Social translucence: designing social infrastructures that make collective activity visible
Communications of the ACM - Supporting community and building social capital
Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Socialbilty
Online Communities: Designing Usability and Supporting Socialbilty
Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge
Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge
Electronic Commerce Research
Journal of Management Information Systems - Special section: Exploring the outlands of the MIS discipline
Online crowdsourcing in the public sector: how to design open government platforms
OCSC'11 Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Online communities and social computing
Knowledge Collaboration in Online Communities
Organization Science
The Core and Cosmopolitans: A Relational View of Innovation in User Communities
Organization Science
Journal of Management Information Systems
Getting Real About Virtual Worlds: A Review
International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking
The influence of user affect in online information disclosure
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
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In recent years, many companies have established virtual customer environments (VCEs) that offer facilities ranging from online discussion forums to virtual product design centers to partner with their customers in product development and product support activities. In this study, we focus on one form of VCE, online customer forums, and propose that the relevance of four distinct theoretical perspectives---social capital theory, social exchange theory, involvement, and social identity theory---to explaining customer participation will be contingent on the nature of the customer contribution context, that is, whether the contributions are to the customer community (through product support) or to the company (through product ideation). We propose a model suggesting that customers' prosocial behavior and expectations of private rewards will shape contributions to the community, whereas their perceived innovation partnership with the company and expectations of private rewards will shape a contribution to the company. We also contend that these effects will be moderated by customers' identification with the community and with the company. Our empirical findings offer support for the model and indicate that online customer forums (and more broadly VCEs) should be tailored to fit the nature of customer contribution sought. Implications for research and practice in customer co-innovation, online peer-to-peer communities, and customer relationship management are discussed.