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ARTICLES

A LITERATURE REVIEW OF VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

The relevance of understanding the influence of institutions on online collectives

Pages 1-23 | Received 31 Aug 2009, Accepted 29 Jan 2010, Published online: 29 Oct 2010
 

Abstract

Reviewing the literature on the domain of virtual communities, this research finds that there is still an important gap in the scholarly understanding of how institutions influence online spaces of interaction. The theme of institutions has been marginal to most of the academic research in the domain of virtual communities, with few exceptions. This paper proposes that an institutional perspective would permit a better understanding on the whys of online behaviours and explores the potential contributions of such an approach.

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