Knowledge payment research: status quo and key issues

Abstract

Purpose Knowledge sharing has entered the stage of knowledge payment with the typical models of paid Q&A, live session, paid subscription, course column and community service. Numerous knowledge suppliers have begun to pour into the knowledge payment market, and users' willingness to pay for premium content has increased. However, the academic research on knowledge payment has just begun. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors searched several bibliographic databases using keywords such as “knowledge payment”, “paid Q&A”, “pay for answer”, “social Q&A”, “paywall” and “online health consultation” and selected papers from aspects of research scenes, research topics, etc. Finally, a total of 116 articles were identified for combing studies. Findings This study found that in the early research, scholars paid attention to the definition of knowledge payment concept and the discrimination of typical models. With the continuous enrichment of research literature, the research direction has gradually been refined into three main branches from the perspective of research objects, i.e. knowledge provider, knowledge demander and knowledge payment platform. Originality/value This paper focuses on discussing and sorting out the key research issues from these three research genres. Finally, the authors found out conflicting and contradictory research results and research gaps in the existing research and then put forward the urgent research topics.

Exploring influencing factors of offline knowledge service transactions on an online-to-offline knowledge-sharing economy platform

“…The noneconomic characteristic makes the sustainability of knowledge provision on non-commercial online knowledge-sharing platforms become a crucial issue (Chen et al , 2019; Rice et al , 2019). Thus, recently, a growing number of knowledge payment platforms have emerged to encourage a knowledge provider to provide high-quality knowledge to seekers based on payment (Qi et al , 2019). Sharing and making use of underused knowledge through knowledge payment platforms are defined as knowledge-sharing economy platforms (Qi et al , 2019), including “peer-to-peer (P2P)-based activities of obtaining, giving or sharing the access to knowledge services, coordinated through community-based online services” (Hamari et al , 2016).…”

“…Thus, recently, a growing number of knowledge payment platforms have emerged to encourage a knowledge provider to provide high-quality knowledge to seekers based on payment (Qi et al , 2019). Sharing and making use of underused knowledge through knowledge payment platforms are defined as knowledge-sharing economy platforms (Qi et al , 2019), including “peer-to-peer (P2P)-based activities of obtaining, giving or sharing the access to knowledge services, coordinated through community-based online services” (Hamari et al , 2016). Digital platforms can also enable prospective knowledge seekers to purchase knowledge services online and obtain knowledge offline.…”

“…However, O2O knowledge-sharing economy platforms work differently from non-commercial online knowledge-sharing platforms and pure online knowledge-sharing economy platforms. In the context of O2O knowledge-sharing economy platforms, offline knowledge services are priced much higher than pure online knowledge-based products/services (Qi et al , 2019). In addition, during one transaction of an offline knowledge service, a knowledge seeker needs to be attracted by online presented characteristics of a knowledge topic and its provider first and then pay for an offline knowledge service around this topic online and access to the tacit knowledge through one face-to-face meeting with the provider.…”

“…It should be noted that the sustainability of high-quality knowledge provision on these platforms becomes a crucial issue because the generated knowledge will become public goods (Rice et al , 2019). Many online knowledge-sharing platforms recently have attempted to provide paid knowledge services to meet knowledge seekers’ needs (Cai et al , 2018; Zhang et al , 2019; Zhao et al , 2018) such as Quora Knowledge Prize (USA), Skillshare (USA), Zhihu (China) and Zaihang-Yidian (China) (Qi et al , 2019). The emerging paid knowledge services has facilitated knowledge-sharing economy, which makes it possible for experts in different professional areas to trade their high-quality knowledge for money (Qi et al , 2019; Sun et al , 2018; Zhao et al , 2018) and for knowledge seekers to access to high-quality external knowledge sources based on online payment.…”

“…To support tacit knowledge sharing, lately some Online-to-offline (O2O) knowledge-sharing economy platforms have emerged. Zaihang (www.zaih.com/) as one of leading knowledge-sharing economy platforms in China has attracted many high-quality knowledge providers in many different areas providing offline knowledge services outside of work (Qi et al , 2019). On Zaihang , knowledge providers can describe themselves, list and price the knowledge topics they can share offline on their personal webpages.…”