Who Contributes Knowledge? Core-Periphery Tension in Online Innovation Communities

Abstract

Where do valuable contributions originate from in online innovation communities? Prior research provides conflicting answers. One view, consistent with a community of practice perspective, is that valued knowledge contributions are primarily provided by central participants at the core of a community. In contrast, other research—including work adopting an open innovation perspective—predicts that valuable ideas primarily emerge from peripheral participants, those at the margins of a field of knowledge who provide novel ideas and viewpoints. We integrate these contrasting perspectives by considering two distinct forms of position: social embeddedness (a core social position within the social network of participants interacting within a community) and epistemic marginality (a peripheral epistemic position based on the network of topics discussed by a community). Analyzing contributions by 697,412 participants of 52 Stack Exchange online innovation communities, we find that both participants who are socially embedded and participants who are epistemically marginal provide knowledge contributions that are highly valued by fellow community participants. Importantly, among epistemically marginal participants, those with high social embeddedness are more likely to provide contributions valued by the community; by virtue of their epistemic marginality, these participants may offer novel ideas while by virtue of their social embeddedness they may be able to more effectively communicate their ideas to the community. Thus, the production of knowledge in an online innovation community involves a complex interaction between the novelty emanating from the epistemic periphery and the social embeddedness required to make ideas congruent with existing social and epistemic norms.

The Fluidity of an Individual’s Core-Periphery Position in Digital Knowledge Fields

“…Digital knowledge fields emerge from digitallymediated interactions among loosely connected social actors at a distance, outside of formal employment relationships and organizational hierarchy [6], [8]. They constitute a relational social structure that emerges from artifact-mediated coproduction processes among multiple knowledge producers who create digital artifacts using the same digital platform and coproduction tools [12].…”

“…The pre-digital view of knowledge fields assumes that such core-periphery structures remain stable once they have converged. However, there is evidence that in digital knowledge fields, social structures are more fluid [6], [10], [12], [16]. In other words, the notion of a stable core group does not exist [10, p. 3044].…”

“…software projects). In these fields, knowledge producers simultaneously strive to produce and contribute new knowledge to the field while sharing common interests in advancing the knowledge in the field as a whole and using the same digital tools and resources available via a common digital platform [4]- [6].…”

“…The emerging literature on digital knowledge fields suggests that despite the unique characteristics of digitally-enabled coproduction, the digital knowledge field's social structure follows a core-periphery logic well known from the pre-digital era [4], [6]: The field constitutes a cohesive subgroup of knowledge producers in the core surrounded by a set of peripheral actors only loosely connected to the core [7]- [9]. There is also evidence that an individual's position within this coreperiphery structure has implications for her or his relative ability to produce and contribute new knowledge (e.g., writing new lines of code), or productivity for short.…”

“…Prior literature on knowledge fields provides a variety of explanations of how individuals may resolve this tension: e.g. by seeking an intermediate position between the core and the periphery, by mutually occupying a core position within the social structure and a marginal position within the semantic knowledge structure of the same field, or by complementing a core position within the field with many linkages to other external knowledge fields [4], [6].…”