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The Performance of Online Communities –An Empirical Investigation of Wikipedia
Diploma Thesis
at the Institute of Entrepreneurship & InnovationVienna University of Economics and Business AdministrationDegree Program: Business AdministrationSubmitted by:
Roman Pickl
Degree Program Identification No.: J151Student Enrolment No.: h0451691
Advisor: Univ. Prof. Dr. Nikolaus FrankeAssistant Advisor: Dr. Philipp Türtscher
Vienna, 17 June 2009
Roman Pickl |
The Performance of Online Communities
| I |
Abstract
Online communities have been thriving in recent years and have not only drawn the attentionof researchers and professionals but also influence our daily lives. Their success factors,however, are still rather unclear. This paper sheds light on this topic by analyzing the rela-tionships between the characteristics of online communities and their performance. There- fore, 5000 communities around individual articles in Wikipedia were analyzed. The resultsdemonstrate that community characteristics are significantly linked to the quantity and qual-ity of the output created by online communities. The number of users is by far the most influ-ential force that drives content creation. When it comes to the quality of the output, however,characteristics of community members and how they collaborate are as important as thesheer number of contributors. These findings can be utilized by community operators whowant to foster the development of their online communities and firms which look for promis-ing communities to scan for innovative ideas and users.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to my advisor Univ. Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke and myassistant advisor Dr. Philipp Türtscher for their support, encouragement and time to listen toand discuss little problems and roadblocks. Special thanks also go to Matthias Pickl andDaniel Winzer who provided thoughtful comments on this thesis. Furthermore, I want tothank the IT Department of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administra-tion, especially Franz Schäfer, for helping with the means to handle the huge amount of dataand thus making this research project possible. Finally, I thank my family and my girlfriendJulia for their continuous support and encouragement.
Roman Pickl |
The Performance of Online Communities
| II |
Table of contents
1
Introduction...................................................................................................................1
1.1
Objective..................................................................................................................2
1.2
Structure..................................................................................................................3
2
Literature Review and Hypotheses Development.......................................................4
2.1
Online Communities................................................................................................4
2.2
Performance of Online Communities.......................................................................6
2.2.1
Information-Quantity...........................................................................................7
2.2.2
Article-Quality.....................................................................................................8
2.3
Links between Community Characteristics and Performance...................................9
2.3.1
Community-Centered Perspective....................................................................10
2.3.2
User-Centered Perspective...............................................................................12
2.3.3
Collaboration-Centered Perspective.................................................................14
3
Research Method........................................................................................................17
3.1
Research Site........................................................................................................17
3.2
Study Design.........................................................................................................18
3.3
Data Collection and Cleansing...............................................................................19
3.4
Measures...............................................................................................................22
3.4.1
Operationalization of Performance Indicators...................................................22
3.4.2
Operationalization of Community Characteristics..............................................23
4
Results........................................................................................................................26
4.1
Descriptive Statistics..............................................................................................26
4.2
Inferential Statistics................................................................................................28
4.2.1
Results related to Information-Quantity.............................................................29
4.2.2
Results related to Article-Quality.......................................................................30
5
Discussion and Implications......................................................................................31
5.1
Implications for Theory...........................................................................................35
5.2
Implications for Methods........................................................................................36
5.3
Implications for Practice.........................................................................................37
5.4
Limitations.............................................................................................................38
5.5
Directions for Future Research..............................................................................39
6
References..................................................................................................................41
7
Appendix.....................................................................................................................52
7.1
Figures and Examples...........................................................................................52
7.2
Data Collection......................................................................................................53
7.2.1
Setting up the Database and Drawing the Sample............................................53
7.2.2
Parsing the Data and Calculating all Variables.................................................58
7.3
References used in the Appendix:.........................................................................73
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