Paper Info
Title
Information Quality in Wikipedia: The Effects of Group Composition and Task Conflict
Abstract
The success of Wikipedia demonstrates that self-organizing production communities can produce high-quality information-based products. Research on Wikipedia has proceeded largely atheoretically, focusing on (1) the diversity in members' knowledge bases as a determinant of Wikipedia's content quality, (2) the task-related conflicts that occur during the collaborative authoring process, and (3) the different roles members play in Wikipedia. We develop a theoretical model that explains how these three factors interact to determine the quality of Wikipedia articles. The results from the empirical study of 96 Wikipedia articles suggest that (1) diversity should be encouraged, as the creative abrasion that is generated when cognitively diverse members engage in task-related conflict leads to higher-quality articles, (2) task conflict should be managed, as conflict-notwithstanding its contribution to creative abrasion-can negatively affect group output, and (3) groups should maintain a balance of both administrative-and content-oriented members, as both contribute to the collaborative process.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.2753/MIS0742-1222270403
J. of Management Information Systems
Keywords
DocType
Volume
collaborative process,administrative-and content-oriented member,Group Composition,cognitively diverse member,Wikipedia article,creative abrasion-can,task-related conflict,content quality,creative abrasion,task conflict,Information Quality,Task Conflict,collaborative authoring process
Journal
27
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
4
0742-1222
70
PageRank 
References 
Authors
1.53
40
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ofer Arazy150230.43
Oded Nov298463.88
Raymond Patterson31003.74
Lisa Yeo41214.12