Creating Value in Online Communities: The Sociomaterial Configuring of Strategy, Platform, and Stakeholder Engagement

Michael Barrett (), Eivor Oborn () and Wanda Orlikowski ()
Additional contact information
Michael Barrett: Judge Business School, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB2 1AG, United Kingdom
Eivor Oborn: Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom
Wanda Orlikowski: Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142

Information Systems Research, 2016, vol. 27, issue 4, 704-723

Abstract: How is value created in an online community (OC) over time? We explored this question through a longitudinal field study of an OC in the healthcare arena. We found that multiple kinds of value were produced and changed over time as different participants engaged with the OC and its evolving technology in various ways. To explain our findings, we theorize OC value as performed through the ongoing sociomaterial configuring of strategies, digital platforms, and stakeholder engagement. We develop a process perspective to explain these dynamics and identify multiple different kinds of value being created by an OC over time: financial, epistemic, ethical, service, reputational, and platform. Our research points to the importance of expanding the notion of OC users to encompass a broader understanding of stakeholders. It further suggests that creating OC value increasingly requires going beyond a dyadic relationship between the OC and the firm to encompassing a more complex relationship involving a wider ecosystem of stakeholders.

Keywords: digital; online communities; health IT; value; computer-mediated communication and collaboration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2016.0648 (application/pdf)

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:inm:orisre:v:27:y:2016:i:4:p:704-723

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Systems Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().