Will they stay or will they go? How network properties of WebICs predict dropout rates of valuable Wikipedians

Jürgen Lerner, Patrick Kenis, Denise van Raaij and Ulrik Brandes

European Management Journal, 2011, vol. 29, issue 5, 404-413

Abstract: This paper contributes to our understanding of an increasingly prevalent work system, web-based internet communities (WebICs). We are particularly interested in how WebICs are governed given the fact how different they are compared to more classical forms of organization. We study the governance of a WebIC by studying the structure and dynamics of their edit network. Given the fact that the edit network is a relational structure, social network analysis is key to understanding these work systems. We demonstrate that characteristics of the edit network contribute to predicting the dropout hazard of valuable WebIC members. Since WebICs exist only thanks to the activity of their contributors, predicting drop-outs becomes crucial. The results show that reputation and controversy have different effects for different types of Wikipedians; i.e., an actor’s reputation decreases the dropout hazard of active Wikipedians, while participation on controversial pages decreases the dropout hazard of highly active Wikipedians.

Keywords: Online communities; Governance; Dropouts; Network-analysis; Reputation; Controversies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237311000053
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eurman:v:29:y:2011:i:5:p:404-413

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/115/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2011.02.003

Access Statistics for this article

European Management Journal is currently edited by Michael Haenlein

More articles in European Management Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().