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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 52 (2022) 101126

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Electronic Commerce Research and Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/elerap

What drives consumers’ purchase intention of online paid knowledge? A

stimulus-organism-response perspective
Shasha Zhou, Tingting Li, Shuiqing Yang *, Yuangao Chen
School of Information Management and Artificial Intelligence, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou 310018, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: With the prosperity of the online knowledge payment market, obtaining knowledge through purchasing has
Online paid knowledge become increasingly popular. The purpose of this paper is to determine the key factors that influence consumers’
Stimulus-organism-response knowledge payment intention. While previous research has separately investigated the impacts of knowledge
Perceived value
platform-, product-, contributor-, or seeker-level factors, we draw upon the stimulus-organism-response frame­
Purchase intention
Neural network analysis
work and propose an integrated model that simultaneously considers all these levels. A multi-analytical approach
that combines structural equation modeling (SEM) and neural network analysis is proposed to determine the
significant predictors and their relative importance. Through an analysis of survey data from 450 Chinese re­
spondents, our SEM results indicate that knowledge platform interactivity and information quality, knowledge
rareness, knowledge contributor professionalism and charisma positively influence consumers’ knowledge
payment intention through the mediation of consumer perceived value. Our neural network analysis further
reveals that knowledge contributor professionalism is the strongest predictor.

1. Introduction
Knowledge has been one of the most competitive resources in today’s
knowledge economy. People’s eagerness to pursue high-quality infor­
mation/knowledge and the development of information technologies
have contributed to the emergence of the knowledge payment industry
worldwide in recent years (Qi et al., 2019). The development trend of
this industry in China is particularly remarkable. According to data
released by iiMedie research1, the knowledge payment market scale has
reached 39.2 billion RMB in 2020 and is expected to reach 67.5 billion
RMB in 2021, indicating that knowledge payment is becoming a
promising industry. The essence of knowledge payment is to monetize
knowledge, or convert knowledge, into tradable products or services, so
that knowledge seekers can efficiently acquire specific knowledge
through payment while knowledge contributors are stimulated to pro­
duce high-quality content to realize economic value (Zhang et al., 2019).
The patterns of knowledge products vary, such as paid Q&As, live ses­
sions, paid courses and columns, offline appointments, and community
services, which can meet different knowledge needs (Qi et al., 2019).
With the increasing prosperity of the knowledge payment market,
online knowledge payment has received an increasing amount of
attention from both academics and practitioners (Zhang et al., 2019;
Zhang et al., 2020a). Early research has primarily focused on the driving
factors of payment behavior for online content and services, such as
online music (Lin et al., 2013; Regner, 2015; Weijters et al., 2014), e-
books (Zhang et al., 2017), online news (Goyanes, 2014; Goyanes et al.,
2021; Lee et al., 2017), digital journalism (O’Brien et al., 2020), and
online health consulting (Gong et al., 2021; Wan et al., 2020; Yang et al.,
2015). Only recently has a small but growing body of research begun to
understand consumers’ payment behavior for knowledge products,
which possess numerous specific features that differ from online con­
tents and services so that the findings of this literature may not apply
(Cai et al., 2020). The extant literature has considered the factors of
knowledge contributors, such as perceived credibility and likability (Shi
et al., 2020), perceived trust and reputation (Zhao et al., 2018), and
social capital (Liu and Feng, 2018); the factors of knowledge products,
such as price and popularity of knowledge (Liu and Feng, 2018); the
factors of knowledge platforms, such as perceived information quality
(Li et al., 2017); and the factors of knowledge seekers, such as perceived
value, task-driven, and subjective norms (Li et al., 2017; Su et al., 2019;
Zhao et al., 2020), to explain consumers’ willingness to pay for knowl­
edge products. However, the effects of knowledge platform-,

