Does the most popular answer lead to the best answer: The moderating roles of tenure, social closeness, and cultural tightness

Abstract

Online question and answer (Q&A) communities rely on the general audience or the question asker to determine the best answer. However, limited attention has been directed toward understanding the influence of the general audience-favored answer (i.e., most popular answer) on the question asker-selected best answer (i.e., best answer). This study examines whether and how the general audience-favored answer influences the question asker-selected best answer. Drawing upon uncertainty reduction theory (URT), this paper investigates how three uncertainty reduction strategies (i.e. question askers' tenure, social closeness between the question asker and question answerer, and cultural tightness of the question asker's region) moderate the relationship between the general audience-favored answer and the question asker-selected best answer. To test the theoretical model, we used a dataset from an online Q&A community comprising 161,695 observations. Our results reveal that the general audience-favored answer more likely leads to the question asker-selected best answer. Furthermore, we find that the question asker's tenure and the social closeness between the question asker and question answerer negatively moderate the above relationship, while the cultural tightness of question asker's region positively moderates the above relationship. This research offers a new perspective on the mechanisms through which the general audience-favored answer leads to question asker-selected best answer. By identifying the critical roles of uncertainty reduction strategies during the best answer selection process, our research provides valuable insights for online Q&A community managers to optimize user engagement and satisfaction.