Evolution and revolution of organizational configurations on wikipedia: A longitudinal network analysis
Abstract
In this longitudinal study, the author investigated how various organizational motors drove evolutionary and revolutionary changes of organizational configurations in the Wikipedia co-authorship community over the first nine and a half years of Wikipedia's development. As one of the largest and most successful collaborative efforts in history, Wikipedia represents a model for other organizations seeking to achieve sustained growth and success, particularly large-scale online organizations, as well as an ideal example with which to study similarities and differences between the development of offline and online organizations. The gravity model of online interaction was used to value collaborative connections between editors who mutually developed Wikipedia content. A new stepwise regression model-selection approach was used to detect significant shifts in the trends of inbound degree centralization, outbound degree centralization, betweenness centralization, assortativity, and social entropy. These revolutionary changes, and the evolutionary trends which surrounded them, were mapped onto Mintzberg's Configurational Array (1989). Finally, the moments of revolutionary change were compared with prominent media stories, news items referencing Wikipedia, and important policy changes and events on Wikipedia to discern what organizational motors (Van de Ven & Poole, 1995) drove the organization to change between different configurations. In so doing, the configurational approach to organizations was intertwined with the organizational motor explanatory mechanism for change to forge a synthesized framework of configurational change. Future directions for research are discussed.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Matei, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Communication|Statistics|Organizational behavior
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