MOTIVATION, IDENTITY, AND AUTHORING

MOTIVATION, IDENTITY, AND AUTHORING OF THE WIKIPEDIAN
JOSEPH C. SHIH
Department of Information Management, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, Taoyuan County, Taiwan, (R.O.C.)
Email: joseph@mail.lhu.edu.tw
C. K. FARN
Department of Information Management, National Central University,
Taoyuan County, Taiwan, (R.O.C.)
Email: ckfarn@mgt.ncu.edu.tw
Wikipedia is an online free encyclopedia which is edit by million people spontaneously. This article aims at how Wikipedians’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations influence their volitional authoring. Research model posits that altruism, expected reputation, and expected money reward affect authoring behavior. More specific, this relationship is also mediated by both attitude and identity. We also regard perceived behavioral control as a critical role for fostering volitional authoring. Sample data were from “Wikipedian Discussion Board” of a famous BBS in Taiwan. All respondents (156 samples) had posted articles in the BBS, but not all had experienced authoring in Wikipedia. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research model. According to the result, we have insight into the motivation of Wikpedian’s volitional authoring.
1. Introduction
Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has a tremendous impact on how a great many writers gather information about the world (http://www.widipedia.org/). With no paid editors and written by numerous volunteers, Wikipedia is now emerged as the No. 1 go-to information source in the world. Wikipedia also now ranks eighth (July 2009) on the list of most visited sites on the Internet (http://alexa.com/), containing over 2.9 million articles in the English version (July 2009).
However, there are still a few people detracting the value of content (Badke, 2008), but the Wikipedian have persisted in pouring more and more items into the online encyclopedia. The phenomenon is interesting that there are still thousands of people participating in authoring items spontaneously, disregarding the controversial open source project being discredited by non-supporters. Furthermore, the economic exchange perspective posits that an individual’s decision making was found upon rational rule, as benefit surpassing cost. It looks as if the Wikipedian are not consistent with this tenet obviously. This paper, accordingly, is to understand how the Wikipedian’s motivation links to their volitional authoring, more specific, to examine their authoring behavior through the lens of attitude and virtual community identity.
2. Conceptual Background
2.1 Motivations for Participating in Open Source Project
Motivations are commonly categorized into extrinsic and intrinsic by researchers. Intrinsic motivations contain inherent satisfactions rather than their substantive consequence, such as volunteering and enjoying helping others which are congruent with one’s value system, (Kankanhalli et al., 2005; Ryan and Deci, 2000; Wasko and Faraj, 2005). On the other hand, extrinsic motivations means a focus on expected benefits of donating, where the extrinsic rewards are believed to exceed the contribution’s costs (Kankanhalli et al., 2005; Lerner and Tirole, 2002). Motivations of volunteering behavior have noticed in previous research (Clary et al., 1998), for example, Clary et al. (1998) classified six motivational categories for the volunteer. The categories include values, social, understanding, career, protective, and enhancement, and, contrasting with the functions, we describe the Wikipedian’s conceivable motivation in Table 1.
Table 1 Descriptions of Volunteer’s Motivations
Function Conceptual definition Description for Wikipedian
Values The individual volunteers in order to express or act on important values like humanitarianism. The Wikipedian feel it is important to help other by means of authoring.
Understanding The volunteer is seeking to learn more about the world or exercise skills that are often unused. Authoring lets the Wikipedian learn through direct and hands-on activities.
Enhancement One can grow and develop psychologically through volunteer activities. Authoring makes the Wikipedian feel better about themselves.
Career The volunteer has the goal of gaining career-related experience through volunteering. Authoring can help the Wikipedian to get experience related to current job.
Social Volunteering allows an individual to strengthen his or her social relationships. The Wikipedian identify to Wikipedia community.
Protective The individual uses volunteering to reduce negative feelings, such as guilt, or to address personal problems. Authoring is a good escape from day-to-day worry.
