The incentive effects of experts: Evidence from an online mental health platform

IF 7.4 1区管理学 Q1 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Information Processing & Management Pub Date : 2025-07-04 DOI:10.1016/j.ipm.2025.104289

Lini Kuang , Tingting Hou

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

A prevalent form of online healthcare comprises hybrid support services, allowing help seekers to pose health-related questions, assess answers from various healthcare experts and ordinary supporters, and vote on the usefulness of answers they find most satisfactory. However, the impact of healthcare experts' engagement on the subsequent supporters' performance within this hybrid service remains unclear. While concerns persist that experts' involvement may diminish subsequent supporters' performance due to a reduced likelihood of recognition, there is a plausible scenario in which it fosters learning and competition, thereby improving performance of subsequent supporters. Leveraging data from a Chinese online mental health platform, we utilize the mediation effects model to investigate the impact of healthcare experts' engagement on the performance of subsequent supporters. Within our model, we focus on the mediating effects of the effort and quality of answers from these subsequent supporters. Our research findings indicate that the engagement of counselors can directly enhance the social recognition obtained by subsequent supporters and can also indirectly boost this recognition by increasing the effort put into their answers. However, the quality of the subsequent supporters' answers does not play a significant mediating role in this relationship. These results fill a gap in the literature on online health services and expert effects, offering valuable insights for online health platforms aiming to enhance the performance of supporters by involving healthcare experts.

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专家的激励效应：来自在线心理健康平台的证据

在线医疗保健的一种普遍形式包括混合支持服务，允许求助者提出与健康相关的问题，评估来自各种医疗保健专家和普通支持者的答案，并对他们认为最满意的答案的有用性进行投票。然而，在这种混合服务中，医疗保健专家的参与对后续支持者的表现的影响尚不清楚。尽管专家的参与可能会降低后续支持者的表现，因为这降低了被认可的可能性，但有一种合理的情况是，它促进了学习和竞争，从而提高了后续支持者的表现。利用中国在线心理健康平台的数据，我们利用中介效应模型来调查医疗保健专家的参与对后续支持者绩效的影响。在我们的模型中，我们专注于这些后续支持者的努力和回答质量的中介效应。我们的研究结果表明，辅导员的投入可以直接提高后续支持者获得的社会认可，也可以通过增加他们对答案的投入来间接提高这种认可。然而，随后的支持者的回答质量不发挥显著的中介作用，在这一关系。这些结果填补了在线健康服务和专家效应方面的文献空白，为旨在通过医疗专家参与来提高支持者绩效的在线健康平台提供了有价值的见解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Information Processing & Management 工程技术-计算机：信息系统

CiteScore

17.00

自引率

11.60%

发文量

276

审稿时长

39 days

期刊介绍： Information Processing and Management is dedicated to publishing cutting-edge original research at the convergence of computing and information science. Our scope encompasses theory, methods, and applications across various domains, including advertising, business, health, information science, information technology marketing, and social computing. We aim to cater to the interests of both primary researchers and practitioners by offering an effective platform for the timely dissemination of advanced and topical issues in this interdisciplinary field. The journal places particular emphasis on original research articles, research survey articles, research method articles, and articles addressing critical applications of research. Join us in advancing knowledge and innovation at the intersection of computing and information science.