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: d200877707@hust.edu.cn (S. Yang).
1
https://www.iimedia.cn/c400/76060.html.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2022.101126
Received 31 March 2021; Received in revised form 15 January 2022; Accepted 25 January 2022
Available online 31 January 2022
1567-4223/© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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S. Zhou et al.
contributor-, product-, or seeker-level factors have primarily been
considered in isolation, which may produce misleading inferences
because consumers cannot directly judge the quality of knowledge
products that are experience products in nature but make purchase de­
cisions utilizing various information from knowledge platforms,
knowledge products, and knowledge contributors (Cai et al., 2020;
Zhang et al., 2020b; Zhao et al., 2018). However, few studies have
addressed how knowledge seekers process these sources of information
and how this process affects their purchase behavior (Qi et al., 2019).
To address the above mentioned research gap, this study is motivated
to propose an integrated model to explain what drives consumers’
knowledge payment intention. Specifically, we draw on the stimulus-
organism-response (S-O-R) framework as our theoretical lens, which
posits that environmental cues that act as stimuli affect consumers’ in­
ternal cognitive and/or affective states, which affect their behavioral
responses (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974). Consistent with this view, we
propose that the factors of knowledge platforms, knowledge products,
and knowledge contributors as stimuli will affect knowledge seekers’
perceived value of knowledge products and finally affect their purchase
intention. Particularly, in this study, we focus on the interactivity and
information quality of knowledge platforms, the rareness and person­
alization of knowledge products, and the professionalism and personal
charisma of knowledge contributors as environmental stimuli. As we
will subsequently describe, these stimuli are expected to influence
consumers’ perceived value and their knowledge payment behavior but
have rarely been considered in previous studies. In addition, existing
literature on the prediction of knowledge payment behavior examines
only linear relationships among variables, which may oversimplify the
complex purchase decision-making process (Liébana-Cabanillas et al.,
2018). To overcome this shortcoming, the relative importance of the
significant factors will be determined. The study aims to answer the
following research questions:
RQ1: How do the factors of the knowledge platform, knowledge
product, and knowledge contributor induce consumers’ value percep­
tions and ultimately influence their purchase intention of online
knowledge products?
RQ2: What is the relative influence of the factors identified in RQ1?
Empirically, to address the above mentioned research questions, two
analytic methods are implemented to analyze the survey data collected
from 450 Chinese knowledge payment users. Structural equation
modeling (SEM) is employed to determine which factors have a signif­
icant influence on consumers’ purchase intention of online knowledge
products through the mediation of perceived value, while a neural
network is employed to rank the relative influence of significant pre­
dictors obtained by SEM. This two-stage SEM-neural network approach
will provide a richer understanding of online knowledge payment
behavior. Our SEM results indicate that the interactivity and informa­
tion quality of the knowledge platform, the rareness of the knowledge
product, and the professionalism and personal charisma of the knowl­
edge contributor positively affect consumers’ perceived value of the
knowledge product, which positively affects their purchase intention.
Our neural network model results further indicate that the profession­
alism of knowledge contributors is the most important predictor of
purchase intention of knowledge products, followed by platform infor­
mation quality, platform interactivity, knowledge rareness and knowl­
edge contributor charisma. These findings have important practical
implications for knowledge platform managers and knowledge
contributors.
The contribution of our study to the literature on online knowledge
payment behavior is threefold. First, we propose a coherent and
comprehensive theoretical model to understand consumers’ purchase
intention of online paid knowledge. While the literature has focused on
assessing the impacts of knowledge platform-, product-, contributor-, or
seeker-level factors in isolation, we simultaneously consider the factor of
these levels. Second, we extend the existing literature by identifying
several novel predictors of consumers’ knowledge purchase intention,
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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 52 (2022) 101126
including platform interactivity, knowledge rareness, knowledge
contributor professionalism, and knowledge contributor charisma,
which have not been explored in previous studies. Third, this study
proposes a multi-analytical approach that combines SEM and neural
networks, which enhances our understanding of what factors influence
and predict consumer knowledge purchase intention and their relative
importance.
The remainder of this study is structured as follows. Section 2 pre­
sents the theoretical background regarding the S-O-R theoretical
framework. Section 3 presents the theoretical research model and
research hypotheses, followed by research methodology and data
collection in section 4. The results of data analysis are presented in
section 5, and finally the discussions and implications are presented in
section 6.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. S-O-R model
The S-O-R model, which is rooted in the field of environmental
psychology, describes a process in which external environmental factors
functioning as stimuli (S) affect individuals’ internal cognitive and af­
fective state (O), which affects their behavioral response (R) (Mehrabian
and Russell, 1974). The S-O-R model considers three elements viz.
stimulus, organism, and response. The stimulus element is regarded as
the external force that affects the internal state of the organism (Peng
and Kim, 2014). The organism element is individuals’ cognitive and
affective state, which manifests the process in intermediate environ­
mental stimuli and individuals’ behavioral responses. The response
element is an outcome of behavior, representing individuals’ actions in
response to their internal state.
The S-O-R model has been widely applied in the study of online
consumer behavior, such as online impulse buying behavior, online
learning, e-commerce and social media usage intention (Friedrich et al.,
2019; Huang, 2016; Lin et al., 2021). For example, based on the S-O-R
framework, Emir et al. (2016) proposed web-related factors as stimuli
that were found to influence perceived value (organism) and ultimately
online hotel booking intention (response). Using the S-O-R model, Cho
et al. (2019) proposed that environmental stimuli from the character­
istics of products (i.e., smartwatches) influence owners’ internal expe­
riences and subsequently impact their psychological response (i.e.,
product attachment). Kaur et al. (2017) applied the S-O-R model to
investigate how vendor cues as stimuli affect consumers’ trust and
attitude and affect their purchase intention. These studies confirmed
that the characteristics of platforms/websites, products, and vendors/
contributors can be considered environmental stimuli that will influence
consumers’ internal state (e.g., perceived value, emotion, attitude.) and
their behavioral response (e.g., purchase behavior or intention). Hence,
we believe that the S-O-R framework is well suited for examining con­
sumer behavior in the context of online knowledge payment. Drawing
on the S-O-R model, we attempt to investigate how stimuli from
knowledge platforms, knowledge products, and knowledge contributors
affect consumers’ perceived value, and consequently, their purchase
intention of online knowledge products.
2.2. Platform, knowledge, and contributor characteristics as stimuli (S)
Knowledge payment platforms create connections between knowl­
edge seekers and contributors, allowing seekers to communicate and
interact with contributors to obtain knowledge through payment.
Knowledge payment is a new pattern of information interaction. We
focus on platform interactivity and information quality as two important
stimuli from the platform. Interactivity and information quality are two
of the dimensions most frequently employed by researchers to measure
the quality of a platform design, which has a considerable effect on
consumers’ purchase decision-making (Huang and Benyoucef, 2017).
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S. Zhou et al.
Interactivity refers to the platform’s ability to reciprocally and syn­
chronously facilitate individual active control and personal communi­
cation (Liu, 2003). A high level of platform interactivity allows
knowledge seekers to efficiently communicate with the platform,
knowledge contributors, and other users. Information quality refers to
the quality of information content provided by a website, which can be
assessed by the degree of relevance, accuracy, timeliness, completeness,
and consistency of information (Tam and Oliveira, 2016). High-quality
information can help knowledge seekers formulate a good understand­
ing of knowledge products. As knowledge products are experience
goods, knowledge seekers face serious information asymmetry problems
that negatively impact purchase behavior (Fang et al., 2021). Inter­
activity and information quality have essential roles in eliminating the
information asymmetry problem, but few studies have addressed how
consumers respond to these two stimuli in the knowledge payment
context. Hence, an investigation of these two characteristics of knowl­
edge platforms has significance.
In addition to platform characteristics, product features as stimuli
are also considered. Although the knowledge payment industry in China
has developed rapidly in recent years, many problems still exist, with
content homogeneity being a major problem (Zhang et al., 2019).
