Successful Virtual Communities Research Articles

Enhancing doctoral learning through virtual communities of practice: an autoethnographic perspective

This article explores the role of virtual communities of practice in enhancing the doctoral experience, particularly in the contemporary digital era. The author emphasizes the multifaceted benefits, including elevating academic networking, optimizing knowledge management, and supporting the mental well-being of remote learners. The establishment of clear shared objectives, dynamic leadership, and a conducive environment for collaborative innovation are identified as key prerequisites for building successful virtual communities of practice. As remote doctoral education becomes more prevalent, virtual communities of practice not only facilitate academic engagement but also foster mutual support and advocacy among doctoral students. The researcher, as a final year PhD student employed autoethnography as a research method to offer an intimate and reflective exploration of her personal experiences within virtual communities of practice. This unique insider perspective adds depth to the discussion on elevating academic networking, optimizing knowledge management, and supporting the mental well-being of remote learners. Furthermore, her ongoing doctoral research focuses on the socialization process and the development of a sense of belonging among doctoral students. Motivated by her research topics, she commenced her doctoral studies during the epidemic and cultivated the practice of consistently maintaining a researcher’s reflection diary. This perspective article examines her diary, elucidating her experiences, opinions, and feelings. The researcher utilized a thematic approach to thoroughly analyze the author’s research diaries covering the period from December 2020 to August 2023. The article concludes by calling for further research into the professional identity development of doctoral students within virtual learning communities, exploring potential challenges and effective coping mechanisms to achieve inclusive practices in the complex and diverse digital era of academia.

Users' Intention to Share Knowledge Using Wiki in Virtual Learning Community

Many educational organizations are using Wikis to enhance virtual learning to encourage knowledge sharing inside between students and instructors. Wiki is an ideal tool for the online knowledge sharing at educational organizations which help to achieve more collaborative work environment between students and instructors. However, educational organizations sometimes fail of building successful virtual community and users abound Wikis for several reasons. This research explored the use of Wikis to share knowledge in virtual learning community. A proposed conceptual framework was developed examining the UTAUT model in new context by using it to test the behavior intention to share knowledge through the Wiki technology in virtual community. A survey to postgraduate students shows that social influence, performance, and effort expectancy have impact on students' attitude to share knowledge through Wikis.

Fairness and devotion go far: Integrating online justice and value co-creation in virtual communities

Although building long-term, successful virtual communities is important, rare studies have examined both in- and extra-role value co-creation behaviors from the perspective of social exchange theory and equity theory. Specially, we incorporate five different online justice perceptions into our model and examine the mediating role of “sense of virtual community” between these perceived online justice antecedents and both in- and extra-role online value co-creation behavior (reflected by knowledge contribution and online community citizenship behaviors, respectively). We empirically examine the model using data from 278 members of virtual communities. The results reveal that perceived online justice leads to value co-creation behavior through sense of virtual community. The findings elicit several implications for theory and practice.

Third Places Take First Place in Second Life: Developing a Scale to Measure the ‘Stickiness’ of Virtual World Sites.

The objective of this study is to examine what drives visitor retention in successful businesses operating in online virtual world environments. The study draws motivation from increasing anecdotal evidence reporting on high profile corporate brands withdrawing from operations in Second Life - citing low visitor traffic as their motivation. Early adopter corporations that established business operations in Second Life did so anticipating benefits from the new technology akin to the quantum leap made when they embraced the World Wide Web. While disappointingly low visitor numbers left many virtual world operations looking like desolate ghost towns, there are businesses enjoying active repeat customers. Drawing on Oldenburg’s Theory of Third Place, this study seeks to quantify the reasons for high customer retention in successful virtual communities. To this effect, a questionnaire is developed and administered by a team of avatar researchers who interviewed over 250 avatars in Second Life. Website stickiness measures are reviewed and applied to virtual world sites. Conclusions are drawn and future research directions proposed.

The role of Internet in the development of future software projects

PurposeThe Internet has evolved, prompted in part by new Web 2.0 technologies, to become a more widespread platform for interaction, communication, and activism. Virtual communities, or groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise, synthesise this Internet evolution and the Web 2.0 technology. Users increasingly want to engage online with one another and with organisations of all kinds. These novel Internet‐based technologies dominate the new business models of the digital economy giving companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries. One of the most illustrative examples of this new trend is the Open Source Software (OSS) projects development. This paper aims to analyse the structure and topology of the virtual community supporting one of the most successfully OSS projects, Linux. The objective is to provide conclusions for being successful in the development of future virtual communities. As companies learn to manage these virtual communities, they will develop smarter and faster ways to create value through them.Design/methodology/approachThe interactions of the virtual community members of an ARM‐embedded Linux project website is analysed through social network analysis techniques. The participants' activity is studied and some conclusions about the participation features are obtained using the Gini coefficient. In particular, a participation inequality behaviour or a concentration on a small number of developers is clearly observed.FindingsThe paper deals with the guidelines that virtual communities should follow to be successful. Results about the structure of a successful virtual community and its time evolution are provided to determine the mentioned guidelines.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited to a particular virtual community engaged with the development of the ARM‐embedded Linux OSS. Other successful virtual communities can be analysed, and the conclusions could be compared. Anyway, the proposed analysis methodology can be extended to other virtual communities.Originality/valueThe paper fulfils the development and features of Internet virtual communities to be successful. Results have important implications over the development of new software business models based on virtual communities and open source software. Contributions about the best organisation of virtual communities leading to a successful development of the underlying project are presented.

