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Big from the beginning: Assessing online contributors’ behavior by their first contribution

Sylvain Dejean and Nicolas Jullien

Research Policy, 2015, vol. 44, issue 6, 1226-1239

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to investigate the process of involvement in open online communities producing knowledge, via the link between the first contribution and the level of contribution reached. While most studies consider the career of contribution following the first contribution, we focus on what happened before and during the first contribution. We challenge the fact that becoming a core member starts with peripheral contributive activities and results from a continuous learning process, as explained by the theory of community of practice. On the contrary, and coherent with epistemic community theory, our results, based on 13,000 answers to a survey on the use of, and contributions to Wikipédia, show that the future level of users’ involvement depends on the period of time between the discovery of Wikipedia and the first contribution (negative effect), and of the effort made in the first contribution (positive effect). Implications for management are also discussed.

Keywords: Voluntary participation; Open online communities; Survey; Econometric studies; Heckman; Wikipedia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 L17 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:44:y:2015:i:6:p:1226-1239

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2015.03.001

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