However, it remains unknown whether and how content homogeneity
or heterogeneity will affect consumers’ knowledge payment decisions.
In this study, we focus on two unique features of online paid knowledge
products, namely, knowledge rareness and knowledge personalization,
both of which reflect the degree of homogeneity or heterogeneity of
knowledge content. Knowledge rareness refers to the perceived scarcity
of the knowledge product in the online paid knowledge market. In the
field of modern economics, rareness refers to resources that are owned
by a few people or organizations, and rare resources will become the
basis of sustainable development competition (Barney, 1991). Similarly,
knowledge products with high rareness will be perceived as different
from other knowledge products. Knowledge personalization refers to the
extent to which paid knowledge is tailored to consumers’ personal in­
terest or needs (Adomavicius and Tuzhilin, 2005). Personalization aims
to meet different customers’ preferences and personal needs and
improve the social aspects of websites (Huang and Benyoucef, 2015;
Zhang et al., 2014). Due to content homogeneity in the knowledge
payment market, both rareness and personalization of knowledge
products can be important stimuli that may affect consumers’ knowl­
edge payment decisions.
The other most important stimuli that attract consumers are the
characteristics of knowledge contributors. This study focuses on the
professionalism and personal charisma of knowledge contributors, as
these two aspects reflect knowledge contributors’ common competency
(fundamental knowledge and skills) and distinctive competency (per­
sonal characteristics), respectively (Brownell and Goldsmith, 2006). The
professionalism of knowledge contributors reflects their professional
knowledge and skills in a specific field (Okas et al., 2014). In e-com­
merce transactions, ability is an important indicator for measuring the
service quality of sellers, and consumers are willing to choose sellers
with good service quality (Ahn et al., 2004). Because knowledge seekers
pay to acquire high-quality knowledge, the ability or professionalism of
knowledge contributors becomes a reference for seekers to judge the
quality of products (Zhao et al., 2018). Charisma is a special personal
quality that enables an individual to have an impact on others by
affecting their feelings, emotions, and behaviors (Reh et al., 2017). In­
dividuals possessing charisma tend to be inspirational, influential,
attractive to others, and to be characterized as brilliant and effective
communicators (Williams et al., 2018). As paid knowledge is transferred
to consumers through the communication of knowledge contributors,
the charisma of knowledge contributors can be an important feature
affecting consumers’ cognitive and affective response and subsequent
behavior. Although the professionalism and charisma of knowledge
contributors are important stimuli for knowledge seekers, few studies
have examined their effects on consumers’ payment behavior for
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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 52 (2022) 101126
knowledge products.
2.3. Perceived value as organism (O)
Perceived value has been identified as a key factor in the explanation
of consumer behavior (Lin et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2021). Perceived value
refers to a consumer’s total assessment of the utility of a product (or
service) based on perceptions of what is received and what is given
(Hsiao and Chen, 2016) . Specifically, perceived value is a tradeoff be­
tween benefits (e.g., information quality, money savings, convenience,
and enjoyment) and sacrifices (e.g., fees, privacy risks, and efforts) in
transactions (Shaw and Sergueeva, 2018). For a specific product or
service, perceived value will increase when consumers believe that the
benefits outweigh the sacrifices. The value perception represents the
psychological (cognitive and affective) process of consumers when
making purchase decisions, which can mediate between external stimuli
and consumer responses (Molinillo et al., 2021). Perceived value has
been frequently considered the internal response of organisms in studies
based on the S-O-R model. For example, Chopdar and Balakrishnan
(2020) discovered that perceived value as an organism is the key factor
affecting customers’ consumption behavior. Based on this discussion, we
focus on perceived value as the organism (O).
2.4. Purchase intention as response (R)
Purchase intention reflects consumers’ subjective tendency to pur­
chase products and services (Zhu et al., 2020). In the literature, intention
is often applied as a proxy for behavior (Morwitz and Munz, 2021).
Moreover, intention has been frequently treated as a response factor in
studies based on the S-O-R model (Moon et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2020).
Therefore, in the context of online knowledge payment, we focus on
purchase intention as consumers’ behavioral response to their value
perception of knowledge products evoked by environmental stimuli
from knowledge platforms, knowledge products, and knowledge
contributors.
3. Conceptual framework and hypotheses
The research model is presented in Fig. 1. Drawing on the S-O-R
model, we propose that the characteristics of knowledge platforms (i.e.,
platform interactivity and information quality), knowledge products (i.
e., knowledge rareness and personalization), and knowledge contribu­
tors (i.e., contributor professionalism and charisma), which function as
environmental stimuli, positively affect consumers’ perceived value and
their purchase intention. The theoretical underpinnings of our proposed
hypotheses are elucidated here.
3.1. Stimuli and organism
3.1.1. Platform interactivity
The literature differs regarding how interactivity is defined. Prior
studies have conceptualized interactivity mainly from three perspec­
tives: a process of information exchange, a feature of technology, or
users’ perceptions of technology-based experience (Ariel and Avidar,
2015; Hu et al., 2016). In our study, we consider the perception-based
view, as it allows us to study from a consumer perspective while tak­
ing into account platform features. Consistent with prior studies (Hu
et al., 2016; Huang, 2012), we define interactivity as the extent to which
consumers perceive a platform to be interactive in terms of interpersonal
communication with other users and information exchange on the
platform. The platform feature of interactivity provides consumers with
many advantages, such as allowing consumers to have synchronous and
reciprocal interactions with other users (Gu et al., 2013); facilitating
consumers to participate in a variety of activities (Sreejesh et al., 2020);
and increasing consumer involvement, social presence, and sense of
control over the information exchange (Sicilia et al., 2005; Song and
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S. Zhou et al.
Fig. 1. Research model.
Bucy, 2008), which engage consumers in the online platforms and give
them the opportunity to fully utilize their cognitive resources to process
information (Jiang et al., 2016). The effective user-to-user and user-to-
system interactions will not only increase consumers’ shopping inter­
est but also satisfy consumers’ sense of participation. The pleasant
experience through interaction helps to maintain a good relationship
with consumers and form consumers’ value perception. As a perception-
related variable, interactivity is shown to affect consumers’ value per­
ceptions (Newhagen, 2004). For example, in the e-shopping environ­
ment, Yoo et al. (2010) confirmed that platform interactivity features
have important impacts on consumer hedonic value and utilitarian
value. In the online hotel booking context, Abdullah et al. (2016)
documented that website interactivity positively influences individuals’
perceived value. Hence, we predict that, in the context of online paid
knowledge, when consumers perceive the level of platform interactivity
to be higher, their perceived value of knowledge products will be
enhanced. As such, we propose the following hypothesis:
H1: Platform interactivity positively affects the perceived value of
online paid knowledge.
3.1.2. Platform information quality
Information quality is used to measure the extent to which a system
provides useful and important information to users, which includes the
accuracy, relevance, effectiveness and completeness of information
content (Kim, 2005). The quality of information provided by platforms
has significance for consumers’ perception of the quality of product/
service, which is positively related to perceived value (Kim and Niehm,
2009). Higher information quality can make consumers formulate a
higher evaluation of products or services. As Ahn et al. (2007) stated, the
higher the quality of information, the more happiness and positive
behavior intention can be stimulated. The positive association between
platform/website information quality and consumers’ value perception
has been validated. For instance, Zheng et al. (2013) found that infor­
mation quality is positively related to perceived individual benefits and
user satisfaction. In the study of loyalty to websites, Pearson et al. (2012)
determined that perceived website information quality has a positive
effect on perceived value. We argue that in the context of online paid
knowledge, the value perception of consumers will increase if the plat­
form provides higher-quality information to better satisfy consumers’
information needs. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:
H2: Platform information quality affects the perceived value of on­
line paid knowledge.
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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 52 (2022) 101126
3.1.3. Knowledge rareness
The concept of rareness can be traced to strategic management
literature, in which rareness refers to some strategic assets that are only
controlled and owned by a few competitive companies and that are
difficult for competitors to obtain (Barney, 1991). We extend the
concept of rareness to the context of online paid knowledge and define
knowledge rareness as the degree to which consumers perceive the
