Managing viable virtual communities: an exploratory case study and explanatory model

Virtual communities play an important part in enabling people with common interests to interact with each other. Current research mostly focuses on the aspects of social interaction, usability and success factors for virtual communities. However, few studies have analysed how management teams affect virtual communities. Therefore, our research focuses on the role of management teams for the success of virtual communities. Within an exploratory case study, we examine the development of a management team of a non-commercial virtual community of interest. We match our findings with the viable system model, and propose a theoretical model and resulting hypotheses. We use case study data to illustrate the propositions and to demonstrate design principles for virtual community management.