The feedback mechanism is the basis for motivating users to make continuous contributions in the Open Innovation Community (OIC). Although previous studies have revealed the overall role of positive feedback in promoting continuous user contribution, it is not clear which type of positive feedback is more effective and how it changes over time. To solve these problems, we constructed a research model based on reinforcement theory and took Lego Ideas, a typical OIC, as the research object to crawl usersβ ideas and feedback data for empirical analysis. The results confirmed the effect of positive feedback and further demonstrated that, the effectiveness of positive feedback varies based on feedback concreteness and the tenure of the focal user. Our study contributes to the literature on how feedback affects user contributions in online communities by refining the classifications of feedback, and provide practical guidance for companies to motivate users to contributing ideas continuously