2.2 Attitude and Behavioral Control and Online Authoring
Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) hypothesized that intention to perform a behavior is based on: attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991). Attitude towards performing the behavior is defined as a person’s general feeling of performing that behavior if a favorable or unfavorable action. Perceived behavioral control is assumed to reflect past experience as well as anticipated obstacles. The more opportunities and resource that individuals think they possess and the fewer obstacles they anticipate, the greater their perceived control over the behavior. Participating in online activities may be determined by attitude toward and perceived controllability over target behavior, such as blogging, using instant message software, or sharing knowledge in virtual community (Hsu and Chiu, 2008; Kuo and Young, 2008).
2.3 Social Identity and Online Prosocial Behavior
Social identity (SI) captures the main aspects of the individual’s identification with the group in the sense that a participant comes to view himself or herself as “belonging” to a certain group. A person professes “belonging” to a specific group is a psychological state, distinct from being a unique and distinct individual, conferring a collective representation of who one is (Hogg and Abrams, 1988). Many of previous studies related to online volitional behavior have emphasized the significance of virtual community identity. That participants consider themselves as parts of the target online group may strengthen the self-defining relation to the virtual community as well as foster prosocial behavior such like donating knowledge (Chiu et al., 2006; Jian and Jeffres, 2006; Ma and Agarwal, 2007).
3. Research Model and Hypotheses
3.1 Research Model
The present study posits intrinsic and extrinsic motivation associate with both attitude and virtual community identity (VC identity); and attitude, VC identity, and perceived behavior control (PBC) jointly affect authoring behavior. Beside, we also posits that PBC moderates both relationship of attitude-authoring and VC identity-authoring.
3.2 Research Hypotheses
Expressing or acting on important values like humanitarianism (Clary et al., 1998), it may be the most critical motivation of the Wikipedian. People engage in contribution of open content for their own sakes rather than for some external consequences (Hars and Ou, 2002). Positive relation between intrinsic motivation and authoring in Wikipedia was reported in previous study (Nov and Kuk, 2008). Altruism is a variant of intrinsic motivation in which a Wikipedia seeks to increase the welfare of others. Furthermore, altruism have widely held to be associated with positive attitude toward on-line helping behaviors, such as authoring in blog and participating in open source project (Hars and Ou, 2002; Hsu and Lin, 2008). For example, value of altruism, to which the volunteer may reflect their willingness to help people, is the primary function of the Wikipedian’s motivation (Clary and Snyder, 1999). Although Nov and Kuk (2008) proposed general intrinsic motivation in their study, more specific, we argue that altruism influences one’s attitude toward authoring in Wikipedia.
H1: Altruism positively associates with attitude toward authoring.
According to social categorization, people use demographic differences or distinguishable characteristic to categorize one another (Chatman and Spataro, 2005). Wikipedians, obviously different from non-participator, are willing to self-identify themselves as a specific collective, so that those in-group members emerge virtual community identity. We have two reasons to infer the relationship. One reason is that the value system of those who are higher extent of altruism may be more possible to align with the mission of Wikipedia. Altruistic people conceive the principle of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others, whereas writing items in Wikipedia premises on participant’s volitional behavior. This logic was also argued by Van Dick et al. (2006) that social identification is positively related to prosocial behavior. Another reason is that professional identity is an individual’s self-definition as a member of profession collective (Chreim et al., 2007). They emphasized “role identity” which can make that a professional conducts his or her work look more like professional. Therefore, those high altruistic people are happy to profess themselves as members of Wikipedian. Depending on the virtual community identity, not only a Wikipedian’s professional identity is acknowledged but also his or her altruistic authoring is encouraged. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis.
H2: Altruism positively associates with VC identity.
As economic considerations still critical to the volunteer, helper’s behaviors in cyberspace are as well, Donath (1999) remarked altruism is insufficient to explain helper’s motivation. This viewpoint is even more assertive by Kollock (1999) observing that motivation to contribute to online communities could spring from a variety of sources but none of them depended on altruism. In terms of their viewpoints, the volitional behaviors of the Wikipedian may be influenced by some economic considerations.
