Knowledge Collaboration in Online Communities

Samer Faraj (), Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa () and Ann Majchrzak ()
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Samer Faraj: Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1G5, Canada
Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa: Center for Business, Technology and Law, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712; and Simlab, Aalto University School of Science and Technology, FI-00076, Finland
Ann Majchrzak: Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089

Organization Science, 2011, vol. 22, issue 5, 1224-1239

Abstract: Online communities (OCs) are a virtual organizational form in which knowledge collaboration can occur in unparalleled scale and scope, in ways not heretofore theorized. For example, collaboration can occur among people not known to each other, who share different interests and without dialogue. An exploration of this organizational form can fundamentally change how we theorize about knowledge collaboration among members of organizations. We argue that a fundamental characteristic of OCs that affords collaboration is their fluidity. This fluidity engenders a dynamic flow of resources in and out of the community---resources such as passion, time, identity, social disembodiment of ideas, socially ambiguous identities, and temporary convergence. With each resource comes both a negative and positive consequence, creating a tension that fluctuates with changes in the resource. We argue that the fluctuations in tensions can provide an opportunity for knowledge collaboration when the community responds to these tensions in ways that encourage interactions to be generative rather than constrained. After offering numerous examples of such generative responses, we suggest that this form of theorizing---induced by online communities---has implications for theorizing about the more general case of knowledge collaboration in organizations.

Keywords: computer-supported collaborative work; organization communication and information systems; innovation; technology and innovation management; organizational processes; organizational behavior; organizational form; organization and management theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (112)

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