Keywords

1 Introduction

User-generated content (UGC) encompass a wide range of content such as text, video, digital images, and audio files that created by end-users of an online system or service [3]. Although coming in different types, UGC can be summarized as media content created by the general public and openly available on the Internet [6]. UGC is crucial to the success of various websites (e.g., Wikipedia, YouTube), yet prior research indicates that the majority of UGC is produced by very few content creators [17], because they incur costs in terms of time, effort, opportunity costs, reputation risks, and money to contribute content [24]. In order to motivate UGC contribution, websites managers have attempted to raise the benefits received from creating UGC so that benefits outweigh the potential costs [4, 14]. In general, there are three methods by which content creators can directly obtain revenue: (1) advertisement revenue (e.g., any YouTuber can market their videos and profit from advertisements), which varies depending on the viewership and types of advertisements run on the UGC [2], (2) subscription revenue (audiences pay a fixed price to content creators to enjoy content updates over a period) [18], and (3) donation revenue (audiences donate money to content creators though the UGC is free and openly available) [26]. Different from mandatory payment mode (e.g., advertisement and subscription), donating money to content creators has been introduced on a voluntary basis.

Facing with the challenge of attracting content creators’ attention and contribution, many websites have introduced the donation function that allows audiences to directly give monetary incentives to content creators. In recent years, implementing donation function has gained great popularity [26]. For instance, Sina Weibo, the most famous microblogging platform in Mainland China, has provided the donation function since 2014, and earned approximately 7 million US dollars through donation in 2015. Twitch.tv—a user-generated live video streaming website in U.S.—raised over 75 million dollars via donation in 2017 [20]. Figure 1 displays an example of voluntary donation to content creators on WeChat (the leading social media in Mainland China). After reading an article on WeChat, a donation button and list of previous donors appear below the article. Clicking on the donation button, a payment page that shows optional donation amounts will pop-up. Thereafter, audiences are able to decide whether they would like to donate and the donation amount (either select an optional donation amount provided by the content creator or set up an amount by themselves) freely.

Fig. 1.
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(source: http://img0.imgtn.bdimg.com/it/u=4277826650,1812296389&fm=214&gp=0.jpg)

An example of voluntary donation to content creator on WeChat

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One of the best way to motivate content contribution is to have it supported, either financially or non-financially (e.g., the comments and likes to YouTube videos). While in traditional business model, content creators mostly earn from advertisement and subscription, the introduction of voluntary donation function has enabled a more complex interaction that involves the three main parties of a website: audiences, content creators, and website managers. In the long run, adopting donation function is beneficial to these three main parties (see Fig. 2). On one hand, voluntary donation to content creators fulfills a variety of their basic needs (e.g., food, shelter) and higher-level needs (e.g., entertainment, interactivity, and social recognition). Earning an income from content contribution may free the content creators’ schedule, and encourage the transition from part-time to full-time content creators. On the other hand, audiences and website managers are also beneficiaries of the donation function. For example, by donating to content creators, audiences are able to experience entertainment and interactivity. Content creators who receive donations might be motivated and put more effort on producing UGC in the future. Consequently, audiences have an opportunity to enjoy UGC with improved quality and increased quantity. Moreover, effects of voluntary donation on content creators are often translated into benefits for website managers. Donation to content creators provides website managers with the means to enhance their shared monetary revenue, as well as the engagement of audiences and content creators [16], thereby ensuring the long-term sustainability of a website.

Fig. 2.
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Potential benefits by implementing the donation function

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Although there are many potential advantages by enabling donation to content creators, it is not a simple endeavor to facilitate content creators’ contribution of UGC, primarily because most UGC are free of charge and audiences do not necessarily need to donate after consumption of UGC [15]. In this condition, encouraging audiences to voluntarily donate money to free UGC becomes a big challenge. Apparently, incorporating the donation function is not sufficient, unless we understand the motivations behind audiences’ voluntary donation [26]. Given that donation function is relatively new and very limited research has investigated this phenomenon so far, this paper intends to develop an analyzable model that summarizes the predictors of donation behavior. In light of value-based adoption model (VAM), this study unearths perceived value as a key factor that determines audiences’ donation behavior. In addition, antecedents of perceived value are explored, including the benefits (hedonic benefit, utilitarian benefit, and social benefit) and sacrifice (perceived fee) of UGC consumption. Theoretically, the proposed model can serve as the basis for future empirical study on donation to content providers. Practically, our research provide website managers with important implications on how to understand and motivate audiences’ donation behavior to free content, therefore they can successfully operate the donation function to maintain website sustainability.