Earning reputation is regarded as an extrinsic motivation for a Wikipedian. Reputation is still an important asset, not only in real world but also in cyberspace (Wasko and Faraj, 2005), whereby an individual can leverage to achieve and maintain status within a collective. For the rank of Wikipedian growing with the number of articles edited and accumulated fame as a source of authority, cyberspatial reputation can be a strong incentive to engage authoring activities (Ciffolilli, 2003).
Next, we hypothesize the relationship between money reward and authoring behavior. According to economic exchange theory, one will make decisions by rational self-interest. Thus, prosocial behaviors such as knowledge sharing will occur if its rewards exceed its costs (Bock and Kim, 2002). In light of the rationale, the Wikipedian should have expected money reward while contributing knowledge to Wikipedia. Obviously, the Wikipedian did not conform to the rule. That the Wikipedian plainly understand no money reward but continually author leads to hypothesize the negative relation between money reward and attitude toward authoring. However, it doesn’t mean that Wikipedians hate money but merely they do not expect this extrinsic reward-in terms of money return-while authoring in Wikipedia.
H3: Extrinsic rewards associate with attitude toward authoring
H3a: Expected reputation positively associates with attitude toward authoring.
H3b: Expected money rewards negatively associates with attitude toward authoring.
For earning future reputation in virtual community, a Wikipedian regards social interaction with other aficionados as critical as authoring in virtual community. In additional to engage in authoring and contributing knowledge, the Wikipedian have to maintain a positive social relationship with other Wikipedians. The rationales are that a Wikipedian identifies to his or her community may satisfy the member’s need of self-defining and manifest the status of referent power (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2002). Earning reputation not only is an antecedent for virtual community identity but also a driven force for authoring. Again, no money return is supposed to authoring in Wikipedia that obtaining identity from the community may, so that we hypothesize a negative relationship between expected money rewards and virtual community identity.
H4: Extrinsic rewards associate with VC identity.
H4a: Expect reputation positively associates with VC identity.
H4b: Expected money rewards negatively associates with VC identity.
Spending time and effort to complete articles, the Wikipedian consider authoring is consistent with their values and positive for online readers. Theory of Reasoned Action posits that behavioral formation is determined by attitude toward the behavior and subject norms of that behavior. The Wikipedian are inducing the authoring behavior while they have a positive attitude toward authoring. Previous studies related to online knowledge sharing have shown the consistent argument (Bock et al., 2005). For example, Kuo and Young (2008) found that the more favorable the individual’s attitude toward knowledge sharing practices, the stronger his/her intention to share knowledge in a teacher’s virtual community.
H5: Attitude toward authoring positively associates with authoring in Wikipedia.
Social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) can demonstrate the relationship between Wikipedian’s community identity and authoring behavior. Volunteering allows an individual to strengthen his or her social relationships (Clay et al., 1998). In light of the rationale, community identity is useful in explaining individuals’ willingness to maintain committed relationship with the group (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998), such as through sharing knowledge within the virtual community (Chiu et al., 2006). Empirical studies have reported that sense of belonging is important and has been used as a test for the presence of an online community. Jian and Jeffres (2006) argues that people are motivated to contribute to shared electronic databases because by doing so they will maintain and affirm relevant identities. Hsu and Lin (2008) argued the influence of social identification for blog users needs the perception of belonging to the virtual community. Likewise, the Wikipedian will present themselves as belonging to the community through continual authoring. Once being in Wikipedian community that suppresses individual differences and emphasizes a common Wikipedian membership, individuals have a high level of group identity and act according to the objective set up by the group (Kim, 2009). Herein, the objective set by Wikipedian community is contributing knowledge, i.e. authoring in Wikipedia.
H6: VC identity positively associates with authoring in Wikipedia.
