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Introduction
Information technologies play an increasingly important role for the management of modern organizations, creating and capturing value in novel ways by harnessing knowledge resources and (big) data. A noteworthy segment of emerging information technologies is social software, which helps to connect organizational stakeholders in online communities. Prominent examples include company-wide social networking sites and customer-facing brand or innovation communities. As online communities enter the mainstream, they demonstrate their utility primarily for operational purposes, e.g. as extended marketing channels. However, we know little about how organizations may also use online communities strategically.
In this paper, we argue that online communities may be used as strategic vehicles, helping organizations adapt to a changing business environment. We believe that online communities should constitute a key component of any organization's digital business strategy.
Online communities
Sproull and Arriaga (2007, p. 898) define online communities as collectives of "voluntary members whose primary goal is member and collective welfare, whose members share a common interest, experience, or conviction and positive regard for other members, and who interact with one another and contribute to the collectivity primarily over the Net". Research shows that online communities constitute rich communication environments for organizations and afford behaviors that were not possible with previous forms of computer-mediated communication (Wagner et al. , 2014). For example, content produced in online communities is generally visible to all members and remains visible over time. Associations can be made between people and content (e.g. certain areas of expertise) or through connections between people (e.g. communities of practice). Members of online communities may edit and update the content, which enables them to dynamically create and re-create knowledge objects (e.g. through revisions). Due to these characteristics, online communities are suited specifically for knowledge collaboration among stakeholders, such as employees, customers and the public (Faraj et al. , 2011).
Online communities and strategic management
In the field of strategy, researchers have yet to incorporate the opportunities and challenges of online communities into their work (Haefliger et al. , 2011). The first publications available focus specifically on the resolution of firm boundaries and organizational hierarchies, i.e. issues surrounding organizational design (Gulati et al. , 2012). Consider Wikipedia, the encyclopedia or Mozilla, producer of the web browser Firefox. Both organizations are open communities...