Do open online projects create social norms?

Godefroy Dang Nguyen (), Sylvain Dejean and Nicolas Jullien
Additional contact information
Godefroy Dang Nguyen: DRI - Direction de le Recherche et de l'Innovation - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], LEGO - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Gestion de l'Ouest - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - UBO - Université de Brest - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - IBSHS - Institut Brestois des Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société - UBO - Université de Brest - UBL - Université Bretagne Loire - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris], MARSOUIN - Môle Armoricain de Recherche sur la SOciété de l'information et des usages d'INternet - UR - Université de Rennes - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - UBO - Université de Brest - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] - UR2 - Université de Rennes 2 - UBL - Université Bretagne Loire - IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris]

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: While most scholars emphasize the role of prosocial motivations of contributors in building open online communities, we show that mere users also adhere to their norms of behaviour to some extent. To this end we designed an original experimentation protocol. With the help of the French Wikimédia Foundation, we questioned a large sample (n = 13,000) of Wikipedia users (whether contributors or not). They were invited, after having expressing their feelings about Wikipédia, to play a Dictator Game. A large proportion of respondents, including those who were merely users, chose an equal split (66% of the sample). This surprising result suggests that they have adhered to a social norm of sharing. Investigating the determinants of this result, we prove that an involvement measured by usage (intensity and variety), as well as by attachment to, and time spent, on Wikipedia, is correlated with the choice of the 50/50 split in the dictator game (DG). Furthermore, the method of instrumental variables gives an indication that adherence to the social norm of sharing may be endogenously determined by involvement in the open online community. Our result highlights the importance of interactions with the institutional and technical frameworks of the community.

Keywords: Dictator game; 50/50; Online epistemic community; Social norm; Wikipedia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02-01
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01547505v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Institutional Economics, 2018, ⟨10.1017/S1744137417000182⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-01547505v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do open online projects create social norms? (2018)
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:hal:journl:hal-01547505

DOI: 10.1017/S1744137417000182

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().