Organizing User Participation in Online User Communities
From Information Systems at Pitt Business
Wang, Xiaoqing, Kirsch, Laurie J. and Butler, Brian S. (2007) “Organizing User Participation In Online User Communities” OCIS Division, Academy of Management Conference, Philadelphia.
[edit] Abstract
User participation has been studied extensively and found to increase user satisfaction and system acceptance. However, the system development context is changing, in that systems are increasingly complex and involve diverse group of distributed users, requirements are increasingly uncertain and constantly evolving, and the development methods are more iterative and flexible. These changes create challenges for traditional face-to-face user participation mechanisms, making user engagement more expensive and difficult, and yet more important. Little is known about the limitations of the traditional user participation mechanisms and how users can be engaged differently in the new system development context. The emergence of open source software movement suggests that online community may be a viable way of dealing with the challenges of organizing and engaging users. Reviewing and bridging the user participation and online community literature, this paper proposes that organizing users in an online user community, defined as a group of people who engage in regular interactions regarding a new system via a common (Internet) communication technology infrastructure, can lead to desirable outcomes such as user satisfaction with the system, system acceptance, and individuals’ willingness to continue to participate in the community. The research model proposes multiple mechanisms through which participation in an online user community can lead to desirable outcomes.
[edit] Keywords
- Online community participation
- Online user community
- User participation.