2 Theoretical Background

2.1 Conceptualization of Perceived Value

Day [8] describes consumer perceived value as the trade-off between the “get” and “give” components of a product. More specifically, the “get” components refer to the benefits a consumer derives from a product while the “give” components represent the sacrifices of acquiring a product. Prior studies are comprehensive in explaining the benefits audiences obtain from product consumption. For instance, Holbrook [9] contends that perceived value consists of eight types of value: convenience, quality, success, reputation, fun, beauty, virtue, and faith. Sheth et al. [21] illustrate perceived value as functional value, social value, emotional value, epistemic value, and conditional value. However, these conceptualizations omit the sacrifices associated with product consumption, which apparently should be captured to fully explain perceive value. Therefore, according to Zeithaml [30], this research defines perceived value of UGC consumption as an audience’s overall estimation of UGC based on the consideration of the benefits and sacrifices required to access and/or use it, which is the most widely adopted by previous studies.

A review of previous research suggests that audiences’ perceived value is a critical factor that influences user intention to pay for online content [10, 27]. For example, Chu and Lu [5] argue that perceived value of online music positively influence online music purchase intention. Wang et al. [27] demonstrate that perceived value has positive impacts on audiences’ purchase intention of online content services. In addition, Hsiao and Chen [10] find that perceived value is positively related to consumers’ intention to pay for e-book subscriptions. Following existing research, we identify perceived value as the key factor affecting audiences’ intention to donate money to content creators. Based on audiences’ overall estimation of UGC, they decide whether donate money to content creators or not.

2.2 Value-Based Adoption Model

Despite perceived value has been frequently used to explain intention to pay for UGC, few studies have explored what factors drive audiences’ perceived value from the perspective of perceived benefits and perceived sacrifices. To fill this gap, Kim et al. [12] propose the value-based adoption model (VAM) that explains customers’ mobile Internet service adoption from the benefit-sacrifice perspective. In VAM, beneficial factors (i.e., hedonic benefit, utilitarian benefit, and social benefit) and sacrificing factor (i.e., perceived price) have been treated as determinants of perceived value. VAM’s benefit-sacrifice framework represents a novel approach to understanding intention to pay for UGC, which has been widely applied in subsequent research [10, 22, 27].

Basically, VAM posits that beneficial factors have positive impacts on perceived value while sacrificing factors are negatively associated with perceived value, which in turn affects purchase intention [12]. In light of VAM, this study develops a comprehensive model for explaining and predicting audiences’ intention to donate money to content creators. The following section elaborates the research model and hypotheses in greater detail.

3 Research Model and Hypotheses

This study seeks to better understand why audiences are willing to donate money to content creators, even though the UGC is free of charge. To this end, we rely on the VAM benefit-sacrifice framework mentioned earlier to investigate audiences’ donation behavior in the UGC consumption context. A conceptual model is developed and presented in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.
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Research model

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3.1 Perceived Benefits

According to previous research, the benefits audiences obtain from UGC consumption consist of utilitarian benefit (e.g., UGC usefulness) [22], hedonic benefit (e.g., perceived enjoyment) [12, 27], and social benefit (e.g., social knowledge-image expression and social relationship support) [13].

In particular, utilitarian benefit refers to the perceived utility of UGC based on its overall usefulness [29]. Utilitarian benefit is goal-related, cognitive, and functional. Similar UGC exists on various websites, audiences seek for distinctive UGC with great utilitarian benefit, which provides them with more useful and detailed information. Empirical findings have supported the observation that utilitarian benefit in terms of UGC usefulness positively influences perceived value of UGC [10]. When the UGC is complete, accurate, well-formatted, relevant, and up-to-date, audiences are more likely to perceive them as valuable. We thus propose:

  • H1. Utilitarian benefit is positively related to perceived value.

Hedonic benefit is defined as the perceived utility of UGC based on its capacity to arouse feelings or affective states [23]. Different from utilitarian benefit, hedonic benefit is intrinsically and emotionally evaluated. Taking YouTube as an example, audiences could perceive enjoyment and excitement while watching videos, thus hedonic benefit is derived. Prior studies has demonstrated that perceived enjoyment, as a representative of hedonic benefit, positively affect perceived value [12, 27]. UGC that arouses audiences’ feeling of delight will evoke a better value appraisal. Therefore, we propose:

  • H2. Hedonic benefit is positively related to perceived value.

Social benefit is described as the perceived utility of UGC based on its ability to enhance audiences’ social well-being [13]. Social benefit refers to the extrinsic advantages that UGC provide, which fulfill audiences’ needs for establishing social image and gaining social support [11]. For example, people read online articles to enhance their social image (one’s image in the eyes of others), as the knowledge conveyed by these articles can be helpful to communicate one’s symbolic meaning to others. In addition, reading online articles may provide an audience with emotional support, companionship, and encouragement, help he/she meet and potentially establish social relationships with other audiences sharing similar interest. When the UGC appears to be helpful for audiences to enhance their social image or build social relationships, audiences will perceived it as valuable. Hence, we propose:

  • H3. Social benefit is positively related to perceived value.

