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Online knowledge-sharing communities continue to grow considerably. Two issues of both scholarly and practical interest are what actions can be considered contributions to an online knowledge-sharing community, and what factors influence whether individuals will be more (or less) contributive over time to the continuous creation of an open, online information good. To answer these questions, we first review past literature on information public goods and online communities, and then point to the various assumptions that these studies rely on to make their claims. We argue that because of these context-dependent assumptions, the models need modifications to apply to open online knowledge-sharing communities. In particular, our theoretical argument proposes two extensions to information goods models of collective action for online knowledge-sharing communities, and develop several propositions that can be tested in the context of online communities. We conclude with implications for this model, as well as future directions for empirical research.
Leila Bighash, U of Southern California - Annenberg School for Communication
Poong Oh, U of Southern California - Annenberg School for Communication
Janet Fulk, U of Southern California
Peter Monge, U of Southern California