Dynamics of On-line Communities on Topics of Professional Management

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

What organization design factors account for the growth or decline of online learning communities? What does one need to know in order to build sustainable, professional interest groups online? "On-line learning communities" in this project refers to discussion forums devoted to topics of professional management interest, such as knowledge management, supply chain management, or customer relationship management. The forums are publicly accessible through the Internet and attract professionals who have similar interests and confront practical problems related to the topic at hand. "Meta-communities" are the full collection of online communities devoted to anyone topic area. Online learning communities offer the potential to operate as inter-organizational professional groups, that is, as relatively distinctive entities with their own participants, knowledge resources and ongoing routines. In a sense, each community is akin to a new firm in an industry or market that competes with other firms to attract resources and grow. Of scientific interest is the question of why some of these communities grow and thrive whereas others fail to flourish, or become active for a time and then die. The research begins by examining one full population (i.e., meta-community) of all online communities devoted to a single topic area and then expands to include a second meta-community in order to test the generalizability of findings. Three types of analyses will be conducted within each meta-community: Estimation of the effects of community size, posting volume, linked resources, and discussion routines on community growth and mortality rates Mapping of social network structures, including the strength of information exchange ties within the communities and inter-community participation patterns Content coding of communication to gauge amounts and types of organizational learning that occur in each community, specifically, question asking, feedback seeking, experimentation, and reflection. Communities that grow and thrive will be compared with those that have died or failed to thrive. The research complements the work of other scholars who are investigating samples of online communities but not populations, who study special niche or general purpose communities other than communities of practicing managers, and who examine the social life of online communities rather than their organization structures. The findings should be directly useful to online community building activities. The data will be made available to researchers at other universities interested in the study of online communities and new organizational forms.