Individual Factors that Influence Effort and Contributions on Wikipedia

TL;DR

This study investigates how attitude, self-efficacy, and altruism affect effort and contributions on Wikipedia, revealing that effort impacts contributions and is influenced by altruism facets and attitude, with experience enhancing self-efficacy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model incorporating altruism facets and effort as a precursor to performance, based on the theory of planned behavior and empirical data from Wikipedia users.

Findings

Effort influences active contributions.

Attitude and altruism facets influence effort.

Experience moderates effort and self-efficacy relationship.

Abstract

In this work, we aim to analyze how attitude, self-efficacy, and altruism influence effort and active contributions on Wikipedia. We propose a new conceptual model based on the theory of planned behavior and findings from the literature on online communities. This model differs from other models that have been previously proposed by considering altruism in its various facets (identification, reciprocity, and reputation), and by treating effort as a factor prior to performance results, which is measured in terms of active contributions, according to the organizational literature. To fulfill the study specific objectives, Wikipedia surveyed community members and collected secondary data. After excluding outliers, we obtained a final sample with 212 participants. We applied exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, which resulted in a model with satisfactory fit indices. The results indicate that effort influences active contributions, and attitude, altruism by reputation, and altruism by identification influence effort. None of the proposed factors are directly related to active contributions. Experience directly influences self-efficacy while it positively moderates the relation between effort and active contributions. Finally, we present the conclusions via several implications for the literature as well as suggestions for future research.