Dynamics of On-line Communities on Topics of Professional Management

哪些组织设计因素导致了在线学习社区的增长或下降？一个人需要知道什么才能在网上建立可持续的、专业的兴趣小组？本项目中的“在线学习社区”指的是专门讨论专业管理相关主题的论坛，例如知识管理、供应链管理或客户关系管理。这些论坛可以通过互联网公开访问，吸引有相似兴趣并面临与当前主题相关的实际问题的专业人士。“元社区”是针对任何主题领域的在线社区的完整集合。在线学习社区提供了作为组织间专业团体运作的潜力，也就是说，作为具有自己的参与者、知识资源和持续常规的相对独特的实体。从某种意义上说，每个社区都类似于一个行业或市场中的一家新公司，与其他公司竞争以吸引资源并实现增长。科学的兴趣在于，为什么这些群落中有些能够成长和繁荣，而另一些却不能繁荣，或者活跃一段时间后就消失了。该研究首先检查所有致力于单一主题领域的在线社区的一个完整人群（即元社区），然后扩展到包括第二个元社区，以测试结果的普遍性。每个元社区将进行三种类型的分析：估算社区规模、发帖量、链接资源和讨论惯例对社区增长和死亡率的影响；绘制社会网络结构，包括社区内信息交换联系的强度和社区间参与模式；对交流进行内容编码，以衡量每个社区中发生的组织学习的数量和类型，特别是提问、反馈寻求、实验和反思。成长和繁荣的社区将与那些已经死亡或未能繁荣的社区进行比较。这项研究补充了其他学者的工作，这些学者调查的是在线社区的样本，而不是总体，他们研究的是特殊的利基或通用社区，而不是实践管理人员的社区，他们研究的是在线社区的社会生活，而不是他们的组织结构。研究结果应该对在线社区建设活动有直接的帮助。这些数据将提供给其他大学对在线社区和新组织形式的研究感兴趣的研究人员。

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 ratesMapping of social network structures, including the strength of information exchange ties within the communities and inter-community participation patternsContent 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.