What makes users contribute more in knowledge exchange? Self-benefit vs other-benefit appeals

Purpose Traditional knowledge exchange platforms are increasingly introducing paid services as part of their commercial transformation. Knowledge providers participating in these services offer two types of benefits: those that benefit the providers themselves, such as earning consultation fees, and those aimed at knowledge seekers, such as resolving uncertainties. This study aims to determine which type of benefit appeal can encourage knowledge providers to contribute their paid knowledge and whether these benefit appeals will spill over to free knowledge contributions. Additionally, this study examines the underlying mechanisms and the moderating effect of self-construal. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted two online between-subjects experiments. The authors first conducted an experiment with 123 participants to examine the effect of different benefit appeals on knowledge contributions and explore the underlying mechanisms. They then conducted a second experiment with 238 additional participants to investigate the moderating effect of self-construal. Findings This study finds no significant main effect of benefit appeals on paid knowledge contributions across the two experiments. However, compared with self-benefit appeals, other-benefit appeals demonstrate a stronger positive spillover effect on free knowledge contributions, driven by the enjoyment of helping others. In addition, other-benefit appeals motivate interdependent users to contribute more paid and free knowledge compared with independent users, whereas self-benefit appeals motivate only independent users to contribute more paid knowledge than interdependent users. Originality/value This work provides theoretical and practical implications for platform managers seeking to enhance users’ knowledge contributions by using benefit appeals tailored to their self-construals.