scarcity of the paid knowledge or how distinctive it is relative to other
knowledge products in the online paid knowledge market. It is reason­
able to assume that the primary purpose of knowledge payment is to
obtain rare knowledge that cannot be easily obtained in the free market.
The perceived rareness of knowledge can transmit a signal that the
knowledge has high quality and high value. This view is supported by
the commodity theory of Brock (1968), which states that scarcity in­
creases the value of anything that can be possessed. Hence, we argue
that the rareness of paid knowledge is positively related to consumers’
perceived value of the knowledge. Previous studies have shown that
product rareness increases consumers’ perceived value. For example,
Wu and Lee (2016) proposed that product scarcity is closely associated
with uniqueness and distinctiveness perception, which increases con­
sumers’ purchase intentions. As Brock (1968, p.246) claimed that “any
commodity will be valued to the extent that it is unavailable”, we argue
that the rarer the paid knowledge is, the higher the value of paid
knowledge perceived by consumers. Therefore, we propose the
following hypothesis:
H3: Knowledge rareness positively affects the perceived value of
online paid knowledge.
3.1.4. Knowledge personalization
Knowledge personalization, which refers to the extent to which paid
knowledge is tailored to consumers’ personal interest or needs (Ado­
mavicius and Tuzhilin, 2005), is assumed to be positively associated
with perceived value. Empirical evidence indicates that when person­
alized services are offered, perceived service quality and consumer
satisfaction will increase (Chung et al., 2020). The value and experience
provided by personalization explain why individuals favor it (Lee et al.,
2012). Through personalization, knowledge contributors can better
meet consumers’ specific demands, which enables consumers to have a
more enjoyable and effortless experience (Lee, 2015). The positive
impact of personalization on perceived value has been confirmed by
existing studies. For example, Wang et al. (2020) verified that person­
alized m-government services significantly enhance the perception
value of users. Liang et al. (2009) discovered that compared with non­
personalized customer service, personalized customer service can
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S. Zhou et al.
produce higher usefulness and value. Aw et al. (2019) also confirmed the
positive relationship between perceived personalization and perceived
value in the context of on-demand ride-sharing services. Therefore,
based on this discussion, we propose the following hypothesis:
H4: Knowledge personalization positively affects the perceived value
of online paid knowledge.
3.1.5. Knowledge contributor professionalism
Professionalism refers to a knowledge contributor’s professional
knowledge, skills, and abilities in a specific field to provide high-quality
products or services for users. Ability is an essential indicator for
measuring service quality, and knowledge seekers are more willing to
choose knowledge contributors with high ability to obtain high-quality
knowledge and reduce risks (Zhao et al., 2018). Patil and Lee (2015)
confirmed that the quality of answers provided by experts is higher than
that of nonexperts. The contributors with a higher level of profession­
alism can better understand consumers’ interests and needs and are
capable of effectively meeting their needs. If consumers perceive that
the provided knowledge is professional and useful, their value percep­
tion is likely to be improved. The positive relationship between profes­
sionalism and perceived value has been confirmed in other contexts. For
example, Sweeney et al. (1997) found that the knowledge of a salesman
positively affects consumers’ value perception in the context of retail
services. In a study of the effects of microblog opinion leaders on con­
sumers’ purchase intention, Li et al. (2018) observed that opinion
leaders’ professional knowledge positively impacts the perceived value
of consumers. Based on this discussion, we propose the following
hypothesis:
H5: Knowledge contributor professionalism positively affects the
perceived value of online paid knowledge.
3.1.6. Knowledge contributor charisma
Charisma refers to the ability of a knowledge contributor to be a good
communicator who is inspiring, visionary, honest, and reliable and can
attract consumers’ attention and be dominant in uncertain situations
(Tkalac Verčič, 2014). Unlike traditional product or service experience,
consumers obtain paid knowledge from the communication of knowl­
edge contributors. Charismatic contributors have strong communication
skills to attract consumers’ attention, engage consumers in conversation,
successfully read consumers’ feelings and reactions, and determine if
consumers understand the knowledge content (Williams et al., 2018) .
This ability to be responsive to consumers’ needs enhances consumers’
perception of service quality, while service quality is the key antecedent
of customers’ perceived value (Molinillo et al., 2021). Patzer (1983)
pointed out that products are easier to accept if product providers are
more charismatic and attractive. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume
that knowledge contributor charisma can positively influence con­
sumers’ value perception of paid knowledge. This relationship is also
supported by prior studies. For example, Wiedmann and von Metten­
heim (2020) found that the attractiveness of an influencer positively
influences brand satisfaction, image and trust. In the context of online
paid knowledge, we argue that if consumers perceive the knowledge
contributor to be more charismatic, their perceived value of the paid
knowledge tends to be higher. Based on this discussion, the following
hypothesis is proposed:
H6: Knowledge contributor charisma positively affects the perceived
value of online paid knowledge.
3.2. Organism and response
3.2.1. Perceived value and purchase intention
The literature has identified the importance of perceived value to
develop a long-term relationship with consumers (Lin et al., 2021).
Obtaining value is a foundational purchase goal for consumers and has a
pivotal role in the success of transactions (Cai and Xu, 2006). If con­
sumers perceive that what they obtain from the product or service
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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 52 (2022) 101126
exceeds the price they pay, they may repeat this transaction (Liu and
Jang, 2009). Similarly, in the context of online paid knowledge, when
consumers perceive the value of knowledge products to be higher, they
are more likely to pay for the knowledge. In the literature, consumers’
value perception of products has been identified as a key factor affecting
purchase decisions (Liu et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2021). For example,
Hwang and Griffiths (2017) reported that young consumers’ value
perceptions positively influence their intention to adopt collaborative
consumption services. Chen and Lin (2019) verified the positive rela­
tionship between perceived value and consumer purchase behavior in
the context of social media marketing. Therefore, we propose the
following hypothesis:
H7: Perceived value positively affects the purchase intention of on­
line paid knowledge.
3.3. Control variables
To assess the proposed research model, several control variables
were included to account for other concerns. In the literature, user
experience has been widely acknowledged to have an important role in
shaping user behaviors, and thus, may influence online knowledge
payment behavior. Hence, we controlled for consumers’ prior experi­
ence of online knowledge payment. Demographic characteristics, such
as age, gender, and education status, which may influence consumers’
online paid knowledge purchase intention, were also included as control
variables.
4. Research methodology
4.1. Sample and data collection
A questionnaire survey was developed to test the research model.
The survey consisted of two parts. The first part covered the issues of
screening, knowledge payment experience, and demographics. In the
first part, respondents were asked whether they had experienced any
paid knowledge services in China, such as paid courses (e.g., Tencent
classroomand Netease cloud classroom), health consultation (e.g., Good
doctor and Doctor Chunyu), Zhihu paid consulting and Zhihu live lec­
ture. Respondents with knowledge payment experience were asked
about their usage experiences of knowledge platforms and demographic
information. In the second part, respondents were asked to recall their
experience on a particular online paid knowledge platform to rate their
level of agreement with the statements of items (refer to Appendix B).
The questionnaire was prepared following an extensive literature re­
view. The first version of the questionnaire was initially constructed in
English and then was translated into Chinese by two researchers who
were familiar with both English and Chinese, and subsequently, the
Chinese version was back-translated into English to ensure consistent
accuracy. To ensure the reliability and validity of the scales, a pilot test
was administered to 70 respondents who used an online knowledge
platform. Minor modifications were made to the items based on the pilot
results before we carried out the formal survey.
A formal online questionnaire was distributed through widely uti­
lized social media tools such as WeChat, Tencent QQ, and Weibo, to
users who had used online paid knowledge platforms in China. After
checking all the questionnaires, we removed those completed by users
with no experience of online paid knowledge and those completed by
users who provided the same answer to all questions. As a result, we
obtained 450 valid responses for our data analysis. We examined
nonresponse bias by comparing the means of all variables and de­
mographics for early and late respondents. No significant differences
were obtained, indicating that nonresponse bias was not present in our
study. The sample demographics are summarized and presented in Ap­
pendix A.
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S. Zhou et al. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 52 (2022) 101126

