TY - GEN
T1 - Organizing without formal organization
T2 - ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW'12
AU - Zhu, Haiyi
AU - Kraut, Robert
AU - Kittur, Aniket
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - A challenge for many online production communities is to direct their members to accomplish tasks that are important to the group, even when these tasks may not match individual members' interests. Here we investigate how combining group identification and direction setting can motivate volunteers in online communities to accomplish tasks important to the success of the group as a whole. We hypothesize that group identity, the perception of belonging to a group, triggers in-group favoritism; and direction setting (including explicit direction from group goals and implicit direction from role models) focuses people's group-oriented motivation towards the group's important tasks. We tested our hypotheses in the context of Wikipedia's Collaborations of the Week (COTW), a group goal setting mechanism and a social event within Wikiprojects. Results demonstrate that 1) publicizing important group goals via COTW can have a strong motivating influence on editors who have voluntarily identified themselves as group members compared to those who have not self-identified; 2) the effects of goals spill over to non-goal related tasks; and 3) editors exposed to group role models in COTW are more likely to perform similarly to the models on group-relevant citizenship behaviors. Finally, we discuss design and managerial implications based on our findings.
AB - A challenge for many online production communities is to direct their members to accomplish tasks that are important to the group, even when these tasks may not match individual members' interests. Here we investigate how combining group identification and direction setting can motivate volunteers in online communities to accomplish tasks important to the success of the group as a whole. We hypothesize that group identity, the perception of belonging to a group, triggers in-group favoritism; and direction setting (including explicit direction from group goals and implicit direction from role models) focuses people's group-oriented motivation towards the group's important tasks. We tested our hypotheses in the context of Wikipedia's Collaborations of the Week (COTW), a group goal setting mechanism and a social event within Wikiprojects. Results demonstrate that 1) publicizing important group goals via COTW can have a strong motivating influence on editors who have voluntarily identified themselves as group members compared to those who have not self-identified; 2) the effects of goals spill over to non-goal related tasks; and 3) editors exposed to group role models in COTW are more likely to perform similarly to the models on group-relevant citizenship behaviors. Finally, we discuss design and managerial implications based on our findings.
KW - directing behaviors
KW - governance mechanisms
KW - group goals
KW - group identification
KW - online production communities
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84863421653&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84863421653&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2145204.2145344
DO - 10.1145/2145204.2145344
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84863421653
SN - 9781450310864
T3 - Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW
SP - 935
EP - 944
BT - CSCW'12 - Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Y2 - 11 February 2012 through 15 February 2012
ER -