Factors influencing the popularity of customer-generated content in a company-hosted online co-creation community: A social capital perspective

With the current trend of co-creation, companies and consumers increasingly take advantage of online co-creation communities to share and exchange product-related information. In response to the knowledge exchange and collaborative nature of online co-creation, we advance the theoretical understanding of consumer co-creation by considering it as mutual effects and interactions with other consumers. Based on social capital theory, we developed a research model to examine the factors influencing the popularity of customer-generated content using objective data collected from the MIUI online co-creation community in China. A key result of this study is that social networks ties among consumers enable the norm of reciprocity and shared language, which, in turn, influence the popularity of customer-generated content. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.