Firms host online communities for commercial purposes, for example in order to integrate customers into ideation for new product development. The success of these firm-hosted online communities depends entirely on the cooperation of a high number of customers that constantly produce valuable knowledge for firms. However, in practice, the majority of successfully implemented communities suffers from stagnation and even a decrease of member activities over time. Literature provides numerous guidelines on how to build and launch these online communities. While these models describe the initial steps of acquiring and activating a community base from scratch very well and explicitly, they neglect continuous member activation and acquistion after a successful launch. Against this background, the authors propose the Community Fostering Reference Model (CoFoRM), which represents a set of general procedures and instruments to continuously foster member activity. In this paper, the authors present the theory-driven design as well as the evaluation of the CoFoRM in a practical use setting. The evaluation results reveal that the CoFoRM represents a valuable instrument in the daily working routine of community managers, since it efficiently helps activating community members especially in the late phases of a community’s lifecycle.
%0 Journal Article
%1 ls_leimeister
%A Bretschneider, Ulrich
%A Hartmann, Marco
%A Leimeister, Jan Marco
%D 2017
%J Business Information System & Engineering (BISE)
%K itegpub journal pub_jml pub_mha pub_ubr
%N 6
%P 493-511
%R 10.1007/s12599-017-0500-6
%T Keep them alive! Design and Evaluation of the "Community Fostering Reference Model"
%U http://pubs.wi-kassel.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/JML_685.pdf
%V 60
%X Firms host online communities for commercial purposes, for example in order to integrate customers into ideation for new product development. The success of these firm-hosted online communities depends entirely on the cooperation of a high number of customers that constantly produce valuable knowledge for firms. However, in practice, the majority of successfully implemented communities suffers from stagnation and even a decrease of member activities over time. Literature provides numerous guidelines on how to build and launch these online communities. While these models describe the initial steps of acquiring and activating a community base from scratch very well and explicitly, they neglect continuous member activation and acquistion after a successful launch. Against this background, the authors propose the Community Fostering Reference Model (CoFoRM), which represents a set of general procedures and instruments to continuously foster member activity. In this paper, the authors present the theory-driven design as well as the evaluation of the CoFoRM in a practical use setting. The evaluation results reveal that the CoFoRM represents a valuable instrument in the daily working routine of community managers, since it efficiently helps activating community members especially in the late phases of a community’s lifecycle.
@article{ls_leimeister,
abstract = {Firms host online communities for commercial purposes, for example in order to integrate customers into ideation for new product development. The success of these firm-hosted online communities depends entirely on the cooperation of a high number of customers that constantly produce valuable knowledge for firms. However, in practice, the majority of successfully implemented communities suffers from stagnation and even a decrease of member activities over time. Literature provides numerous guidelines on how to build and launch these online communities. While these models describe the initial steps of acquiring and activating a community base from scratch very well and explicitly, they neglect continuous member activation and acquistion after a successful launch. Against this background, the authors propose the Community Fostering Reference Model (CoFoRM), which represents a set of general procedures and instruments to continuously foster member activity. In this paper, the authors present the theory-driven design as well as the evaluation of the CoFoRM in a practical use setting. The evaluation results reveal that the CoFoRM represents a valuable instrument in the daily working routine of community managers, since it efficiently helps activating community members especially in the late phases of a community’s lifecycle.},
added-at = {2016-09-07T17:55:14.000+0200},
author = {Bretschneider, Ulrich and Hartmann, Marco and Leimeister, Jan Marco},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/236e9b8352e7f4eba6bbafc56b1426e13/ls_leimeister},
doi = {10.1007/s12599-017-0500-6},
interhash = {eaa43920d6f59fbbb27130cffc1af3cf},
intrahash = {36e9b8352e7f4eba6bbafc56b1426e13},
issn = {2363-7005},
journal = {Business Information System & Engineering (BISE)},
keywords = {itegpub journal pub_jml pub_mha pub_ubr},
language = {English},
number = 6,
pages = {493-511},
timestamp = {2023-09-20T12:44:18.000+0200},
title = {Keep them alive! Design and Evaluation of the "Community Fostering Reference Model"},
url = {http://pubs.wi-kassel.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/JML_685.pdf},
volume = 60,
year = 2017
}