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What motivates members to contribute to enterprise online communities?

Authors:

Kate Ehrlich,

Michael Muller,

Tara Matthews,

Ido Guy,

Inbal RonenAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW Companion '14: Proceedings of the companion publication of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing

Pages 149 - 152

https://doi.org/10.1145/2556420.2556477

Published: 15 February 2014 Publication History

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Abstract

A major challenge for online communities is encouraging members to participate and contribute content to the community. While prior work has identified motivators to contribute for internet community members, it is unknown if these are the same for employees in enterprise communities. A qualitative study with a group of very active employee members of enterprise communities we called "informal leaders", revealed that they were motivated by wanting to help other members but only for those communities which related to their job. In contrast to prior findings from internet communities, they did not appear to be motivated by the need to develop their reputation or to connect with others. These results provide new insights into participation in enterprise online communities.

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Fang ZHuang Y(2024)"Math is a pain!": Understanding challenges and needs of the Machine Learning community on Stack OverflowProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869908:CSCW2(1-35)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686990
schraefel mHekler ETaylor JGilbert EKarahalios K(2019)WellComm2019Companion Publication of the 2019 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3311957.3359434(511-516)Online publication date: 9-Nov-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3311957.3359434
Schiavo GVillafiorita AZancanaro M(2019)(Non‐)Participation in deliberation at work: a case study of online participative decision‐makingNew Technology, Work and Employment10.1111/ntwe.1212734:1(37-58)Online publication date: 28-Jan-2019
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Index Terms

What motivates members to contribute to enterprise online communities?
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing

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Published In

CSCW Companion '14: Proceedings of the companion publication of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing

February 2014

372 pages

ISBN:9781450325417

DOI:10.1145/2556420

General Chairs:
Susan Fussell
Cornell University
,
Wayne Lutters
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
,
Program Chairs:
Meredith Ringel Morris
Microsoft Research
,
Madhu Reddy
Penn State University

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 15 February 2014

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CSCW'14

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SIGCHI

CSCW'14: Computer Supported Cooperative Work

February 15 - 19, 2014

Maryland, Baltimore, USA

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CSCW Companion '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 88 of 497 submissions, 18%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

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CSCW '25

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October 18 - 22, 2025

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Cited By

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Fang ZHuang Y(2024)"Math is a pain!": Understanding challenges and needs of the Machine Learning community on Stack OverflowProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869908:CSCW2(1-35)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
schraefel mHekler ETaylor JGilbert EKarahalios K(2019)WellComm2019Companion Publication of the 2019 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3311957.3359434(511-516)Online publication date: 9-Nov-2019
Schiavo GVillafiorita AZancanaro M(2019)(Non‐)Participation in deliberation at work: a case study of online participative decision‐makingNew Technology, Work and Employment10.1111/ntwe.1212734:1(37-58)Online publication date: 28-Jan-2019
Goswami AKumar A(2018)Online Social CommunitiesDigital Business10.1007/978-3-319-93940-7_13(289-341)Online publication date: 27-Jul-2018
Muller MDugan CBrenndoerfer MMonroe MGeyer WLee CPoltrock SBarkhuus LBorges MKellogg W(2017)What Did I Ask You to Do, by When, and for Whom?Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/2998181.2998251(1009-1023)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2017
Lee CPoltrock SBarkhuus LBorges MKellogg W(2017)Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social ComputingundefinedOnline publication date: 25-Feb-2017
Kremer-Davidson SRonen ILeiba LKaplan ABarnea MLukosch SSarcevic ALewkowicz MMuller M(2016)Raising your Eminence inside the Enterprise Social NetworkProceedings of the 2016 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work10.1145/2957276.2957281(111-120)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2016
Guy IRonen IKravi EBarnea M(2016)Increasing Activity in Enterprise Online Communities Using Content RecommendationACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/291058123:4(1-28)Online publication date: 13-Aug-2016
Dong WEhrlich KMacy MMuller MGergle DMorris MBjørn PKonstan J(2016)Embracing Cultural DiversityProceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing10.1145/2818048.2835198(274-287)Online publication date: 27-Feb-2016
Karumur RNguyen TKonstan JGergle DMorris MBjørn PKonstan J(2016)Early Activity DiversityProceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing10.1145/2818048.2820009(595-608)Online publication date: 27-Feb-2016
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Starting Online Communities: Motivations and Goals of Wiki Founders