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What Makes Corporate Wikis Work? Wiki
Affordances and Their Suitability for Corporate
Knowledge Work
M. Lisa Yeo and Ofer Arazy
Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, CA
http://www.business.ualberta.ca
Abstract. Wikis were originally intended for knowledge work in the
open Internet environment, and there seems to be an inherent tension
between wikis’ affordances and the nature knowledge work in organiza-
tions. The objective of this paper is to investigate how tailoring wikis
to corporate settings would impact users’ wiki activity. We begin by
synthesizing prior works on wikis’ design principles; identifying several
areas where we anticipate high tension between wikis’ affordances and
organizational work practices. We put forward five propositions regard-
ing how changes in corporate wikis deployment procedures may impact
users’ wiki activity. An empirical study in one multi-national organiza-
tion tested users’ perceptions towards these propositions, revealing that
in some cases there may be a need for modifying wiki’s design, while
in other cases corporations may wish to change their knowledge work
practices to align with wikis’ affordances.
Keywords: Wiki, Affordances, Knowledge Management.
1 Introduction
Wiki, derived from the Hawaiian-language word for fast, is a web-based col-
laborative authoring application [40,57]. While wikis are similar to discussion
forums and blogs, these prior online collaboration tools append to the content
contributed by users (e.g. discussion forums); in wikis each user edits the previ-
ous version of the page, with the most recent version reflecting the cumulative
contributions of all authors. Such features have made wiki-based applications
popular for knowledge management (KM) on the Internet (e.g. Wikipedia) and
many organizations are now making use of wikis to meet their own knowledge
management needs [23,30,42].
Wikis were originally intended for knowledge work in the open Internet en-
vironment; the most notable success of wiki technology is Wikipedia. Despite
the success of wikis in the public domain, it is not clear that wikis can succeed
in corporate settings as there seems to be an inherent tension between wikis’
affordances and the nature knowledge work in organizations [3,24]. While the
wiki system used in both Internet and corporate settings might be very similar,
K. Peffers, M. Rothenberger, and B. Kuechler (Eds.): DESRIST 2012, LNCS 7286, pp. 174–190, 2012.
c
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
What Makes Corporate Wikis Work? 175
wiki-based conversational KM practices may differ substantially from Internet
systems such as Wikipedia. For example, over the Internet, wiki editing is open
ended, while a corporation may put restriction on access privileges, provide tem-
plate formats, or calculate users’ relative contribution to be used in performance
evaluation [6,62].
Because of this tension, wikis may be less successful in corporate environments
where incentives and governance structures differ from those of the open Internet.
The objective of this paper is to investigate how tailoring wikis to corporate
settings would impact their successful adoption in organizations. Participation
is essential to the success of communities of practice and online communities. In
line with Arazy and Croitoru [2], we use participation as a proxy for the success
of corporate wikis. We define ’participation’ broadly, to include both active (i.e.
editing the wiki by adding new content, restructuring the wiki page, or removing
irrelevant content) and passive (reading the wiki) participation.
In particular, our primary research questions are: “How can we reduce the
inherent tension between wiki affordances and the nature of corporate knowl-
edge work?” and “Would such manipulations of wiki affordances affect users’
wiki participation?” We put forward five propositions regarding how changes in
corporate wiki deployment would impact users’ wiki behavior and test users’ at-
titudes towards these propositions using a survey of wiki users at IBM with the
goal of understanding possible changes necessary for successful corporate wiki
adoption.
1.1 Wiki Affordances
Gibson [22] coined the term ’affordance’ and defined it as a perceivable property
of an object or of the environment that allows a particular individual an op-
portunity for action. The idea was popularized by Norman [44,45], who brought
it to the attention of the design community and, in particular, researchers in
human-computer interaction [21]. The notion of affordances is increasingly be-
ing used in the information systems area [32,47,63]. The concept is useful since
it emphasizes the role of the situated activity of the person who perceives the af-
fordance, and thus allows conceptualizing the relations between the technology’s
features and organizational work processes.