As a Wikipedian believes himself or herself having sufficient resources to author in the community, the Wikipedian can complete the authoring behavior. Some obstacles such as no available time or incapable of computer skill make authoring impossible. Perceived behavioral control is an important antecedent of behavior theoretically (Ajzen, 1991) that the belief is a form of self-evaluation which influences decisions about what behaviors to undertake (Bandura, 1977). Previous empirical studies of online behavior also have confirmed the notion (Hsu and Chiu, 2004; Kuo and Young, 2008). Accordingly, we propose the following hypothesis.
H7: Perceived behavioral control positively associates with authoring in Wikipedia.
When the Wikipedian are highly perceived control over getting through with new items for Wikipedia, the positive attitude may foster the Wikipedian more authoring behavior. In term of contrast viewpoint-low perceived behavioral control, if a person thinks it good to author in Wikipedia but he does not have time to do this or he does not have enough computer skill to fill out the job, the person will decline the extent of attitude and then impede the authoring behavior. Likewise, when high perceived behavioral control, people with high VC identity will more possibly engaged in authoring in Wikipedia. Thus, we propose the hypothesis of moderating effect.
H8: The relationship between attitude and authoring in Wikipedia is moderated by perceived behavioral control (PBC). More specific, the relationship between attitude and authoring in Wikipedia is stronger when PBC is high than low.
H9: The relationship between VC identity and authoring in Wikipedia is moderated by perceived behavioral control (PBC). More specific, the relationship between VC identity and authoring in Wikipedia is stronger when PBC is high than low.
4. Research Methodology
A questionnaire was deployed on a web site in which allows respondents to answer the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was employed to test research model as well as H1 to H7; H8 and H9, the moderating effect of perceived behavioral control on attitude and identity to authoring behavior, were tested by hierarchical regression analysis. Followings are details of the current research methodology.
4.1 Scale Development
The survey questionnaire was designed on the basis of a comprehensive literature review and was refined via several runs of pretests and revisions.
Altruism was measured by a seven-point scale adopted from Chattopadhyay (1999), developed to capture a respondent’s seeking to increase the welfare of others. A sample item is “I will help co-worker (or classmate) who overloads with job (or school-homework).” Expected reputation was measure by a seven-point scale adopted from Constant et al. (1994). Attitude was measured by a seven-point scale adopted from Bock et al. (2005). Virtual community identity was measured by a seven-point scale adopted from Ellemers et al. (1999), developed to capture a respondent’s identification with the virtual community in the sense that the one comes to view himself or herself as a member of Wikipedia community. Perceived behavioral control was measured by a seven-point scale adopted from Armitage et al. (1999), developed to capture a respondent’s ease or difficulty of authoring in Wikipedia. After examining the nature of this scale, we regarded PBC as a formative construct that we would aggregate the score at consequent stage. In order to measure the extent in which the authors contribute to Wikipedia, we operationalized authoring in Wikipedia with two items, one is time consuming per week and another is the frequency of authoring per week. Detail items are omitted due to the limit of space in conference version.
4.2 Data Collection
A web-based site was deployed that respondents could visit to answer the questionnaire which was designed for collecting empirical data of the current study. To have a broad representation of both Wikipedian-authors and non-Wikipedian authors, participants were invited from the Wikipedian’s discussion board of PTT forum which is a famous bulletin board system in Taiwan. We invited them to participate in the survey via an email, in which attaching the web-site’s hyperlink, so that they could visit our web page to answer survey questions. They were also informed that we would donate 5 dollars to Wikipedian Foundation while a questionnaire was finished.
There were totally 181 respondents participating in the survey that the valid responding rate is 86% (156 valid) due to dropping 25 invalid questionnaires. Of 156 samples, the characteristics are demonstrated in Table 2

Table 2 Characteristics of Sample
Gender Education
Male 123 79% Under high school 13 8%
Female 33 21% High school 25 16%
University 80 51%
Authoring experience Graduated school 37 24%
Yes 107 69% PhD 1 1%
No 49 31%
Age
Years of using Wikipedia Under 15 7 5%
Under 1 37 24% 15 to 19 14 9%
1 73 47% 20 to 24 77 49%
2 32 21% 25 to 29 40 26%
3 9 6% 30 to 34 13 8%
4 4 3% 35 to 40 3 2%
5 and above 1 1% 40 above 2 1%
5. Data Analysis
5.1 Test of Measurement Model
Initial results of the CFA indicates that model were not fit the data well. A careful and iterative inspection of LISREL output revealed that some items did not load on the designated latent factors appropriately, such as standardized loading < 0.6 or associated with high modification indices. All indices are above cut-off value except GFI is slightly lower. The detail results are demonstrated in Table 3.
