Trust, Control, and Formalization in Open-Collaboration Communities: A Qualitative Study of Wikipedia

Abstract

Trust, control and organizational routines are often perceived as key concerns of organization studies. Theoretically, this study presents an investigation into the enactment of interpersonal and institutional trust, credentials and identity in computer supported cooperative work. It adds to the ongoing debate on participative designs, online communities and open collaboration by demonstrating via a study that trust in people can be substituted for by not only increased control, but also by trust in procedures and legalistic remedies, especially in organizational designs where face to face interactions are limited or nonexistent. This paper relies on a longtitudinal, participative, netnographic study of Wikipedia community.