Prior literature on wikis has described the primary design features of wikis
(e.g. [40,57]). However, the notion of affordances is different than ’design feature’
as it focuses on the suitability of the tool for supporting a specific task rather
than on tool design per-se. Recently, studies have described some of the work
practices supported by wikis [41,58,60], and have begun using the notion of
affordances. Building on these prior studies [40,58,60], we can identify three
broad categories of affordances: (a) affordances that simplify content creation
and management, (b) affordances that reduce or remove workflow constraints
and the distinction between content creation, editing and administrative tasks,
and (c) affordances that support peer-based governance. A key feature of many
of these affordances is to remove entry barriers that are typical of traditional
knowledge management systems [9,58]. Examples include simple formatting, easy
176 M.L. Yeo and O. Arazy
access, and incremental editing; all features that make it easy to create and
update content with little technical training.
1.2 Tensions between Wikis’ Affordances and Corporate Practices
Early on, organizational KM approaches focused on knowledge as objects that
could be organized to support decision making, and KMS were seen as tools to
manage codified knowledge, such that most KM projects were initiated
top-down and driven by management. However, the rigid structure of such
centrally-controlled KM initiatives exhibited poor incentives to sharing and reuse
of knowledge. Peer-based production over the Internet, as exemplified by open-
source software development [38] and later Wikipedia [5], has offered an alterna-
tive model of KM that emphasized principles such as open access and community
governance [7,20,39,57,64]. Rather than centralized control of KM initiatives and
the codification of all organizational knowledge, firms increasingly recognize that
distributed collaboration is a more effective way of sharing knowledge. However,
firms trying to adapt to this new open KM face some substantial challenges. Wiki
is a light-weight KM system that is intended to support knowledge work in the
open Internet settings, and wikis’ affordances are designed for peer-production.
As corporations begin deploying wiki technology it becomes apparent that there
are inherent tensions between wikis’ affordances and organizational knowledge
work practices [3], especially in situations where the organization has not fully
adapted to open KM. For example, in Internet settings, reducing recognition of
individuals’ contributions (non-attribution) is viewed as an essential principle
for ensuring diversity and protecting users’ privacy. However, in corporate set-
tings this feature is often undesired as it impedes accountability and individual
incentives; further, recognition of contributions is believed necessary for moti-
vating user engagement. Technology affordances are malleable [47] and organi-
zations are seeking ways to adapt wikis to their existing knowledge management
practices.
Recent accounts of corporate wiki deployment [2,3,18,23,36] portray an envi-
ronment that leverages on wikis’ affordances in some cases and adheres to tra-
ditional organizational practices in others. In line with ’the wiki way’, content
is automatically published and users’ contributions are not attributed; however,
users are often required to register through the organizational system before
allowing to access the wikis and there is less reliance on collaborative editing
norms and peer-based quality control.
What, then, is the best way for deploying wikis in corporate settings? Is it
possible to find a compromise between wiki affordances and corporate knowl-
edge work practices? How could organizations drive wiki adoption? We identify
a subset of five wiki affordances where we anticipate high tension with traditional
organizational knowledge management procedures, and put forward propositions
- one for each of the affordances under investigation - regarding how deviations
from the current corporate wiki deployment practices (by either modifying the
technology or by changing organizational procedures) would impact users’ wiki
activity. We are not aware of works in the context of wikis, or more broadly in
What Makes Corporate Wikis Work? 177
the context of knowledge management systems, that have looked at how ma-
nipulating certain affordances will affect user behaviors (or attitudes towards
behavior) within the systems.
Promoting Collaborative Editing Norms. While the role of editing norms
is fairly well documented in Wikipedia [35,56,61], little is known about the ex-
tent to which corporations rely on such norms to guide users through the col-
laborative editing process. Wiki editing is unconstrained, which provides much
flexibility, but also raises uncertainty regarding the expectations for use. Corpo-
rate users are accustomed to having training on new technology usage; however,
wikis are deployed in many corporations from the ground up, with little or no
training. Not providing guidance for users on such a flexible technology can have
detrimental effects; the lack of norms indicating information to share across or-
ganizational boundaries was a major impediment to the adoption of a wiki in a
health care setting [23]. An alternative approach for guiding users is modifying
wiki technology through the use of templates, constraints placed on wiki pages,
or ontologies to ensure consistent wiki page structure and terminology [14,15,25].
A recent survey of corporate wiki users suggests that the use of wiki enhance-
ments that constrain the otherwise open-ended editing process (e.g. templates)
can accelerate wiki adoption [18]. Given prior evidence on the important role of
editing norms, as well as recent works that attempt to constrain wiki editing,
we put forward the following proposition:
Proposition 1. Promoting collaborative authoring norms will increase wiki par-
ticipation.