4.2. Instrument model to rank their relative influence.

The survey measures for the model constructs were adapted from
prior studies and contextualized for online knowledge payment setting.
The measures for platform interactivity were adapted from Choi et al.
(2019) and Ye et al. (2019), and platform information quality adapted
from Lee et al. (2019). The measured items for knowledge rareness were
adapted from Pérez-Nordtvedt et al. (2008), and knowledge profes­
sionalism adapted from Xu et al. (2011). The measures for knowledge
contributor professionalism were adapted from Liu et al. (2018), and
knowledge contributor charisma adapted from Ingenhoff and Klein
(2018) and Reysen (2005). Perceived value was measured using a four-
item scale adapted from Kuo et al. (2009), and purchase intention was
measured following Peng et al. (2019). All items were measured using 7-
point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly
agree). Details about these scales can be found in Appendix B.
5. Data analysis and results
Following the procedures of existing studies (Ding et al., 2019;
Sharma et al., 2017), we employed a multi-analytical approach by
combining SEM and neural network analysis to examine the factors
influencing consumers’ purchase intention of online paid knowledge
and identify their relative importance. SEM is a causal modeling tech­
nique that is capable of estimating causal effects, and thus is often
applied to verify proposed research model and hypotheses. However, it
can only detect linear relationships among variables, which may over­
simplify the complexity of purchase decision-making processes (Abu­
bakar et al., 2019). In contrast, neural network modeling is capable of
capturing both linear and nonlinear complex relationships and
providing higher prediction accuracy than linear models (e.g., SEM).
However, due to its “black box” nature, it is not suitable for causality
analysis and hypothesis testing (Liébana-Cabanillas et al., 2018).
Therefore, to complement the advantages of SEM and neural network, a
two-stage approach was adopted where SEM was firstly used to verify
the validity of causality and then the significant predictors obtained
from SEM analysis were used as input variables to the neural network
There are two widely used methods of SEM, namely, covariance-
based SEM (e.g., AMOS, EQS, LISREL, and CALIS) and variance-based
SEM (e.g., SmartPLS, Visual PLS, and PLS-Graph) (Leong et al., 2020).
Previous research has highlighted several differences between the two
methods that can be used to guide the choice of which method to adopt
(Reinartz et al., 2009). In this study, we adopted the variance-based
approach of partial least squares SEM (PLS-SEM) to assess both the
measurement model and structural model using SmartPLS 3 software.
PLS-SEM is suitable for the present study due to the following reasons.
First, the normality of the data distribution was examined by the
Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test and the result shows that the data
in our study are not normally distributed. Therefore, PLS-SEM is more
appropriate as it makes no restrictive assumptions regarding the distri­
butions of the data, and is robust against non-normal distribution (Leong
et al., 2020; Reinartz et al., 2009). Second, since we aim to explore the
effects of several newly proposed factors on consumers’ knowledge
payment intention, our research model is not a confirmatory one. PLS-
SEM is thus considered to be more suitable as it is particularly useful
for theory development and estimating exploratory relationships, while
covariance-based SEM is better suited for theory testing and confirma­
tion (Dash and Paul, 2021; Reinartz et al., 2009).
5.1. Measurement model
We used internal reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant
validity to assess the quality of measurement model (Hair et al., 2017).
Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability (CR) were applied to mea­
sure the internal reliability of the constructs. The results in Table 1 show
that both the values of Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability of
each construct exceed the recommended minimum of 0.7, suggesting
each construct has great internal reliability (Gefen et al., 2000).
Convergence validity was used to measure the degree of correlations
across the constructs. It was measured by checking the values of item
loadings and average variance extracted (AVE). The values of item
loadings and AVE (as shown in Table 1) are above the recommended
values of 0.7 and 0.5 respectively, indicating good convergent validity

Table 1
Results of reliability and validity.
Construct Item Loading Cronbach’s alpha CR AVE

Platform interactivity (PI) PI1 0.839 0.860 0.905 0.705

PI2 0.881
PI3 0.839
PI4 0.798
Platform informationquality (PIQ) PIQ1 0.865 0.874 0.913 0.725
PIQ2 0.860
PIQ3 0.860
PIQ4 0.820
Knowledge rareness (KR) KR1 0.898 0.881 0.927 0.808
KR2 0.899
KR3 0.899
Knowledge personalization (KP) KP1 0.906 0.892 0.933 0.822
KP2 0.914
KP3 0.900
Knowledge contributorprofessionalism (KCP) KCP1 0.884 0.856 0.913 0.777
KCP2 0.909
KCP3 0.850
Knowledge contributorcharisma (KCC) KCC1 0.780 0.811 0.889 0.727
KCC2 0.913
KCC3 0.860
Perceived value (PV) PV1 0.844 0.876 0.915 0.729
PV2 0.873
PV3 0.852
PV4 0.845
Purchase intention (PINT) PINT1 0.901 0.889 0.931 0.818
PINT2 0.915
PINT3 0.896

Note: CR = composite reliability, AVE = average variance extracted.

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(Gefen et al., 2000). Table 3

Discriminant validity was used to test the internal consistency of Hypotheses results.
variables. We measured discriminant validity by comparing the corre­ Hypothesis Path Path coefficient T P Remarks
lations across constructs and the square root of the AVE of each (β) value value
construct. As shown in Table 2, the square root of AVE for each construct H1 PI → PV 0.211 2.87 0.004 Supported
is higher than the correlations across constructs, which suggests suffi­ H2 PIQ → PV 0.249 3.46 0.000 Supported
cient discriminant validity. In addition, the item loadings of each factor H3 KR → PV 0.173 3.42 0.000 Supported
are higher than its cross-loadings on other factors (refer to Appendix C), H4 KP → PV 0.039 0.79 0.432 Not
supported
further supporting satisfactory discriminant validity of all constructs. H5 KCP → 0.132 2.17 0.030 Supported
As our variables were obtained through a single collection method, PV
there may exist the problem of common method bias (CMB). In line with H6 KCC → 0.138 2.37 0.018 Supported
prior study (Podsakoff et al., 2003), we performed Harman’s single- PV
H7 PV → 0.595 12.10 0.000 Supported
factor test to examine this potential bias. The results revealed that the
PINT
contribution rate of the first component to the total variance is 47.87%
that is<50%, indicating that CBM is not a major concern in this study Notes: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, NS: not significant
(Chopdar and Balakrishnan, 2020; Hew and Kadir, 2016).
mediation testing (Li and Shang, 2020). We used PROCESS macro for
5.2. Structural model SPSS 25 (Hayes, 2013) to conduct bootstrapping test with 5000 boot­
strapping samples. The criterion for judgement is that the mediating
Following prior studies (Durcikova et al., 2018; Wetzels et al., 2009), effect is significant when 0 is not within the 95% confidence interval.
we adopted a bootstrapping procedure with 5000 samples to test the The results shown in Table 4 indicate that there are five mediating ef­
significance of the path coefficients. The estimation results of the model fects for which the 95% confidence intervals do not include 0. That is,
shown in Table 3 and Fig. 2 suggest that all our proposed hypotheses are perceived value mediates the relationship between stimuli (platform
supported, except hypothesis H4. Specifically, platform interactivity (β interactivity and information quality, knowledge rareness, knowledge
= 0.211, p < 0.01) and platform information quality (β = 0.249, p < contributor professionalism and charisma) and consumers’ intention to
0.001) have significantly positive impacts on the perceived value of purchase knowledge products.
consumers, suggesting that both H1 and H2 are supported. As predicted
in H3, the influence of knowledge rareness on perceived value is sig­ 5.4. Neural network analysis
nificant and positive (β = 0.173, p < 0.001). However, contrary to our
expectation, knowledge personalization has no significant effect (β = As discussed above, the neural network approach was employed to
0.039, p > 0.1) on perceived value, indicating that H4 is not supported. rank the relative importance of the significant predictors from the SEM
In support of H5, knowledge contributor professionalism is positively analysis. In present study, the most common and popular artificial
associated with perceived value (β = 0.132, p < 0.05), and, in support of neural network model—multilayer perceptron (MLP) was adopted (Yee-
H6, knowledge contributor charisma has a significantly positive effect Loong Chong et al., 2015). A typical neural network consists of one input
on perceived value (β = 0.138, p < 0.05). In addition, the relationship layer, one or more hidden layers, and one output layer. One important
between perceived value and consumers’ purchase intention is signifi­ decision in neural network design is to determine the number of hidden
cantly positive (β = 0.595, p < 0.001), which supports H7. layers, which depends on the complexity of the problem. In most cases,
Regarding the control variables, both education status (β = 0.086, p such as in technology acceptance neural network models, one hidden
< 0.05) and knowledge payment experience (β = 0.122, p < 0.01) have layer is enough (Sim et al., 2014; Yee-Loong Chong et al., 2015).
significant influences on purchase intention. However, age and gender Another decision is to determine the number of neurons in each layer.
are shown to have no significant effects on purchase intention. As The number of neurons in input layer is equal to the number of inputs (i.
illustrated in Fig. 2, the coefficient of determination (R2) indicates that e., predictors), while the number of neurons in output layer is equal to
the characteristics of knowledge platforms, products, and contributors the number of outputs (i.e., dependent variables). However, selecting
explain 58% of perceived value, and perceived value explains 46.2% of the number of neurons in hidden layers is more complex. The appro­
purchase intention. These results indicate that our proposed model has priate number of hidden neurons has a positive impact on the accuracy
adequate explanatory power (Wetzels et al., 2009). and speed of network training. Otherwise, excessive number will lead to
over fitting and increase the computational burden. There is no general
5.3. Significance test of the mediating effect rule to determine the number of hidden neurons, with the trial-and-error
and rules-of-thumb often being used in the literature (Liébana-Cab­
Bootstrapping approach was adopted to test the significance of the anillas et al., 2018).
mediating effect of perceived value. The bootstrapping approach, which In our study, the input layer consisted of five significant variables
is not subject to the normality assumptions of statistics and can provide from the SEM analysis, i.e., platform interactivity, platform information
unbiased estimates, is known to be superior to other methods of quality, knowledge rareness, knowledge contributor professionalism,

