User-generated content and employee creativity: evidence from salesforce ideaexchange community

This study investigates how accessing user-generated content in online user innovation communities (OUICs) may influence employee creativity. By analyzing a longitudinal dataset obtained from the IdeaExchange community of Salesforce.com, we find that employees who frequently access diverse and well codified idea content contributed by external product users are likely to generate more ideas than those who do not; however, the marginal effects of diverse and well-codified content decrease as employees access increasing amounts of community content. Moreover, our findings illustrate that the number of implemented ideas from an employee is positively associated with the number of new ideas s/he generates. We discuss important implications of our study for online innovation communities and for employee creativity in organizations. We also provide insights for firms on how to build a thriving community via increasing the scope and level of employee participation.