A diffusion model for measuring electronic community growth and value

Marketing practitioners have pursued understanding, support and leverage of virtual communities, given their potential for aggregating people/consumers with shared interests, fostering connections and relationships, and influencing behavior. A challenge for practitioners in building successful virtual communities has been understanding the dynamics of an online community with respect to growth, and, in turn, predicting the potential equity of an electronic community. Organizations armed with this predictive ability could better decide in which communities to be a first/early entrant and where they can build valuable customer relationships. We address this issue by developing and proposing a diffusion model of electronic community growth and value, based on a respected diffusion model, with modifications and adjustments to fit the special characteristics of electronic communities. This should help organizations to better understand how to build or identify valuable virtual communities, and better invest marketing dollars in community-related activities such as promotions and customer relationship building.

Analysis of virtual communities supporting OSS projects using social network analysis

This paper analyses the behaviour of virtual communities for Open Source Software (OSS) projects. The development of OSS projects relies on virtual communities, which are built on relationships among members, being their final objective sharing knowledge and improving the underlying project. This study addresses the interactive collaboration in these kinds of communities applying social network analysis (SNA). In particular, SNA techniques will be used to identify those members playing a middle-man role among other community members. Results will illustrate the importance of this role to achieve successful virtual communities.

Finding critical success factors for virtual community marketing

Previous studies have identified critical success factors related to using virtual communities as a marketing channel. These studies have followed two research trends that connect the virtual community to actual purchasing. One is finding relationships between the operational elements of a virtual community and members’ intent to purchase and the other is finding relationships between characteristics of virtual community members and their intent to purchase. The model for this study reflects both trends. In addition, the model reflects research related to factors of customer satisfaction and the measurement of marketing success in terms of sense of community and loyalty. Conclusions from this research have been verified empirically with survey data collected from 292 virtual community members representing nine profit-oriented virtual communities. This study confirms that operational elements of a virtual community and characteristics of virtual community members affect the success of virtual community marketing. It is also confirmed that perceptions of usefulness, trust, and commitment toward the virtual community are important intervening effects. However, not all factors studied in the model were found to be significant in relationship to successful virtual community marketing. The analysis of the results from this study should be helpful to practitioners who use virtual communities as a marketing channel.

Determinants of successful virtual communities: Contributions from system characteristics and social factors

Although there is growing interest in virtual communities, few studies have examined them from an integrated viewpoint including technical and social perspectives. By expanding on DeLone and McLean’s IS success model, the author constructed a model of the impact of system characteristics (e.g., information and system quality) and social factors (e.g., trust and social usefulness) in implementing successful virtual communities. Data collected from 198 community members provided support for the model. Results showed that both member satisfaction and a sense of belonging were determinants of member loyalty in the community. Additionally, information and system quality were found to affect member satisfaction, while trust influenced the members’ sense of belonging to the community. Finally, the findings provided understanding of the factors that measured virtual community success. Implications of my study are discussed.

The role of online and offline features in sustaining virtual communities: an empirical study

PurposeBy expanding the technology acceptance model, the purpose of this paper is to provide a research model to examine the impact of online (information quality, system quality and service quality) and offline (offline activities) features on the sustainability of virtual communities.Design/methodology/approach– Based on a survey of 165 community members, the paper uses structural equation modeling approach to investigate the research model.FindingsThe findings indicate that perceived of usefulness, perceived ease of use and offline activities are determinants of sustainability of virtual communities. In addition, information quality affects perceived usefulness, while system‐quality and service quality influence both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of virtual communities.Research limitations/implicationsSince this study only considered non‐profit virtual communities, it is unclear whether these analytical results can be generalized to other virtual communities. Further research can apply this research model to examine profit‐oriented virtual communities, such as eBay.com.tw or brand communities.Practical implicationsTo sustain a successful virtual community, attention must be paid to enhance both online and offline interactions, including content management, specific sets of web site functions and offline communication. Virtual community providers can apply the findings of this study to focus on the determinants of success for their virtual communities.Originality/valueTheoretically, while drawing upon the extended TAM, this paper provides a model that is capable of understanding the determinants of sustainability of virtual communities. From a managerial perspective, the findings should provide further insight into member behaviors, leading to more effective strategies for expanding the virtual community.