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Creating value in online communities: the sociomaterial configuring of strategy, platform, and stakeholder engagement

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Barrett, MI 
Oborn, E 
Orlikowski, W 

Abstract

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.

Description

Keywords

35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services, 3507 Strategy, Management and Organisational Behaviour, Clinical Research, Generic health relevance

Journal Title

Information Systems Research

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1526-5536
1526-5536

Volume Title

27

Publisher

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
Sponsorship
Eivor Oborn is part-funded/supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care West Midlands.