Keep them alive! Design and Evaluation of the “Community Fostering Reference Model”

Ulrich Bretschneider (), Marco Hartmann () and Jan Marco Leimeister ()
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Ulrich Bretschneider: Kassel University
Marco Hartmann: Kassel University
Jan Marco Leimeister: Kassel University

Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, 2018, vol. 60, issue 6, No 4, 493-511

Abstract: Abstract Firms host online communities for commercial purposes, for example in order to integrate customers into ideation for new product development. The success of these firm-hosted online communities depends entirely on the cooperation of a high number of customers that constantly produce valuable knowledge for firms. However, in practice, the majority of successfully implemented communities suffers from stagnation and even a decrease of member activities over time. Literature provides numerous guidelines on how to build and launch these online communities. While these models describe the initial steps of acquiring and activating a community base from scratch very well and explicitly, they neglect continuous member activation and acquistion after a successful launch. Against this background, the authors propose the Community Fostering Reference Model (CoFoRM), which represents a set of general procedures and instruments to continuously foster member activity. In this paper, the authors present the theory-driven design as well as the evaluation of the CoFoRM in a practical use setting. The evaluation results reveal that the CoFoRM represents a valuable instrument in the daily working routine of community managers, since it efficiently helps activating community members especially in the late phases of a community’s lifecycle.

Keywords: Online communities; Community management; Activation of community members; Reference model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1007/s12599-017-0500-6

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