Attribution. Wikis are designed to promote group collaboration and discour-
age individualism [40]; pages are not associated with any single author and it is
difficult to assess individual authors’ contributions [6]. For example, Wikipedia
often promotes high-quality articles (i.e. the output of group effort), rather than
specific users. Thus, it is difficult for authors to publicize their skills and accu-
mulate reputation [53], in stark contrast to many other popular collaboration
platforms, such as Slashdot
1
. In a lab experiment studying the behavioral im-
pact of presenting user contributions, it was found that users contribute more
when they know that their work is visible and is valued [49], suggesting that at-
tribution will motivate wiki participation. Given that corporate users are driven
by career advancement [28], we expect that corporate users will increase wiki
participation if their individual contributions are acknowledged and propose:
Proposition 2. Attributing contributions will increase wiki participation.
Allowing Unregistered Editing. Allowing users to participate without re-
vealing their identity has the benefits of the so called “equalization phenomenon”,
1
http:\slashdot.org
178 M.L. Yeo and O. Arazy
where status and other social cues are removed from the message, allowing col-
laborators to focus instead on the content [13,17,19,31,48,51]. Most wikis do
not include extensive access control mechanisms with the rationale that unreg-
istered editing attracts more participation and increases the size and diversity
of the author-group. Some argue that reducing the barriers to participation is
the key factor to Wikipedia’s success
2
[33,46], with the collective intelligence
of a diverse author set resulting in higher quality content [4,7,54]. However,
unregistered and anonymous contributions are usually undesirable in corporate
settings, where accountability is a commonly accepted principle and free rid-
ing is a concern [34]. It is worth noting the tension between the affordance of
unregistered editing and corporate users’ desire to attribute wiki contributions
(see above); if a user contributes without registering, it would not be possible to
measure his contribution. One possible approach for resolving this tension is to
allow those users who wish not to register to still edit content, while recording
the contributions of those users who choose to register. We expect that allowing
(but not mandating) unregistered wiki editing will drive participation, and thus
we propose:
Proposition 3. Opening the ed iting process to unregistered users will increase
wiki particip ation.
Controlled Publishing. In traditional knowledge management systems, work
is structured in such a way that each role is able to perform only the tasks he
is responsible for; there is a distinction between content creation, editing, and
administrative tasks. Wikis remove many of these workflow restrictions [57] and
eliminate the distinction between content authoring, editing, and structuring
tasks, such that any writer is automatically an editor, organizer, and publisher
[9,40] without requiring the authorization of any administrator [57]. In particu-
lar, automatic publishing allows for very quick evolution of page content, thus
circumventing the bottleneck associated with traditional content development
projects, where administrators are responsible for qualifying and publishing in-
formation [1,58]. Nonetheless, manually controlling the release of article revisions
may curtail the risks of inaccurate information in a wiki and bring the process
of wiki authorship more in line with existing corporate practices. The control
could take the form of restricting access to pages in a manner that lets selected
groups collaboratively create a page privately before publishing a final version
[10] with or without the approval of an administrator. Although there is no evi-
dence to indicate whether such controlled release of new content is effective, we
expect that because controlled publishing is in line with standard organizational
knowledge management practices, it would be desired by corporate wiki users.
Thus, we propose:
Proposition 4. Controlling the rele ase of article revisions will increase wiki
participation.
2
It is worth noting that since 2006, Wikipedia does not allow anonymous users to
create new articles, although they can still edit existing pages.
What Makes Corporate Wikis Work? 179
Providing Tools for Peer-Based Quality Control. Since wikis often lack
centralized governance, failing to establish peer-based quality control mecha-
nisms could impede wiki project success. In online communities, peer oversight
has been found to be as effective as expert quality control [11]; quality is at-
tained through constant error correction and refinement by the user community,
enabled by mechanisms for easy error detection and correction [40,59]. Tools such
as watch lists, article quality ratings, software bots (to identify vandalism) and
features to easily recover from vandalism (by reverting changes) are all used by
Wikipedia to maintain high quality articles [52]. Without such tools, wiki con-
tent can quickly deteriorate, as evidenced by The Boomtown Times newspaper’s
editorial wiki, which was abandoned in just three days after being overwhelmed
by disruptive users [60]. Prior works on wiki design have tried to enhance wikis
with automatic quality control tools (e.g., tools to estimate the quality of wiki
pages [27,37]) and such enhancements can motivate users to contribute to wikis
[16]. An alternative mechanism for ensuring quality of pages that is specifically
suitable for corporate wikis is a rating system, where users rate the quality of
content on a wiki page [27]. Tools to measure the quality of wiki pages can signal
the reliability of the information and could make users more comfortable rely-
ing on that information in their work. Hence, we expect that peer-based quality
control tools, such as a rating system, will increase wiki use.
