This is a poster on online community health which I presented on December 16, 2014, at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) in Auckland, New Zealand.

1. Toward a Conceptualization
of Online Community Health
David Wagner1, Alexander Richter2, Matthias Trier3,
Heinz-Theo Wagner1
1German Graduate School of Management and Law, 2University of Zurich,
3Copenhagen Business School
Abstract
In this paper, we work toward a
construct conceptualization of online
community health. Through a review
of extant literature and dialogue with
specialists in the field, we develop a
multi-dimensional construct of on-line
community health, consisting of
seven elements.
Motivation
Organizations engage in a vari-ety
of community settings that
span departmental and organiza-tional
boundaries, connecting di-verse
stakeholders (Gulati et al.
2012; Jarvenpaa and Lang 2011;
Nambisan and Baron 2010).
As a result, new functions, such as
dedicated community management
teams, are being established (Kane
et al. 2009; Parmentier and Gandia
2013).
The basic objective of community
management is to keep a commu-nity
alive and thriving (Kraut and
Resnick, 2011).
The construct of online commu-nity
health has been introduced
to the academic literature (Wang
and Lantzy 2011) and been adopted
by numerous practitioners (Lithium
2012).
However, the initial proposal from
Wang and Lantzy (2011) lacks a sol-id
grounding in the literature and has
not been empirically tested. A more
systematic, comprehensive concep-tualization
thus seems warranted.
Research Question
How can the construct of online com-munity
health be comprehensively
conceptualized?
Method
The first part of the research project,
presented in this paper, consists of
a qualitative analysis of practition-er
perceptions based on interviews
(Kvale 2008).
In the subsequent stage, a quantita-tive
study is to be conducted with
a longitudinal data set of an online
community (Hogan 2008; Lazer et
al. 2009).
The focal community is Mo-tor-
Talk, Europe’s biggest automo-tive
community (http://www.motor-talk.
de/). Motor-Talk hosts more
than 600 brand and thematic fo-rums.
Out of the 600 forums, we collected
archival data for 4 forums (2 brand/2
thematic forums; 2 healthy/2 un-healthy
forums), i.e., theoretical
sampling to maximize differences in
data (Urquhart and Vaast 2012).
Dimensions
Contributions
The paper is designed to meet the du-al
objectives of engaged scholarship
(Van de Ven 2007).
Theory: We follow the calls by fellow
scholars to engage in theory devel-opment
(Corley and Gioia 2011; Ma-jchrzak
2009; Urquhart and Vaast
2012) by laying the foundation for an
emerging construct (MacKenzie et al.
2011), i.e., online community health
(Wang and Lantzy 2011). In doing so,
we attempt to derive a conceptual-ization
that is beyond the reach of
current performance variables used
in organizational or information sys-tems
contexts.
Practice: The paper is targeted at a
specific group of practitioners, i.e.,
social media and online communi-ty
managers (Jaworski 2011; Kane
et al. 2009; Parmentier and Gandia
2013). The construct of online com-munity
health informs the evalua-tion
of their communities and allows
them to conduct regular health as-sessments
that lead to actionable in-sights.
Key References
Kraut, R. E., and Resnick, P. 2011. Building Successful Online
Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design, Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
MacKenzie, S. B., Podsakoff, P. M., and Podsakoff, N. P.
2011. “Construct Measurement and Validation Procedures in
MIS and Behavioral Research: Integrating New and Existing
Techniques,” MIS Quarterly (35:2), pp. 293–334.
Preece, J. 2001. “Sociability and Usability in Online Commu-nities:
Determining and Measuring Success,” Behaviour &
Information Technology (20:5), pp. 347–356.