Table 2
Correlation matrix and the square root of the AVE.
Construct Mean SD KCC KCP KP KR PV PIQ PI PINT

KCC 5.181 1.085 0.853

KCP 5.397 1.201 0.459 0.881
KP 5.049 1.402 0.528 0.528 0.907
KR 4.969 1.330 0.453 0.549 0.418 0.900
PV 5.351 1.117 0.509 0.623 0.517 0.577 0.854
PIQ 5.303 1.192 0.453 0.693 0.567 0.592 0.680 0.852
PI 5.336 1.144 0.476 0.656 0.573 0.503 0.652 0.715 0.840
PINT 5.473 1.232 0.443 0.716 0.482 0.544 0.665 0.679 0.615 0.904

Note: Off-diagonal elements are the correlations among variables and on-diagonal elements are the square root of the AVE values.

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Platform characteristics

Platform interactivity

Platform information
quality

Knowledge characteristics
R2 = 0.580 R2 = 0.462
Knowledge rareness
Perceived value 0.595*** Purchase intention
Knowledge
personalization

Contributor characteristics 0.038(NS) -0.026(NS) 0.086* 0.122**

Contributor
professionalism
Gender Age Education status Knowledge payment experience

Contributor charisma Control variables

Notes: *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001, NS: not significant

Fig. 2. Research model results.

As shown in Table 5, the average of cross-validated RMSE for the

Table 4
training model is 0.2, while the testing model is 0.211. These results
Mediation effect results.
suggest that our network model can predict the relationship between
Path Total effect Indirect Boot SE Boot LLCI Boot ULCI predictors and outputs reliably and accurately.
effect
Sensitivity analysis was conducted to predict the dependent variable
PI → PINT 0.1732 0.0496 0.0248 0.0086 0.1040 by calculating the average importance of the five independent variables
PIQ → PINT 0.1988 0.0833 0.0231 0.0427 0.1326 (Chong, 2013). As illustrated in Table 6, knowledge contributor pro­
KR → PINT 0.1292 0.0357 0.0176 0.0029 0.0176
KP → PINT − 0.0010 0.0102 0.0140 − 0.0147 0.0410
fessionalism is the most influencing predictor of purchase intention of
KCP → PINT 0.3676 0.0373 0.0179 0.0080 0.0775 knowledge products, followed by platform information quality, platform
KCC → 0.0761 0.0332 0.0177 0.0011 0.0708 interactivity, knowledge rareness, and knowledge contributor charisma.
PINT In addition, we ranked these significant predictors according to their
total effects (as shown in Table 4), and found the ranking results
consistent with those from the neural network analysis.
and knowledge contributor charisma. The output layer includes one
variable, i.e., purchase intention. The number of hidden neurons is
generated automatically by SPSS (Sharma et al., 2021), which is 3. We 6. Discussion and conclusions
use sigmoid function as an activation function for hidden and output
layers, as it can compress the data to higher end and lower end to 6.1. Summary of findings
optimize the stability (Leong et al., 2013; Liébana-Cabanillas et al.,
2018; Sharma et al., 2021). In order to improve the training speed and This study seeks to answer two research questions: (1) How do the
get better performance, all input variables and output variables are factors of knowledge platform, knowledge product, and knowledge
normalized to [0,1]. In order to avoid over fitting of the model, we contributor induce consumers’ value perceptions and ultimately influ­
carried out a tenfold cross validation procedure, using 90% of the data ence their purchase intention of an online knowledge product? (2) What
for training network and the remaining 10% for testing the network is the relative influence of the factors identified in the first question?
(Liébana-Cabanillas et al., 2018). The root mean square error (RMSE) Using survey data of 450 knowledge-paid users from China, the empir­
was used to assess the accuracy of the neural network. The results of ical results based on SEM and neural network analyses help answer the
RMSE were shown in Table 5. two research questions. Regarding the first question, the SEM analysis
reveals that the interactivity and information quality of the knowledge

Table 5 Table 6
RMSE for neural network models Sensitivity analysis
Network Training Testing Network PI PIQ KR KCP KCC

1 0.200 0.204 1 0.209 0.254 0.148 0.235 0.154

2 0.193 0.224 2 0.201 0.225 0.192 0.225 0.157
3 0.195 0.221 3 0.204 0.201 0.186 0.251 0.157
4 0.204 0.202 4 0.226 0.166 0.171 0.288 0.149
5 0.200 0.220 5 0.207 0.223 0.196 0.212 0.163
6 0.200 0.200 6 0.216 0.202 0.167 0.292 0.124
7 0.200 0.219 7 0.160 0.233 0.195 0.281 0.132
8 0.203 0.202 8 0.153 0.228 0.193 0.287 0.138
9 0.206 0.207 9 0.210 0.174 0.207 0.242 0.166
10 0.197 0.216 10 0.168 0.209 0.151 0.304 0.168
Average 0.200 0.211 Average importance 0.195 0.212 0.181 0.262 0.151
Standard deviation 0.004 0.010 Normalized importance (%) 74.67 80.82 69.01 100 57.62