Proposition 5. Incorporating an article rating mechanism will increase wiki
participation.
2 Research Method
Our research methodology is based on a web survey, where wiki users reported
their perceptions on how a specific proposed manipulation (either a change to
wikis’ design or to the deployment procedure) would impact their wiki partici-
pation. There is an extensive body of literature in the information systems area
which demonstrates that attitudes towards technology adoption are good deter-
minants of actual adoption [8,12,43,55], thus we expect that users’ self-reported
attitudes are indicative of the expected effect of various proposed manipulations.
The main advantage of our research method is that it enables us to explore the
(perceived) effect of a relatively large number of wiki modifications in a single
study.
The study was conducted at a large global organization which operates thou-
sands of distinct wikis. The firm chosen as the subject of our study is IBM,
which designs hardware, develops software, and engages in professional services.
IBM has over 350,000 employees and a large user base of early adopters. An
announcement regarding the survey appeared in the homepage of IBM wikis
that all active wiki users could have seen, but the exact number of people who
read the announcement is not known. This mass announcement would be similar
to an advertisement in an industry magazine inviting survey participation. Our
web survey was administered internally and was open to all users over a period
180 M.L. Yeo and O. Arazy
of eight weeks. Of the 1,205 users who accessed the survey web site, 919 com-
pleted the survey, describing their experiences with 486 distinct wikis. Survey
respondents came from various organizational units, with a significant portion
from software development (capturing the experience of 5% of all wiki applica-
tions). Each subject was asked to rate statements regarding her wiki activity on
a 5-point Likert scale.
Prior literature provides only little guidance on how to measure users’ percep-
tions of proposed manipulations to wiki deployment, thus the articulation of the
survey questions regarding our propositions was informed by our understanding
of corporate wiki practices, and was verified through extensive discussions with
IBM’s wiki administration unit. This collaborative survey development process
ensured that the survey questions would be interpreted appropriately by the
IBM employees who chose to participate.
3Results
IBM wiki users were asked to rate the extent to which they agree with statements
suggesting that certain manipulations (changes to wiki software or adjustments
in wiki deployment procedures) will enhance their activity. The results of our
study show (at least partial) support to propositions 1, 2, and 5, no support for
proposition 3, and evidence contradicting proposition 4. Our findings suggest
that in some cases wiki users would like to see changes to align wiki deployment
with “the wiki way” (e.g. automatic publishing, the use of collaborative editing
norms, incorporating peer-based quality control tools such as a rating system)
while in other cases corporate users would like to see modifications that are
more in line with traditional organizational knowledge management practices
(e.g. attributing contributions, not permitting unregistered editing). A summary
of the findings is described in Table 1.
Table 1. The extent to which modifications in wiki deployment are expected to increase
participation (on a 1 to 5 scale)
Modifications in wiki deployment Proposition Support Mean Median Std.
Deviation
Promote collaborative editing norms 1 Yes 3.55 4 1.00
Attribution 2 Yes (strong) 3.90 4 0.93
Allow unregistered editing 3 No 2.86 3 1.16
Control publishing 4 No (refute) 2.15 2 1.15
Add a rating system 5 Yes (weak) 3.21 3 1.11
From the five modifications we have explored, attribution had the largest im-
pact on users’ anticipated participation levels, with over 60% of respondents
saying they agree or strongly agree that publicizing their contributions will in-
crease their participation. On the other extreme, over 60% say they disagree or
What Makes Corporate Wikis Work? 181
strongly disagree that controlling the release of new content by having an ad-
ministrator first review changes would increase their activity. Figure 1 provides
details regarding the distribution of responses to each of the proposed modifica-
tions.
