motivation theory, User behavior, Consuming behavior, Participating behavior, Producing behavior, Influencing factor