Social capital and volunteerism in virtual communities: The case of the Internet Chess Club

M. Ginsburg, S. Weisband

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

26 Scopus citations

Abstract

Considers the theory of social capital and volunteerism in an online gaming community, the Internet Chess Club (ICC). We discuss how increased social capital provides broad classes of benefits to the participants of the network and suggest how volunteerism can be expected to increase the social capital of a network. We present survey data collected from 62 members of ICC to examine how different types of online volunteers are recruited and work in a successful virtual community. We show that ICC volunteers encourage and enable intense interaction for the benefit of all the membership subgroups. That is, volunteers create social capital and serve as a key asset of the ICC business model; they strengthen both the ICC core business tenets and improve the software features it can offer to members, thereby providing the key to one virtual community's business success.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2002
EditorsRalph H. Sprague
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages2225-2234
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)0769514359
DOIs
StatePublished - 2002
Event35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2002 - Big Island, United States
Duration: Jan 7 2002Jan 10 2002

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Volume2002-January
ISSN (Print)1530-1605

Other

Other35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2002
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBig Island
Period1/7/021/10/02

Keywords

  • Advertising
  • Autism
  • Computer aided software engineering
  • Diseases
  • Electronic commerce
  • Internet
  • Power generation economics
  • Recruitment
  • Social network services
  • Yarn

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Engineering

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