The Emergence of Online Community Leadership

Author List: Johnson, Steven L.; Safadi, Hani; Faraj, Samer;
Information Systems Research, 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1, Page 165-187.
Compared to traditional organizations, online community leadership processes and how leaders emerge are not well studied. Previous studies of online leadership have often identified leaders as those who administer forums or have high network centrality scores. Although communication in online communities occurs almost exclusively through written words, little research has addressed how the comparative use of language shapes community dynamics. Using participant surveys to identify leading online community members, this study analyzes a year of communication network history and message content to assess whether language use differentiates leaders from other core community participants. We contribute a novel use of textual analysis to develop a model of language use to evaluate the utterances of all participants in the community. We find that beyond communication network positionÑin terms of formal role, centrality, membership in the core, and boundary spanningÑthose viewed as leaders by other participants, post a large number of positive, concise posts with simple language familiar to other participants. This research provides a model to study online language use and points to the emergent and shared nature of online community leadership.
Keywords: online communities ; leadership ; natural language processing ; knowledge management ; network analysis ; computer-mediated communication and collaboration
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#45 0.296 community communities online members participants wikipedia social member knowledge content discussion collaboration attachment communication law virtual membership structures forms activities
#220 0.105 research study different context findings types prior results focused studies empirical examine work previous little knowledge sources implications specifically provide
#281 0.097 database language query databases natural data queries relational processing paper using request views access use matching automated semantic based languages
#191 0.078 model models process analysis paper management support used environment decision provides based develop use using help literature mathematical presented formulation
#249 0.078 network networks social analysis ties structure p2p exchange externalities individual impact peer-to-peer structural growth centrality participants sharing economic ownership embeddedness
#2 0.071 leadership leaders effective leader roles authority assume slow responsibility structure recognize responsibilities look size inevitable attain trend held articulate dominate
#188 0.065 processes interaction new interactions temporal structure research emergent process theory address temporally core discussion focuses area underlying deep structures way
#237 0.061 boundary practices capacity new boundaries use practice absorptive organizational technology work field multiple study objects actors actor theory practical spanning