3.2 Perceived Sacrifices

In VAM benefit-sacrifice framework, audiences’ perceived sacrifice has been recognized as an additional antecedent of perceived value [12]. Donating money to content creators indicates that audiences will have monetary sacrifice for UGC consumption. Instead of using subjective amount of money, we use perceived fee to measure monetary sacrifice. That is because: (1) audiences have the authority to decide the donation amount; (2) given the same amount of donation, different audiences’ perception of fee may vary dramatically. We define perceived fee as the extent to which an audience believes that the amount of donation is considerable. It has been suggested that perceived fee is negatively related to perceived value of UGC. For instance, in the context of online content service, Wang et al. [27] suggest a negative relationship between perceived fee and perceived value. When audiences consider the fee they need to pay for online content service as high, the overall evaluation of the service value will decrease. Therefore, we hypothesize:

  • H4. Perceived fee is negatively related to perceived value.

3.3 Intention to Donate to Content Creators

As noted earlier, our definition of perceived value reflects an audience’s overall assessment of the benefits and sacrifices of acquiring and/or using UGC. It is believed that audiences are economically rational and try to achieve maximum utility or satisfaction through UGC consumption, given their resource limitations (e.g., time limitation). Since donating money to content creators is completely voluntary, after consuming UGC, audiences will firstly evaluate the trade-off between benefits they receive and sacrifices they make. Based on the evaluation, audiences then conclude whether the UGC is valuable, which in turn serve as a basis for their following behavioral decision [30]. In VAM, perceived value is identified as the key factor affecting purchase behavior. Researchers have found that, in the contexts of online content services [27] and e-book subscription services [10], perceived value has a significant and positive impact on intention to pay. Following their findings, we propose:

  • H5. Perceived value is positively related to audiences’ intention to donate.

4 Methodology

4.1 Measures

We will test the research model and hypotheses empirically. Based on our literature review, we developed a questionnaire to collect data. The questionnaire consists of six sections: utilitarian benefit, hedonic benefit, social benefit, perceived fee, perceived value, and intention to donate. A 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) was used as a measurement scale. All measurement items in this study were adapted from prior studies, in order to ensure the content validity. In particular, measurement items for utilitarian benefit were adapted from Kim et al. [12] and Chu and Lu [5]. The scale for hedonic benefit was modified from Kim et al. [12] and Agarwal and Karahanna [1], while social benefit items were adapted from Kim et al. [13] and Sweeney and Soutar [23]. The items for measuring perceived fee were adapted from Kim et al. [12] and Voss et al. [25]. Finally, the items used to measure intention to donate was adapted from Kim et al. [12] and Davis et al. [7]. In the present study, the wording of the measurement statements was modified to reflect the UGC consumption context.

4.2 Data Collection and Analysis

Data will be collected from websites that allow audiences to donate money to content creators (e.g., Sina Weibo and WeChat in Mainland China). We have develop the questionnaire on a professional survey website (wjx.cn). Invitation emails including the survey link will be distributed to target participants. We aim to collect approximately 200 valid responses. In terms of data analysis, we follow the partial least squares (PLS) approach. SmartPLS software will be used to conduct a two-step analysis [19]: (1) all measurement models will be examined for the psychometric properties, and (2) the structural model and hypotheses will be tested. PLS is a convenient approach that simultaneously assess the measurement model (including reliability and validity of the measures for theoretical constructs) and structural model (relationships among theoretical constructs), which is widely adopted in information science research [28].

5 Conclusion

This study is one of the first that aims to investigate determinants of audiences’ voluntary donation to UGC content creators through IS wisdom. Drawing on value-based adoption model [12], we propose an analytical conceptual model to explain audiences’ donation behavior. More specifically, in the research model, (1) perceived value (the overall estimation of the gap between audiences’ perceived benefits and sacrifices) has been identified as the key predictor of audiences’ intention to donate money, (2) antecedents of perceived value have been further explored, including benefits of UGC consumption (utilitarian benefit, hedonic benefit, and social benefit) and sacrifice of UGC consumption (perceived fee).

The contributions of this study to research on donation to content creators are threefold. First, it will expand the literature on perceived value and audiences’ donation behavior. The present work is one of the first that conceptualize the benefits and sacrifices of UGC consumption, and empirically investigate how these antecedents affect audiences’ perceived value and donation behavior. Second, while prior research focuses primarily on exploring how the benefits of UGC consumption influence audiences’ donation behavior [22, 26], this study will contribute to the knowledge of UGC consumption by distinguishing sacrifices from benefits, and investigating their effects on donation behavior respectively. Third, this study will contribute to the value-based adoption model by adapting and verifying it in the UGC consumption context. Upon completion, this research are expected to provide effective implications for content creators and website managers, that is, audiences are more likely to donate money to content creators when the benefits (utilitarian benefit, hedonic benefit, and social benefit) gaining from UGC are improved, or when the sacrifice (perceived fee) of UGC consumption is reduced.