Before testing the structural model, it is also necessary to examine whether the measurement model had a satisfactory level of validity and reliability. While CR is greater than 0.7 and AVE is greater than 0.5, it implies that the variance captured by the latent construct is more than that by error component (Bagozzi et al., 1991). That is, each measure is accounting for 50 percent or more of the variance of the underlying latent variable (Chin, 1998). As the reports in Table 3, CRs and AVEs are all above recommended cut-off values that the scale is of internal consistency reliability.
Convergent validity ensures that all items measure a single latent construct, and it is established if all item loadings are greater than or equal to the recommended cut-off level of 0.70 (Bassellier et al., 2003). Our results showed that almost loadings of each latent variable are above the cut-off value that only two items’ are slightly lower. The details are also exhibited in Table 3.
Discriminant validity reflects the level to which the measures for each dimension are distinctively different from each other. We applied the chi-square difference test to assess the discriminant validity of the measurement model (Bassellier et al., 2003). Accordingly, we conducted 15 pair-wise tests (six constructs) that the results are reported in Table 4. All Δχ2 differences are significant above the level of Pr[χ2(1) ≥ 3.84]=0.05, indicating strong support for discriminant validity (Bassellier et al., 2003; Venkatraman, 1989). Additionally, the correlation matrixes are reported in Table 5.
Table 3 Results of Measurement Model Test
Factor Composition Reliability AVE Items Loading t-value Error
Altruism .84 .57 AL1 .63 8.67 .60
AL2 .71 10.17 .49
AL3 .92 14.28 .16
AL4 .73 10.43 .47
Expected Reputation .88 .64 ER1 .76 11.26 .43
ER2 .91 14.86 .17
ER3 .88 14.01 .23
ER4 .63 8.92 .60
Expected Money Reward --- --- EMR --- --- ---
Attitude .91 .71 AT1 .78 11.92 .39
AT2 .83 12.89 .32
AT3 .89 14.39 .22
AT4 .87 13.87 .25
Virtual Community Identity .83 .55 CI1 .72 10.09 .49
CI2 .74 10.58 .45
CI3 .74 10.60 .45
CI4 .76 11.00 .42
Perceived Behavioral Control --- --- PBC --- --- ---
Authoring in Wikipedia .85 .73 BE1 .83 12.91 .31
BE2 .88 14.32 .22
Note: χ2=229.27, df=152, χ2/df=1.51, RMSEA=.055, NFI=.91, NNFI=.94, CFI=.96, GFI=.88, AGFI=.84.
