Customer Role Ambiguity in Community Management

This paper examines challenges involved in managing product-centered communities. Using the notion of customer role ambiguity, the paper explores the ambiguity involved in balancing sound business modeling with voluntary customer participation in a computer gaming setting. The case study identifies three different customer role ambiguities – role absorption, business model violation, and non-organizational network elements – with important implications for community management. We suggest that an understanding of these implications is critical for making product-centered communities viable alternatives to traditional software development.