Title: Idea response and adoption in open innovation communities: the signalling role of linguistic style

Authors: Suya Hu; Di Xu; Alan Wang

Addresses: School of Management, Xiamen University, Xiamen City, Fujian Province 361005, China ' School of Management, Xiamen University, Xiamen City, Fujian Province 361005, China ' Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

Abstract: Open innovation communities have become a new trend for organisations to gain external ideas and foster user innovation. However, mass user generated content is making idea selection a tricky and time-consuming work. From the perspective of linguistic styles, this article explores the effects of writing style cues in the content of ideas on idea response and adoption. Our research model is validated through logistic regression on a secondary dataset of 1,579 ideas collected from the Fantasy Westward Journey Online forum. The results demonstrate that a member's use of self-interest oriented, cognitive oriented and future oriented writing styles has a positive effect on idea response; negative emotionality and cognitive oriented writing styles signal more possibility of idea adoption. We highlight both theoretical implications and managerial applications in innovation management domains.

Keywords: open innovation community; user innovation; linguistic style; idea response; idea adoption.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNVO.2022.122856

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2022 Vol.26 No.3, pp.212 - 230

Received: 05 Jan 2021
Accepted: 02 Jan 2022
Published online: 13 May 2022 *

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