Abstract
Virtual communities of practice invoke novel forms of boundary work that are newly visible via publicly recorded discourse and failure narratives. This boundary work has critical implications for occupational knowledge, membership, and stratification. Building on social exchange theorization of network gatekeeping, the author tests the assumption that centralized peers are more competitive gatekeepers, in that they react more negatively to remedial narratives. The author tests this theory using empirical data from a virtual entrepreneur community on Reddit. The author finds that a peer’s tenure in the community network is directly related to exclusive, competitive boundary work of remedial members. However, by looking beyond the network structure to the content of the tie, the author finds that exclusive boundary work is not as impactful as inclusive, collaborative boundary work in this open network setting. The author builds on relational cohesion and exchange commitment theory to explain how remedial practitioners circumvent central community gatekeepers through failure narratives that provoke empathy from peripheral peers who experience higher uncertainty than core peers. Understanding these dynamics is critical to promoting recovery from failure and vitality of the community of practice.
Highlights
More importantly, the study shows that peripheral peers engage in more inclusive boundary work that is more impactful to remedial members
This study extends relational cohesion theory to the boundary work context, in which membership and community social capital are the objects of exchange
The relationship between boundary work and knowledge management, and the capability of gatekeeping to control and inhibit knowledge, has received too little empirical analysis. This analysis is especially critical for communities of practice, where the practice and the legitimacy of practitioners are defined by community knowledge. These findings show that 1) discursive boundary work occurs in virtual communities, 2) inclusive boundary work is more impactful, and 3) peripheral community members respond more positively to remedial narratives
Summary
The study evaluates the role of network structure as a mechanism for discursive boundary work in a virtual community of practice, where demarcations and identities are ambiguous. In this context, the resource that is gated is social capital, including community membership, network ties, and reputation. The author tests the social network theory that central peers engage in more gatekeeping, hypothesizing that a peer’s centrality in the community network influences the sentiment of their response to a failure narrative The author tests this theory using empirical data from a virtual entrepreneur community on Reddit. Failed entrepreneurs must be able to recover lost reputation in order to start a new venture
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