Investigating the determinants of contribution value in Wikipedia

Abstract

The recent prevalence of wiki applications has demonstrated that wikis have high potential in facilitating knowledge creation, sharing, integration, and utilization. As wikis are increasingly adopted in contexts like business, education, research, government, and the public, how to improve user contribution becomes an important concern for researchers and practitioners. In this research, we focus on the quality aspect of user contribution: contribution value. Building upon the critical mass theory and research on editing activities in wikis, this study investigates whether user interests and resources can increase contribution value for different types of users. We develop our research model and empirically test it using survey method and content analysis method in Wikipedia. The results demonstrate that (1) for users who emphasize substantive edits, depth of interests and depth of resources play more influential roles in affecting contribution value; and (2) for users who focus on non-substantive edits, breadth of interests and breadth of resources are more important in increasing contribution value. The findings suggest that contribution value develops in different patterns for two types of users. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.