Managing Virtual Communities - A Case Study of a Viable System

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. In this paper, we focus on the management of virtual communities. Within a 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, generate and test hypotheses based on this model and draw conclusions. Data from the case study are used to illustrate the theories and to demonstrate principles for community management derived from the application of the Viable System Model.