A structural solution to communication dilemmas in a virtual community

In a many-to-many communication setting like a virtual community, individuals may be strongly tempted to free-ride on others' contributions, which would eventually lead to the collapse of the community. To find a structural solution to the communication dilemma, this study compared the performances of 2 communication structures-one based on the interpersonal networks (network-generalized exchange: NEX,- e.g., blogs) and the other based on a public electronic bulletin board (group-generalized exchange: G(EX)). In a 2 x 2 x 2 longitudinal between-subject experiment, it was found that G(EX) to N-EX could increase the contributions made by individuals. Furtherchanging more, N-EX was found to be an effective structure for N-person communication particularly when a large number of individuals were involved. Tile findings imply that an individual's cooperative motivation is a function of the incentive structure of a particular form of information exchange, which means that altering the exchange form may be a possible solution to the communication dilemmas in virtual communities.