Table 4 Test of Discriminant Validity
Test # Construct Constrained
model χ2(df) Unconstrained
model χ2(df) Difference Δχ2
Altruism with
1 Expected Reputation 331.37(20) 29.02(19) 302.35(1)
2 Expected Money Reward 320.48(6) 3.06(5) 317.42(1)
3 Attitude 331.31(20) 34.74(19) 296.57(1)
4 Perceived Behavioral Control 315.44(6) 3.07(5) 312.37(1)
5 VC Identity 346.62(20) 28.49(19) 318.13(1)
6 Authoring in Wikipedia 99.38(10) 5.37(9) 94.01(1)
Expected Reputation with
7 Expected Money Reward 368.39(6) 14.92(5) 242.47(1)
8 Attitude 546.85(20) 40.07(19) 506.78(1)
9 Perceived Behavioral Control 415.48(6) 13.41(5) 402.07(1)
10 VC Identity 347.16(20) 54.01(19) 293.15(1)
11 Authoring in Wikipedia 109.47(10) 14.81(9) 94.66(1)
Expected Money Reward with
12 Attitude 507.98(6) 4.93(5) 503.05(1)
13 Perceived Behavioral Control --- --- ---
14 VC Identity 282.10(6) 9.68(5) 272.42(1)
15 Authoring in Wikipedia 91.44(2) 0.58(1) 90.86(1)
Attitude with
16 Perceived Behavioral Control 483.40(6) 4.92(5) 478.48(1)
17 VC Identity 222.34(20) 31.27(19) 191.07(1)
18 Authoring in Wikipedia 98.00(10) 5.93(9) 92.07(1)
Perceived Behavioral Control
19 VC Identity 289.07(6) 10.73(5) 278.34(1)
20 Authoring in Wikipedia 90.93(2) 1.77(1) 89.16(1)
VC Identity with
21 Authoring in Wikipedia 124.20(10) 28.46(9) 95.74(1)
Table 5 Correlation Matrix
Variables Mean Std. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Altruism 5.05 .94 .73
2 Expected Reputation 4.82 1.15 .21 .80
3 Expected Money Reward 3.21 1.68 .10 .37 ---
4 Attitude 5.89 .80 .27 .31 -.13 .84
5 Perceived Behavioral Control 2.67 .87 .16 .01 -.01 .32 ---
6 VC Identity 4.39 .58 .10 .19 -.32 .58 .28 .74
7 Authoring 1.16 1.12 -.05 -.09 -.23 .16 .45 .27 .85
5.2 Test of Structural Model and Hypotheses
The results of structural model are demonstrated in Figure 2 that all indices show a good fit between model and data. All paths coefficients and t values are also reported in Figure 2 that H1, H3, H4, H6 and H7 are supported, whereas H2 and H5 are not. Additionally, H8 and H9 were tested by means of HRA, hierarchical regression analysis. In the procedure of HRA, attitude and identity, perceived behavioral control, and the interaction items entered the model sequentially, mapping to model 1, 2, and 3. The overall model fit, path coefficients, and difference of R square of each model and its significance are reported in Table 5. The results show that H9 is supported whereas H8 is not. To have the insight of the interaction role-perceived behavioral control (PBC), a plot is exhibited in Figure 3 showing that high PBC has a stronger effect of VC identity on authoring in Wikipedia than low PBC.

Table 6 Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Testing H8 and H9
Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Note
Attitude -.01(-.11) -.05(-.58) -.02(-.21)
VC Identity .31(3.66) .28(3.23) .25(2.87)
Perceived Behavioral Control .19(2.45) .15(1.88)
PBCAttitude -.06(-.68) H8 is not supported
PBCVC Identity .22(2.30) H9 is supported

ΔR2 .09 .04 .03
F change 8.61*** 6.23** 3.00*
R2 .09 .13 .16
Overall F-Value 8.61*** 8.00*** 6.11***
6. Conclusion
Based on the results of the current research, we find out the relationship between altruism, expected reputation, and expected money reward and both attitude and identity. We also can say that virtual community identity is a more important predictor of authoring than attitude is. It is not sufficient to take action when people think “authoring in Wikipedia is good,” but they praise themselves as a part of the collective, i.e. a member of Wikipedia. Identity to the community is the just force to instigate authoring in Wikipeia.This article explores the motivations determining the volitional authoring of the Wikipedian. Altruism and expected future reputation affect attitude and identity positively, but the relationship between expected money reward and its consequences is negative. We explain the latter that the Wikipedian realize the fact of no money return while they devote themselves to volitional authoring. We also find that the virtual community identity of Wikipedia is more significant to predict volitional authoring than attitude. Besides, the perceived behavioral control, an estimative competence on authoring by author himself, is an accelerator for motivating authoring. Finally, virtual community identity may foster more volitional authoring when the Wikipedian are of higher perception of perceived behavioral control than lower.
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