Strongly
Disagree
3.7
Disagree
7.5
Neutral
37.9
Agree
31.9
Strongly
Agree
19.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Percentage of Respondents
aPromote Collaborative Editing Norms
Strongly
Disagree
1.3
Disagree
3.8
Neutral
30.
Agree
33.5
Strongly
Agree
31.3
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Percentage of Respondents
bAttributing Contributions
Strongly
Disagree
14.6
Disagree
19.9
Neutral
40.5
Agree
14.2
Strongly
Agree
10.7
0
10
20
30
40
Percentage of Respondents
cAllowing Unregistered Editing
Strongly
Disagree
38.1
Disagree
24.6
Neutral
25.8
Agree
6.8
Strongly
Agree
4.7
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Percentage of Respondents
dControlled Publishing
Strongly
Disagree
7.3
Disagree
16.5
Neutral
39.
Agree
22.5
Strongly
Agree
14.7
0
10
20
30
Percentage of Respondents
eAdding a Rating System
Fig. 1. Distribution of responses to statements regarding the anticipated effects of
modifications in wiki deployment
4 Discussion
Wikis are designed for open and organic peer-based collaboration; however, as
wikis are entering corporate walls, it is clear that some adjustments are required,
since some wiki affordances run counter to traditional organizational knowledge
management practices. The few empirical studies regarding wikis in corporate
settings suggest that organizations are trying to find a compromise, staying
true to wiki core affordances and adapting their work practices accordingly in
some cases, and adjusting wiki design to fit standard knowledge management
182 M.L. Yeo and O. Arazy
work in other cases. This work is a preliminary exploration of corporate wiki
users’ attitudes towards various alternative deployment schemes. To the extent
that the perceptions indeed capture users’ expected behavior, our findings sug-
gest that wiki adoption would be highest when organizations are able to find
a fine balance between their traditional knowledge management practices (such
as, not permitting unregistered editing) and the affordances of wiki technology
(such as, automatic publishing). This balance is specific to each organization;
the corporate culture, employee autonomy, motivation and incentives all must
be considered. Following, we discuss the results related to each of the affordances
in this preliminary investigation.
Attribution of authorship seems to be the affordance that is most appropri-
ate modification for corporate settings, and users believe that introducing an at-
tribution mechanism will increase their involvement. Our finding supports earlier
results from a lab experiment [49] and justifies the investment in an automatic
utility to estimate authors’ contributions [6,16,26,27,37,50,53]. An additional
modification that seems likely to affect users’ participation is the promotion of
collaborative editing norms. Roughly 50% of survey respondents believe that
developing and communicating clear guidelines for editing content on wikis will
increase their involvement, whereas only 10% disagree or strongly disagree. This
result is in line with Giordano’s [23] finding on the role of editing norms in wiki
implementation success, and provides justification for the efforts to structure
wiki communications [14,15,25]. Given that in corporate settings users normally
go through training sessions before beginning to use an information system, the
grass-roots deployment of wikis at IBM has circumvented this standard activ-
ity. Further, due to the openness of wiki technology (wikis are used in various
ways - from a web development tool, to a document repository, to a collabora-
tion application [3]), the level of uncertainty regarding how to make meaningful
contributions acts as a disincentive for participation.
Prior works on wiki design have tried to incorporate automatic utilities for
estimating pages’ quality [16,27,37]. However, our findings suggest that providing
peer-based quality control tools such as a rating system would have only
limited impact on users’ participation, and such an enhancement to wiki software
was viewed as beneficial by less than 40% of respondents. We suspect that this
finding represents the relative lack of risks (such as vandalism) in the “behind
the firewall” wiki implementation we’ve studied. However, we believe that when
opening wiki participation to external parties (e.g. customers), quality control
will be of increased importance, as demonstrated by the case of The Boomtown
Times [60].
Overall, wiki users in our sample did not have a clear preference regarding
unregistered editing: roughly 25% of survey respondents believe that allowing
unregistered editors (i.e. anonymous postings) will increase their participation,
while nearly 35% prefer contributions to be made by registered users. We believe
that there is a link between this affordance and corporate users’ interest in
attribution and recognition (see discussion above), which is not feasible when
editors are not identified.
