How gender differences influence best answersin online travel q&A community

Abstract

Based on a large dataset in travel Q&A website, this paper is aimed to investigate the effects of online respondent' gender on the questioners' decisions of best answer adoption. After controlling some other variables relating to the characteristics of both questions and questioners, the results indicated that if the questions are answered by female responders, the effect of their responding experience on the possibility of their answers to be identified as best answer increases significantly. Further, if it is the females who answering, the effect of time intervals between questions and answers increase as well. However, when it comes to the content length, the moderating effect is insignificant. According to our results, some efficient and effective selection methods of travel information are provided that could be the reference for the online travel website to select best-answers. Finally, the implications of the results are discussed in relation to research and practice.