The Impact of Linguistic Complexity on Leadership in Online Q&A communities: Comparing Knowledge Shaping and Knowledge Adding

Understanding how to enhance online leadership in online Q&A communities is important because an online leader plays a role model or knowledge coordinator who can strengthen member commitment in the community. Considering the essential role of communication in establishing leadership, this study aims to understand how the linguistic complexity of two types of knowledge contribution, i.e., knowledge adding (KA) versus knowledge shaping (KS) that are targeted at two types of audience, may influence leadership in online Q&A communities. By analyzing the posting history of members from StackExchange, a massive network of online Q&A communities, our findings suggest that among the three linguistic complexity dimensions, readability and lexical diversity of KA have more positive impacts on online leadership than those of KS. However, the sentiment of KS has a more positive impact than the sentiment of KA. This study contributes to the online leadership research by highlighting the importance of adjusting linguistic styles based on types of communication behaviors (i.e., KA and KS) to earn leadership.

Automated summary

This study examines the influence of knowledge adding (KA) and knowledge shaping (KS) on online leadership in Q&A communities. By analyzing the posting history of members from StackExchange, the study finds that the readability and lexical diversity of KA have a more positive impact on online leadership, while the sentiment of KS has a stronger positive impact. The study highlights the importance of adjusting linguistic styles based on different communication behaviors to earn leadership.