Group Identification, Goal Setting and Social Modeling in Directing Online
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Organizing without Formal Organization: Group Identification, Goal Setting and Social Modeling in Directing Online Production Haiyi Zhu, Robert Kraut, Aniket Kittur Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA15213 {haiyiz, robert.kraut, nkittur}@cs.cmu.edu ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION A challenge for many online production communities is to Online production communities are becoming increasingly direct their members to accomplish tasks that are important important in creating innovative products in the networked to the group, even when these tasks may not match world. These organizations have successfully aggregated individual members’ interests. Here we investigate how the efforts of millions of volunteers to produce complex combining group identification and direction setting can artifacts such as GNU/Linux and Wikipedia. Currently most motivate volunteers in online communities to accomplish large online projects primarily rely on a paradigm of self- tasks important to the success of the group as a whole. We direction in which contributors work primarily on the tasks hypothesize that group identity, the perception of belonging they are interested in. This paradigm provides a number of to a group, triggers in-group favoritism; and direction benefits. Contributors are motivated to work on the tasks in setting (including explicit direction from group goals and which they are intrinsically interested in and are likely to implicit direction from role models) focuses people’s choose tasks in which they already have some expertise [4]. group-oriented motivation towards the group’s important However, this approach breaks down when there are tasks. We tested our hypotheses in the context of conflicts between the interests of the contributors and the Wikipedia's Collaborations of the Week (COTW), a group interests of the project as a whole. Many people may want goal setting mechanism and a social event within to work on the same popular areas (e.g., an article on Wikiprojects. Results demonstrate that 1) publicizing “Barack Obama” in Wikipedia) while ignoring less popular important group goals via COTW can have a strong areas that require work. Contributors may not want to motivating influence on editors who have voluntarily perform maintenance and other unattractive tasks, even identified themselves as group members compared to those though these tasks are important to the continued who have not self-identified; 2) the effects of goals spill functioning and health of the project. over to non-goal related tasks; and 3) editors exposed to Many techniques used in conventional employment group role models in COTW are more likely to perform organizations are not effective in managing online similarly to the models on group-relevant citizenship volunteers due to the fundamental characteristics of online behaviors. Finally, we discuss design and managerial communities, including lack of employment contracts, implications based on our findings. weak external incentives, weak interpersonal bonds, Author Keywords impoverished communication, large size, and high turnover Online Production Communities, Group Identification, [20]. For example, if a project tries to exert too much Governance Mechanisms, Directing Behaviors, Group managerial control, volunteers can simply leave, with fewer Goals. economic or social consequences than if they had quit a job ACM Classification Keywords or left a real-life social group. H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and Instead, communities must turn to other means of Organization Interfaces – Collaborative computing, motivating volunteers to accomplish tasks that are Computer-supported cooperative work, Web-based important for the welfare of the group. One technique is by interaction; K.4.3 [Computers and Society]: Organizational leveraging group identification—the perception of Impacts – Computer supported collaborative work. belonging to a group. If volunteers feel that their identities are tied to the identity of the group, their goals may be more likely to reflect those that are important to the group Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for [1,15,19,32]. However, group identification by itself does personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not specify which particular tasks to work on. not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or In contrast, direction setting—for example by specifying republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior goals—can be an effective mechanism for accomplishing specific permission and/or a fee. CSCW 2012, February 11–15, 2012, Seattle, Washington. specific tasks [3,21,22]. However, direction setting by itself Copyright 2011 ACM XXX-X-XXXXX-XXX-X/XX/XX...$5.00. may not be enough. For example, Cosley and his colleagues found that task recommendations based only on the community’s needs are less likely to interest members than can legitimately assign employees tasks and rewards and those that consider personal needs [9]. These challenges punish them based on their amount and quality of work. may become even more pronounced for tasks that are Bureaucratic control legitimizes the roles of managers, so considered unpleasant or unrewarding. that employees see themselves as having an obligation to We hypothesize that group identification and direction adhere to the decisions made by their managers. External setting can complement each other in managing volunteers’ incentives, including monetary rewards such as raises and efforts. Group identification can align the individual bonuses, and social ones including promotions and better volunteer’s goals with the group’s goals, while direction assignments, supplement this legitimacy and are also setting can channel their effort toward specific group goals. important in causing employees to follow the direction of Thus people who identify themselves as group members their managers. may voluntarily follow directions based on group needs and Bureaucratic control has become the primary control perform tasks valued by the group because they believe that strategy in conventional modern organizations. Some investing effort in these tasks is important for the group and degree of bureaucratic control exists in online production thus validates their own identity. communities, as well. For many years, Linus Torvalds had This paper describes a mechanism to motivate and manage significant control in the community developing the Linux volunteers when standard managerial mechanisms deployed operating system. Although by definition managers cannot in conventional organizations are not available. This use wages as incentives to get volunteers to comply with mechanism combines group identification and direction their directives, they can motivate contributors through setting. Particularly, two sources of direction setting are promotion from rank-and-file positions to more important investigated – explicit direction based on publicized group ones, such as committer status in open source software goals and implicit direction based on role modeling. We test development projects [29] or administrator status in the effectiveness of the mechanism in the context of Wikipedia [6]. WikiProjects, subgroups within Wikipedia. After presenting However, the effectiveness of bureaucratic control is the main findings we also discuss design implications for limited by other characteristics of online production governance in online communities. communities. As with market mechanisms, online TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT MECHANISMS production communities cannot afford external incentives. Markets Furthermore, tight managerial control of volunteers, The market mechanism relies on individuals to make including regular supervision and communication with independent decisions about the tasks they want to them, is associated with higher turnover rates in offline undertake and how they will do them. In contrast to simple volunteer organizations. According to Hager and Brudney, self-direction, market mechanisms use external incentives, bureaucratic control may cause their “volunteer experiences such as price, to regulate participants’ behaviors. Amazon’s to feel too much like the grind of their daily work rather Mechanical Turk, a popular crowd sourcing website, uses than an enjoyable avocation,” [14, p. 9] and thereby drive price to encourage subscribers to undertake tasks that them away. In addition, impoverished communication and employers care most about. If Wikipedia applied a weak interpersonal bonds in online communities weaken monetary market mechanism, it would pay editors more for the managers’ ability to exert bureaucratic control [10]. editing important but unpopular articles or for engaging in INCORPORATING GROUP IDENTITY AND DIRECTION important but tedious tasks such as maintenance work. SETTING However, volunteer peer production systems rarely have the Group identity resources to provide external incentives to get important Tajfel and his colleagues conducted a series of laboratory work done. External incentives may undermine people’s studies in the early 1970s showing that the mere perception intrinsic motivation to contribute if they become focused on of belonging to a group – that is, social categorization per the extrinsic rewards [11]. Finally, they may be inconsistent se – is sufficient to trigger intergroup discrimination with the ideology