What Makes Corporate Wikis Work? 183
Research has shown that motivational dynamics in a corporate setting have
an impact on wiki participation [29]; thus we collected data to help us distin-
guish between self-directed use of wikis (motivational drivers such as enjoyment,
self-expression, belonging to a community, learning new skills, and other direct
benefits) and users who are driven to use wikis (motivational factors such as
peer pressure and supervisor pressure). Please refer to the Appendix for details
on survey items. Users who feel compelled to use wikis are more interested in
unregistered editing (correlations are 0.17 − 0.19; p<0.0001) and in controlling
publishing (correlations are 0.22 − 0.37; p<0.0001) as illustrated in Figure 2.
This demonstrates that these externally-motivated users may shy away from tak-
ing responsibility and are less comfortable with features that would hold them
accountable.
Strongly
Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly
Agree
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
Peer Pressure Motivation
Likelihood of Increased Participation
Controlled
Publishing
Unregistered
Editing
Fig. 2. Likelihood of increased participation for the affordances of (a) unregistered
editing and (b) controlled publishing based on the degree to which respondents feel
peer pressure to participate in wikis
Finally, automatic publishing of new content is expected to have contra-
dicting consequences: on one hand it increases the risks to content quality, while
on the other hand it can reduce bottlenecks in the creation of new knowledge.
This dual effect was evident in our analysis of wiki roles, which found that con-
tent producers have less interest in controlled publishing since it restricts their
ability to create knowledge, while content consumers have fewer objections to
controlled publishing since it increases wiki content quality, as illustrated in
Figure 3. Overall, users in our survey objected to the proposal to have adminis-
trators control the release of new content on wikis. We see two possible reasons
for this finding. It is possible controlled publishing contradicts the notion of
democracy that is associated with wikis [40] and thus is seen by users as a form
of censorship and as a threat to author autonomy. Alternatively, it is possible
that corporate users are less concerned with quality risks (e.g. vandalism; please
refer to our discussion above) and thus do not see a need for a centralized content
qualification mechanism.
184 M.L. Yeo and O. Arazy
Strongly
Disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly
Agree
0
10
20
30
40
Percentage of Respondents
Consumers
Producers
Fig. 3. Responses regarding likelihood of increased participation if controlled publish-
ing were implemented by user wiki role
Our findings have potential implications for both research and practice. Our
study highlights the tension between wiki affordances as adopted from the open
Internet environment and corporate knowledge management practices, and chal-
lenges the perception that wikis could be successfully deployed in corporate set-
tings as is [3,42]. More broadly, we reveal the potential mismatch between the
intended use of a technology and the way in which organizations choose to em-
ploy it, indicating possibilities in technology acceptance research. We believe
that notion of affordances is very useful in this context, since it brings together
the tool and its use. In addition, our results provide justification for works that
aim to enhance and modify wikis in various ways - e.g. estimating users’ con-
tributions [6], structuring the editing process [14], and automatically estimating
pages’ quality [16] - suggesting that this is a productive research direction.
For practitioners, we identify a need for organizations to be aware of the
disparity between the type of work wikis were intended to support and existing
knowledge management practices. For each of these possible incompatibilities,
the organization should consider whether it prefers to change wiki’s design or
alternatively to adapt the organization to “the wiki way”. Specifically, the results
from our empirical study indicate that corporate wiki users desire recognition
for their efforts, highlighting the need for both a mechanism that can estimate
and publicize users’ contributions as well as to provide clear guidance on the
collaborative authoring process while not attempting to impose controls on wiki’s
automatic publishing affordances.
5Conclusion
Following the success of internet wiki-based application, such as Wikipedia, busi-
ness organizations have begun adopting wikis. However, the affordances of wikis
seem to run in contrast to traditional tightly controlled corporate knowledge
What Makes Corporate Wikis Work? 185
management practices. The findings from our preliminary study show that suc-
cessful wiki adoption in organizations will require a hybrid approach to affor-
dances, with some leaning towards settings in line with ’the wiki way’ (e.g. un-
registered editing, peer-based quality control) and others leaning towards more
traditional corporate settings (e.g. attributing contributions). How much corpo-
rate wikis pull towards each side is a delicate balancing act, and may depend
greatly on organizations’ existing knowledge management practices and their
ability to change.
