What drives online course sales? Signaling effects of user-generated information in the paid knowledge market

The emergence of a paid knowledge market provides knowledge contributors a way to get economic repay from their sharing, but little is known about the determinants of sales of those paid knowledge content. To study this, we identify three user-generated signals: the rating of content product, followers of content producer, and upvotes content producer gains, which may influence consumers' content quality perceptions and purchase decisions. Drawing on a panel data set of 6380 online live courses, we propose a new perspective of signaling effect by distinguishing the influence of the flow and stock of signals. Hypotheses are tested using fixed-effect regression and panel vector autoregression methodology. The result suggests a positive impact of ratings and followers on sales, a negative impact of upvotes on sales, and reveals the dynamic interactivity between the flow of signals and sales. These findings offer insights into signaling theory and knowledge product transactions.