Research On The Effect Of Network Redundancy On User Knowledge Contribution In Open Innovation Platform

Product and service innovation is one of the key activities for an enterprise to maintain its vitality in the fierce competition environment.The initial stage of any innovation process is idea.Obtaining a large number of valuable ideas can help enterprises discover potential innovation opportunities as early as possible and improve their subsequent development efficiency in the product or service market.In the current environment of open innovation,the way of inviting users to contribute knowledge through open innovation platform has been adopted by many enterprises,and one of the purposes for enterprises to build open innovation platform is to get as many ideas as possible in the initial stage of innovation.Therefore,the knowledge contribution of users is very important in the open innovation platform.In the open innovation platform,users form a virtual relationship network based on their interactive behaviors,and the users transmit,share and learn idea knowledge through the network.This open and free network environment will make users' knowledge contribution influenced by others behaviors in the platform.Therefore,this article analyzes how the characteristics of the network between users affect the user's knowledge contribution from the perspective of social networks and mainly focuses on the role of network redundancy.Put forward the main research question of this paper:how,why and when the network redundancy between users will affect their knowledge contribution.Specifically,it includes three sub-research problems:Firstly,how does network redundancy affect users' knowledge contribution based on the user interaction relationship of open innovation platform;Second,Why does network redundancy affect users' knowledge contribution in open innovation platform,and whether information redundancy mediates the effect of network redundancy on knowledge contribution;Thirdly,When will network redundancy affect users' knowledge contribution.Because users' activity in the platform is different,the network size of each user indicates the degree of users' interaction,so it is necessary to study the difference of network redundancy's influence on knowledge contribution under different network sizes.In order to investigate the characteristics of users' contribution,this paper explores the mechanism of network redundancy affecting users' knowledge contribution in open innovation platform from the perspective of local network.Taking LEGO open innovation platform as the empirical research object,the crawler program is written by Python to crawl the platform data,and the NetworkX package is used to build ego networks for each user and calculate the related network indicators.Secondly,the information redundancy in text content is obtained by using text mining method,and the relationship between network redundancy and information redundancy and its effect on users' knowledge contribution are explored.Then,we use STATA to test the mediating effect and prove that information redundancy mediates the effect of network redundancy and knowledge contribution.Finally,we construct the conditional process model.We use the PROCESS macro to test the conditional indirect effects of network redundancy on knowledge contribution,and prove that the indirect influence of network redundancy on knowledge contribution through information redundancy is more significant in ego networks with low network size.In an appropriate network size,close relationship can better promote users' knowledge learning,and repeated information contact provides conditions for users to create knowledge,and helps users to activate,reorganize and create knowledge,so as to better realize self-worth.We use the PROCESS macro to test the conditional indirect effects of network redundancy on knowledge contribution,and prove that the indirect influence of network redundancy on knowledge contribution through information redundancy is more significant in ego networks with low network size.The innovations of this paper include:Firstly,it reveals the positive effect of network redundancy on users' knowledge contribution.This study focuses on a key concept;network redundancy,but there is still a gap in the research on this topic in the context of open innovation.Focusing on individual users through ego network reveals the relationship characteristics between users who are more intimate with users,which complements the current research on the contribution of social network structure to knowledge.Second,make clear the specific influence mechanism of network redundancy.This paper examines the mediating role of information redundancy and provides empirical evidence for previous related theories;Thirdly,it provides a clearer explanation mechanism for the two contradictory viewpoints of network redundancy.Under the background of open innovation,this paper proves that the effect of network redundancy on users' knowledge contribution will be moderated by network size,and when users are in a small ego network,more frequent contacts between users can promote users to contribute more knowledge.