This preliminary study has two goals. Our primary goal is in providing evi-
dence regarding the anticipated effects of five proposed wiki modifications. While
several studies have recently proposed extensions and modifications intended to
adjust wiki affordances, there is no evidence to suggest which of these adjust-
ments is more effective. In this study we investigated five wiki affordances -
collaborative authoring norms, unregistered editing, automatic publishing, non-
attribution,andpeer-based quality control - and have reported on users’ percep-
tions regarding the extent to which altering these wiki affordances - by either
modifying the wiki system or by changing work practices - is likely to increase
users’ participation. Second, our conceptualization of wiki affordances goes be-
yond extant literature on the area with the goal of informing studies on wikis’
design. While prior literature has described the primary design features of wikis,
the notion of affordances is quite different than ’design features’ as it focuses
on the suitability of the tool for supporting a specific task (rather than on tool
design per-se).
Our study provides only a preliminary probing into the suitability of wikis for
corporate knowledge work. As such, an important value of this work is in pointing
the direction to further research. Below, we briefly review various ways in which
this study could be extended. First, we have only explored few possible modifi-
cations, and many other possibilities exist. For example, we proposed to change
the affordance of ’automatic publishing’ by adding an administrative control;
however, an alternative modification would allow peers (rather than administra-
tors) to qualify the content before publishing it (c.f. [10]). Second, our study of
wiki affordances was based on user attitudes and, although prior research sug-
gests that attitudes towards technology adoption are a good indicator of actual
adoption [8,12,43,55], we recommend that future research would validate that
actual wiki behavior corresponds to the attitudes reported in our study, either
through a lab or field study. A third limitation lies in the ambiguity of the con-
cept of participation. As we were interested in general adoption of wikis, we were
less concerned about whether users would be more likely to contribute content
(become ’active’ participants) or to read content (become ’passive’ participants).
We believe that there are links between increased readers and increased active
participation, and indeed it is possible that we captured cases where current
readers believed they could become content creators under different affordance
configurations. Follow-up work should include a more formal operationalization
of wiki participation in order to provide better insights for user types as well as
different user roles within both the wiki and the corporation. A fourth limitation
186 M.L. Yeo and O. Arazy
of this study is the measurement of the likely impact of the proposed wiki mod-
ifications. We have used single-item measures, working closely with IBM’s wiki
administration unit to ensure that the survey questions captured our intentions
and were well understood by wiki users. Thus, some terminology adopted in the
survey was based on how internal IBM employees referred to the feature (i.e.
’anonymous postings’ was used to refer to ’unregistered editing’ and a ’rating’
of wiki articles implied a peer-based control). Such terminology may have other
interpretations and thus caution should be used when adapting the question-
naire items from this study to other contexts. Fifth, future research could also
extend the investigation of wiki affordances beyond the impact on participation
to alternative indicators of project success, such as user satisfaction or job per-
formance. Finally, we call for further research on wikis across various industries
(e.g. business, education, government) and geographical regions. We conclude
with a call for future research in this exciting area and hope that others would
be able to fill-in the gaps in this study.
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Appendix: Survey Items
Instructions. For all questions below, please indicate the degree to which you
agree of disagree with the following statements. Possible answers:
– Strongly Disagree
– Somewhat Disagree
– Neither Agree Nor Disagree
– Somewhat Agree
– Strongly Agree
Table 2. Survey Items
Title Question
Modifications in wiki deployment
Unregistered Allowing anonymous postings will have a positive effect on my
Editing wiki participation.
Attributing Publicizing (within and outside the wikis) the contribution of
Contributions wiki users will have a positive effect on my wiki participation.
Peer-Based Adding Rating to wiki articles would increase my participation.
Quality-Control
Promoting Clearly communicating wiki behavior norms (e.g., no personal
Collaborative attacks, formatting rules) will have a positive effect on my
Authoring Norms wiki participation.
Controlled My wiki participation would increase if all wiki contributions
Publishing were reviewed by an administrator who decided what to publish
Motivations
Enjoyment I enjoy using the wiki.
Learning new Through my wiki activity, I’m learning new skills.
skills
Belonging to a Participation in the wiki provides me with a sense of belonging to
community a community.
Self-expression Wiki participation allows me to express my views and opinions.
Direct benefits Using the wiki helps me to get the rewards I’m seeking.
Peer Pressure I feel pressure from my peers and colleagues to participate in the
wiki.
Supervisor I feel pressure from my IBM supervisors to participate in the wiki.
Pressure
