Social Network Structures and the Internet: Collective Dynamics i ...

Since there is no discernable difference in benefit between people who contribute and those who do not, people may be strongly tempted to free ride on others’ contributions. If everyone wants to free ride (rational individual decision) in this situation, however, it is evident that the virtual community cannot be sustained, and eventually no one will benefit from the community (collectively irrational outcome).

Social scientists have called this situation, in which individually rational decisions lead to a collectively irrational outcome, a social dilemma (Kollock, 1998; Marwell & Ames, 1979). Suppose a classic music program is aired by a public radio station, which is maintained by the donations of listeners. Because they are not required to give donations to enjoy the program, individuals may not have any incentive to donate to it. If every listener decides not to make a donation, the public radio station cannot be sustained, and will not be able to provide the music program anymore, which is surely not the consequence that everyone expects. Actually, we may easily find similar examples, such as environmental conservation or constructing a public library in a neighborhood. Because a commonality underlying these situations is that various “public goods” are involved, they are often called public good dilemmas (Messick & Brewer, 1983). In reality, a considerable proportion of virtual communities on the Internet are suffering from the lack of people’s contributions, which results from similar dilemmatic situations. Bonacich (1990) called this particular type of public good dilemma, which occurs in a group communication situation, a communication dilemma.

By treating a virtual community as a group entity in which participants are fully committed to the group’s goal (see Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2002; Granitz & Ward, 1996; Hemetsberger, 2002; Mu---niz & O’Guinn, 2001), past research has neglected the existing tension between individual and collective interest in virtual communities.