Stages of Motivation for Virtual Voluntary Teams Online Engagement

Members of Virtual Voluntary Teams engage in massive virtual collaborations (MVC), in which large numbers of mostly unpaid contributors collectively collaborate to create new content. Motivation for such contributions has been an active area of research. We argue that what was previously considered a single, static and individual phenomenon, namely motivation for contribution to MVC, is in fact at least three separate but interrelated phenomena, with varying organizational and dynamic aspects. Using the theory of helping behavior as a framework and integrating stage models, work motivation and social movement theory, we propose a conceptual framework that distinguishes three separate models of motivations of participants in Virtual Voluntary Teams. The models distinguish motivations for three stages of participation (initial, sustained and meta) and include as well propositions concerning the effects of contributions on individual states and emergent states of the project as a whole and vice versa. The models provide implications for both researchers and practitioners who manage MVC projects.