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S. Zhou et al.
platform, the rareness of the knowledge product, and the professional­
ism and charisma of the knowledge contributor are positively related to
consumers’ perceived value, suggesting that these factors can be lever­
aged to increase consumers’ perceived value of paid knowledge. In
addition, perceived value has a positive relationship with purchase
intention, suggesting that increasing consumers’ value perception of
online paid knowledge can increase their intention to purchase paid
knowledge. We also confirm the mediating effect of perceived value on
the relationship between the significant factors and consumers’ pur­
chase intention.
Regarding the second research question, the relative importance of
the five significant predictors of knowledge purchase intention obtained
from the SEM analysis is determined through neural network analysis.
We find that the most vital factor is knowledge contributor profession­
alism, followed by platform information quality, platform interactivity,
knowledge rareness and knowledge contributor charisma. These find­
ings reveal that consumers place the highest weight on knowledge
contributors’ professional ability, which directly determines the quality
and value of paid knowledge.
Contrary to our expectation, the proposed effect of knowledge
personalization on perceived value is not supported. A possible expla­
nation may be that personalization only increases perceived value in
specific contexts, and has no influence when consumers give more
importance to other factors (Franke et al., 2009), such as knowledge
contributor professionalism, platform information quality and inter­
activity in our study. Although many studies have confirmed the positive
relationship between personalization and customer trust, commitment,
attitude and experience (Zhang et al., 2014), our research is consistent
with the study of Molinillo et al. (2021), which documents that
personalization has no significant effect on perceived value in the
context of social commerce.
7. Theoretical contributions
This study provides several theoretical contributions to the literature
on online knowledge payment behavior. First, this study extends the
application of the S-O-R model to the online knowledge payment context
and offers a coherent and comprehensive theoretical framework to un­
derstand what drives consumers’ purchase intention of online paid
knowledge. Due to the novelty of the knowledge payment industry,
there is still a lack of pertinent literature on online knowledge payment
(Qi et al., 2019). While the extant literature on knowledge payment
behavior places emphasis on assessing the impacts of knowledge plat­
form- (Li et al., 2017), contributor- (Liu, 2018; Shi et al., 2020; Zhao
et al., 2018), product- (Liu and Feng, 2018), or seeker-level factors (Li
et al., 2017; Su et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2020) in isolation, we simul­
taneously develop an integrated model to consider all these levels. Based
on the S-O-R framework, we propose that the factors from the knowl­
edge platform, product, and contributor will influence knowledge
seekers’ perceived value of paid knowledge, which affects their purchase
intention. An integrated approach is critical because investigating the
factors in isolation can cause misleading inferences. Our work demon­
strates that the S-O-R framework can be used to guide future research on
knowledge payment behavior. However, this study represents only an
initial step, and much more work will still be needed to further develop
theory to guide research and practice in this area.
Second, this study extends existing literature on the antecedent of
online knowledge payment behavior by identifying several novel pre­
dictors of online knowledge payment, including platform interactivity,
knowledge rareness, knowledge contributor professionalism, and
knowledge contributor charisma, which have been absent in previous
studies. From the knowledge platform perspective, Li et al., (2017)
discovered that perceived information quality will positively affect
consumers’ knowledge payment behavior based on evidence from a
semistructured interview. We provide new evidence for the positive
effect of information quality from survey data. In addition, we extend
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Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 52 (2022) 101126
the literature by identifying a new platform predictor, i.e., platform
interactivity. This finding is consistent with the work of Wolk and
Theysohn (2007), who observed a positive relationship between inter­
activity and consumers’ willingness to pay for online content. From the
knowledge product perspective, Liu and Feng (2018) found that the
price and popularity of knowledge will affect knowledge payment
behavior; we extend this study to identify a new knowledge product
predictor, i.e., knowledge rareness. From the perspective of knowledge
contributors, prior studies have focused on the effects of perceived
credibility, likability, trust, reputation, and social capital of contributors
(Liu, 2018; Shi et al., 2020; Zhao et al., 2018). We contribute to the
literature by identifying another two contributor predictors, i.e., pro­
fessionalism and personal charisma. From the knowledge seeker
perspective, we observe a positive relationship between perceived value
and knowledge payment intention, which confirms the studies of Zhao
et al. (2020) and Su et al. (2019). However, we complement these
studies by identifying the mediating effects of perceived value in the
relationships between the factors of knowledge platforms, products, and
contributors and consumers’ knowledge payment intention.
Third, this study provides a multi-analytical approach in the study of
predictors of knowledge payment behavior by integrating SEM and
neural network analysis. SEM analysis enables the assessment of the
linear relationships among the variables, while neural network analysis
allows complex and nonlinear relationship modeling (Liébana-Cab­
anillas et al., 2018). Prior studies on knowledge payment behavior are
based on conventional linear statistical techniques, such as multiple
regression analysis (Zhao et al., 2018) and SEM (Su, et al., 2019; Zhao
et al., 2020), which may oversimplify the complexity of purchase de­
cisions, as they are only capable of examining linear models (Liébana-
Cabanillas et al., 2018). By employing a two-stage SEM-neural network
approach, we are able to capture the linear, complex, nonlinear re­
lationships between the predictors and online knowledge purchase
intention, thereby providing a richer understanding of what factors
significantly influence consumers’ purchase intention of online paid
knowledge and their relative importance. This multi-analytical
approach adopted can thus serve as a good reference for future
research on knowledge payment studies.
7.1. Practical implications
This study provides several practical implications for knowledge
payment platform managers and knowledge contributors. First, our re­
sults reveal that the professionalism of knowledge contributors is posi­
tively associated with consumers’ perceived value of online paid
knowledge and is the most important factor predicting consumers’
knowledge payment intention. An important implication for knowledge
contributors is that they should emphasize enhancing their professional
knowledge and expertise, and show their professionalism to the public
in a more visible way. For example, they can provide relevant skill
certificates and authenticated social identity to indicate their profes­
sionalism. In addition, consumers’ perception of knowledge contributor
professionalism can be based on some cues, such as the number of fol­
lowers, number of likes, and positive ratings they obtain. Therefore,
contributors are encouraged to share free knowledge to gain reputation
such as by providing more high-quality free courses, articles, and an­
swers. In addition, our findings indicate that personal charisma of
knowledge contributors has a critical role in predicting consumers’
intention to purchase knowledge products. This finding suggests that
knowledge contributors should also attempt to increase their charisma
in addition to their professionalism. As charisma is mainly reflected in
the process of communication with consumers, knowledge contributors
are suggested to enhance their communication skills to be inspiring and
visionary, attract consumers’ attention, and show their honest and
reliable impression to consumers.
Second, our findings demonstrate that the information quality and
interactivity of knowledge platforms positively influence and predict
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S. Zhou et al. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 52 (2022) 101126

