What Makes Geeks Tick? A Study of Stack Overflow Careers

Lei Xu, Tingting Nian and Luis Cabral
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Lei Xu: TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Tingting Nian: UC Irvine - University of California [Irvine] - UC - University of California

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Abstract: Many online platforms rely on users to voluntarily provide content. What motivates users to contribute content for free however is not well understood. In this paper, we use a revealed preference approach to show that career concerns play an important role in user contributions to Stack Overflow, the largest online Q&A community. We investigate how activities that can enhance a user's reputation vary before and after the user finds a new job. We contrast this with activities that do not improve a user's reputation. After finding a new job, users contribute 23.7% less in reputation-generating activity. By contrast, they reduce their non-reputation-generating activity by only 7.4% after finding a new job. These findings suggest that users contribute to Stack Overflow in part because they perceive this as a way to improve future employment prospects. We provide direct evidence against alternative explanations such as integer constraints, skills mismatch, and dynamic selection effects.

Keywords: Career concerns; Online public goods; Signaling; Voluntary contribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-02
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03052632v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Management Science, 2020, 66 (2), pp.587-604. ⟨10.1287/mnsc.2018.3264⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03052632

DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2018.3264

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