Organizational Virtual Communities:
Exploring Motivations Behind Online Panel Participation

Abstract

One type of virtual community that has emerged prominently within the commercially‐driven marketing research industry is the online panel. Online panels are opt‐in, informed consent, privacy‐protected subject pools recruited for Web‐based research. Unlike virtual communities forged from interpersonal motivations, online panels represent a community of participants who have agreed to provide information at regular intervals over a period of time. This study presents and tests a theoretical framework governed by the functional theory of attitude that serves to explain motivations for online panel participation. Analysis of data from a survey administered to an online panel (N=1,822) indicates that a person's attitude toward joining an online panel will vary by his or her source of motivation, and that an online panel is capable of evoking a sense of community despite the lack of social interaction among members.

The Reader-to-Leader Framework: Motivating Technology-Mediated Social Participation

“…Some collaborations are handled democratically with no hierarchical structure, while others may require engaging a well-structured corporate unit to deliver on repeated milestones. Other collaborations may occur in structured environments such as those provided by panel discussions (Daugherty et al, 2005) or purpose-built, large-scale collaboratories for facilitating scientific data sharing (Bos et al, 2007;Zimmerman and Finholt, 2007).…”

Teacher Participation in Online Communities

“…Ellis, Oldridge, and Vasconcelos (2004) claim that people participate in online communities not because of the information shared but because of the sense of belonging that participation produces. Daugherty et al (2005) state that members join online communities for various reasons, such as information seeking and emotional sharing, but they also point out that some members do not have an explicit need for communication with other members.…”

Perceptions of justice or injustice as determinants of contributor defections from online communities

“…Several researchers have explored the motivations of participants contributing their knowledge to organizational electronic knowledge repositories and virtual communities of practice. User engagement and user contributions have been examined, for instance, through system-recorded archival data related to contribution behavior (Hendriks, 1999;Kang, Kim, Gloor, & Bock, 2011;Nov, Naaman, & Ye, 2010;Oh, 2012;Wang & Lai, 2006;Wasko & Faraj, 2005), self-reported frequency of contribution (Hars & Ou, 2002;Kankanhalli, Tan, & Wei, 2005;Yates, Wagner, & Majchrzak, 2010), self-reported attitudes toward contribution (Daugherty, Lee, Gangadharbatla, Kim, & Outhavong, 2005), and open-ended responses to motivational questions (Wasko & Faraj, 2000). Many of these studies explained why people contribute to electronic (online) environments.…”