consumers’ knowledge payment intention and can be applied as
executable guidelines for the design and management of online paid
knowledge platforms. Specifically, knowledge platforms need to estab­
lish quality control mechanisms to ensure the accuracy, relevance,
effectiveness, completeness, and timeliness of information provided to
consumers, filtering or removing information (e.g., comments and posts)
from unreliable or biased sources (e.g., advertising). In addition,
knowledge platforms need to make efficient interactions among con­
sumers, between consumers and contributors and between consumers
and platforms by providing effective communication/interaction tools
(e.g., chat tools, message boards, comments sections, discussion forums,
FAQ pages, telephones, and emails) and responding quickly to consumer
inquiries. Knowledge platforms also need to make information search
efficient by providing effective navigational tools (e.g., index and
navigational buttons) and making relevant recommendations to con­
sumers to reduce their search time.
Third, our findings suggest that knowledge platforms/contributors
provide rare or different knowledge from other platforms. It is especially
important for knowledge platforms to develop knowledge heterogeneity
to attract knowledge consumers with the prosperity of the paid knowl­
edge market. Knowledge platforms might choose to explicitly commu­
nicate the scarcity and heterogeneity of knowledge products by
announcing the uniqueness, novelty, and innovativeness of the knowl­
edge content to attract consumers, or by providing novel channels to
offer knowledge service. For example, Zaihang, a well-known knowl­
edge payment platform in China, allows users to communicate with
knowledge contributors through online and offline channels, which
differs from other platforms with only online channels.
7.2. Limitations and directions for future research
Our research has several limitations that can be addressed in future
research. First, the purchase behavior of knowledge products is
measured by purchase intention in our study. Although purchase
intention is often employed as an indicator of purchase behavior (Lee
and Lee, 2015), there may exist an intention-action gap, as some in­
tentions will eventually be transformed into action (Zhao et al., 2020).
Future researchers are suggested to combine actual purchase data to
study consumers’ purchase behavior in the context of online paid
knowledge. Second, this study draws a sample from Chinese users of
online knowledge platforms, which limits the generalization of the
findings to other economies. Future research can extend our work to
conduct a multi-country comparison study on knowledge purchase
intention. Third, this study is based on cross-sectional data that repre­
sent a point in time. Future research can conduct longitudinal studies to
understand changes in consumers’ purchase intentions toward knowl­
edge products over time. Last, although we have provided a compre­
hensive research model by including various predictors of knowledge
purchase intention, future studies can focus on variables not included in
this study, such as consumer characteristics and environmental factors.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the grants from the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (71701180), the National Social Science
Foundation of China (21BGL245), and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Sci­
ence Foundation of China (LY21G010007).

Appendix A

Table A. Sample demographics

Demographic variables Category Frequency Percentage (%)

Gender Male 172 38.2

Female 278 61.8
Age <18 33 7.3
18–25 266 59.1
26–30 104 23.1
>30 47 10.4
Education status High school and below 52 11.6
Junior college 73 16.2
Bachelor degree 281 62.4
Master degree or above 44 9.8
Experience in knowledge payment platforms < 1 year 101 22.4
1–2 years 178 39.6
2–3 years 99 22
> 3 years 72 16
Expenses in knowledge payment platforms <50 RMB 84 18.7
51–100 RMB 150 33.3
101–300 RMB 107 23.8
>300 RMB 109 24.2
Monthly disposable income <1200 RMB 92 20.4
1201–1800 RMB 159 35.3
1801–2400 RMB 90 20
>2400 RMB 109 24.2

Appendix B

Table B. Constructs, items, and sources

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Constructs Items Sources

Platform interactivity
Platform information quality
Knowledge rareness
Knowledge personalization
Knowledge contributor
professionalism
Knowledge contributorcharisma
Perceived value
Purchase intention
PI1: The knowledge payment platform is effective in gathering consumers’ feedback. (Choi et al., 2019, Ye et al., 2019)
PI2: The knowledge payment platform gives consumers the opportunity to talk back.
PI3: The knowledge payment platform facilitates interactive communication between consumers and
knowledge contributors.
PI4: The knowledge payment platform facilitates interactive communication among consumers.
PIQ1: The knowledge payment platform provides accurate information about knowledge products. (Lee et al., 2019)
PIQ2: The knowledge payment platform provides believable information about knowledge products.
PIQ3: The knowledge payment platform provides knowledge information at the right level of detail.
PIQ4: The knowledge payment platform presents knowledge information in an appropriate format.
KR1: The knowledge I pay/purchase is difficult to obtain elsewhere. (Pérez-Nordtvedt et al., 2008)
KR2: The knowledge I pay/purchase on this platform is dramatically different from the kind of
knowledge other platforms have.
KR3: The knowledge I pay/purchase cannot easily be obtained from others.
KP1: The knowledge I pay/purchase is tailored to my situation. (Xu et al., 2011)
KP2: The knowledge I pay/purchase is tailored to my personal interest.
KP3: The knowledge I pay/purchase is customized/personalized to my needs.
KCP1: The knowledge contributor is very knowledgeable. (Liu et al., 2018)
KCP2: The knowledge contributor has a lot of experience.
KCP3: The knowledge contributor is an expert in the field.
KCC1: The knowledge contributor is very likeable and gets along with people. (Ingenhoff and Klein, 2018;
KCC2: The knowledge contributor is very charming. Reysen, 2005)
KCC3: The knowledge contributor comes across as serious and hard to communicate with. (reverse item)
PV1: The knowledge product is worth for the money. (Kuo et al., 2009)
PV2: The knowledge product offers good value for the price.
PV3: The knowledge product is worth for me to sacrifice some time and efforts.
PV4: Overall, the knowledge product delivers me good value.
PINT1: I am very likely to buy the knowledge product. (Peng et al., 2019)
PINT2: I would consider buying the knowledge product.
PINT3: I intend to buy the knowledge product.

Appendix C

Table C. Loadings and cross-loadings

Item PI PIQ KR KP KCP KCC PV PINT

PI1 0.839 0.582 0.451 0.557 0.584 0.377 0.530 0.543

PI2 0.881 0.640 0.465 0.460 0.578 0.433 0.581 0.503
PI3 0.839 0.603 0.392 0.449 0.525 0.367 0.535 0.513
PI4 0.798 0.575 0.378 0.462 0.518 0.419 0.542 0.511
PIQ1 0.608 0.865 0.521 0.481 0.583 0.450 0.588 0.580
PIQ2 0.603 0.860 0.473 0.483 0.627 0.403 0.576 0.611
PIQ3 0.600 0.860 0.470 0.515 0.548 0.389 0.542 0.549
PIQ4 0.622 0.821 0.548 0.454 0.597 0.305 0.604 0.569
KR1 0.431 0.520 0.898 0.376 0.513 0.391 0.508 0.482
KR2 0.494 0.550 0.899 0.389 0.511 0.422 0.551 0.495
KR3 0.426 0.527 0.899 0.360 0.454 0.356 0.492 0.489
KP1 0.502 0.521 0.336 0.906 0.436 0.508 0.455 0.391
KP2 0.512 0.505 0.374 0.914 0.473 0.471 0.450 0.451
KP3 0.543 0.516 0.422 0.900 0.522 0.460 0.498 0.465
KCP1 0.606 0.625 0.516 0.503 0.884 0.434 0.545 0.648
KCP2 0.594 0.633 0.492 0.428 0.909 0.408 0.582 0.662
KCP3 0.534 0.572 0.442 0.468 0.850 0.370 0.519 0.580
KCC1 0.324 0.334 0.343 0.450 0.317 0.780 0.371 0.301
KCC2 0.479 0.454 0.446 0.509 0.466 0.913 0.491 0.431
KCC3 0.400 0.362 0.315 0.391 0.376 0.860 0.431 0.388
PV1 0.547 0.579 0.457 0.412 0.511 0.419 0.844 0.575
PV2 0.531 0.583 0.486 0.425 0.510 0.464 0.873 0.536
PV3 0.577 0.595 0.516 0.499 0.548 0.445 0.852 0.553
PV4 0.569 0.563 0.508 0.427 0.557 0.410 0.845 0.604
PINT1 0.594 0.656 0.532 0.488 0.676 0.439 0.626 0.901
PINT2 0.561 0.620 0.473 0.411 0.642 0.395 0.608 0.916
PINT3 0.511 0.561 0.469 0.405 0.623 0.364 0.568 0.897

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