Susceptibility of Users to Social Influence Strategies and the Influence of Culture in a Q&A Collaborative Learning Environment

Q&A collaborative learning environments such as Stack Overflow are more effective when its users actively participate by asking one another for information, providing good answers to existing questions, and evaluating others. One way to encourage participation is to allow cooperation between users in order to improve question and answer posts and allow users to learn from one another. Research has shown that cooperation between users results in high quality question and answer posts which are required to keep the network active. In order to better understand what influences users to cooperate, we investigate the susceptibility of users to social support influence principles in a Q&A collaborative learning environment, and what factors persuade users to keep using the network. Using Stack Overflow as a case study and a sample size of 282 Stack Overflow users, we develop and test a global research model using partial least-squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis. We further investigate any possible differences in the effect of these social support strategies between cultures by testing two cultural subgroups for collectivist and individualist cultures. Our results show that of all the constructs measured, only social learning significantly influences cooperation in Stack Overflow at the global level. However, at the cultural subgroup level, recognition influences collectivists to cooperate, while social facilitation influences individualists to cooperate. These findings suggest possible design guidelines in the development of Q&A collaborative learning environments that encourage participation through cooperation.