Creating Value in Online Communities: The Sociomaterial Configuring of Strategy, Platform, and Stakeholder Engagement

Author List: Barrett, Michael; Oborn, Eivor; Orlikowski, Wanda J.;
Information Systems Research, 2016, Volume 27, Issue 4, Page 704-723.
How is value created in an online community (OC) over time? We explored this question through a longitudinal field study of an OC in the healthcare arena. We found that multiple kinds of value were produced and changed over time as different participants engaged with the OC and its evolving technology in various ways. To explain our findings, we theorize OC value as performed through the ongoing sociomaterial configuring of strategies, digital platforms, and stakeholder engagement. We develop a process perspective to explain these dynamics and identify multiple different kinds of value being created by an OC over time: financial, epistemic, ethical, service, reputational, and platform. Our research points to the importance of expanding the notion of OC users to encompass a broader understanding of stakeholders. It further suggests that creating OC value increasingly requires going beyond a dyadic relationship between the OC and the firm to encompassing a more complex relationship involving a wider ecosystem of stakeholders.
Keywords: digital; online communities; health IT; value; computer-mediated communication and collaboration
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#111 0.191 e-government collective sociomaterial material institutions actors practice particular organizational routines practices relations mindfulness different analysis ways draw agencies drawing ideas
#143 0.136 value business benefits technology based economic creation related intangible cocreation assessing financial improved key economics assess question created create understanding
#282 0.099 power perspective process study rational political perspectives politics theoretical longitudinal case social rationality formation construction shows multiple instead understanding fact
#25 0.076 relationships relationship relational information interfirm level exchange relations perspective model paper interpersonal expertise theory study effects literature role social identify
#98 0.076 platform platforms dynamics ecosystem greater generation open ecosystems evolution two-sided technologies investigate generations migration services implications interplay disruptive control markets
#130 0.072 online users active paper using increasingly informational user data internet overall little various understanding empirical despite lead cascades help availability
#128 0.063 dynamic time dynamics model change study data process different changes using longitudinal understanding decisions develop temporal reveal associated state identifies
#279 0.051 field work changes new years time change major period year end use past early century half traditional areas established strong