What drives online course sales? Signaling effects of user-generated information in the paid knowledge market
Mingli Zhang,
Yan Zhang,
Lu Zhao and
Xiaoyong Li
Journal of Business Research, 2020, vol. 118, issue C, 389-397
Abstract:
The emergence of a paid knowledge market provides knowledge contributors a way to get economic repay from their sharing, but little is known about the determinants of sales of those paid knowledge content. To study this, we identify three user-generated signals: the rating of content product, followers of content producer, and upvotes content producer gains, which may influence consumers' content quality perceptions and purchase decisions. Drawing on a panel data set of 6380 online live courses, we propose a new perspective of signaling effect by distinguishing the influence of the flow and stock of signals. Hypotheses are tested using fixed-effect regression and panel vector autoregression methodology. The result suggests a positive impact of ratings and followers on sales, a negative impact of upvotes on sales, and reveals the dynamic interactivity between the flow of signals and sales. These findings offer insights into signaling theory and knowledge product transactions.
Keywords: Paid knowledge content; User-generated content; Signaling theory; Sales; Fixed-effect regression; Panel vector autoregression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296320304483
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:118:y:2020:i:c:p:389-397
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.07.008
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside
More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu (repec@elsevier.com).