What Drives People to Contribute in Peer Production Projects? - A Review of the Participating Motivaton of Peer Producers

Based on advanced IT technology, peer production is a newly emerging mode of knowledge production that is significantly different from the traditional knowledge production. Participants of peer production are psychologically motivated and devote themselves in peer production projects without any payment, which has aroused many researchers´ interest in revealing what drives such contributing behavior. Our research reviewed relevant researches on peer producers´ participating motivation. These motivations could be classified into extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. The former involved motivation of money, use-value, indirect or future rewards and status. And the latter consisted of motivation of interest, need to know, competence, reciprocity and intercourse. Finally we elicited some characteristics of these motivation.