Conflict and identity shape shifting in an online financial community

Abstract.  This paper challenges traditional explorations of online communities that have relied upon assumptions of trust and social cohesion. In the analysis presented here, conflict becomes more than just dysfunctional communication and provides an alternative set of unifying principles and rationales for understanding social interaction and identity shape shifting within an online community. A model is advanced that describes the systematic techniques of hostility and aggression in technologically enabled communities that take the form of contemporary tribalism. It is argued that this tribe‐like conflict embodies important rituals essential for maintaining and defining the contradictory social roles sometimes found in online environments. This research offers a critical interpretive perspective that focuses on the link between identity shape shifting behaviours and the power relations within an online financial community. The analysis reveals how conflict between positions of power can help to align the values and ideals of an online community. With this study we seek to motivate a re‐examination of the design and governance of online communities.

[1]  Michael P. Carroll,et al.  Lévi‐Strauss, Freud, and the trickster: a new perspective upon an old problem , 1981 .

[2]  S. Shapiro.  The Social Control of Impersonal Trust , 1987, American Journal of Sociology.

[3]  Peter T. Suzuki,et al.  Tribe: Chimeric or Polymorphic? , 2004 .

[4]  Stéphane Breton,et al.  Death and the ideology of compensation among the Wodani, western highlands of Irian Jaya , 1999 .

[5]  R. Keesing.  Cultural Anthropology: A Contemporary Perspective , 1997 .

[6]  John Campbell,et al.  Sustainable virtual world ecosystems , 2007, DATB.

[7]  David E. Avison,et al.  Information systems and anthropology: and anthropological perspective on IT and organizational culture , 1995, Inf. Technol. People.

[8]  J. Rutter.  From the Sociology of Trust Towards a Sociology of 'E-trust , 2001 .

[9]  David Gefen,et al.  Some antecedents and effects of trust in virtual communities , 2002, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[10]  Theo Vurdubakis,et al.  Chasing Shadows: Control, Virtuality and the Production of Trust , 2001 .

[11]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[12]  Suzanne de Castell,et al.  The Ethnographic Imagination: Textual Constructions of Reality , 1993 .

[13]  H. Lewis,et al.  The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and Its Consequences , 1998 .

[14]  J. Monaghan,et al.  The Enigma of the Gift , 2003 .

[15]  John L. Sullivan,et al.  The importance of trust and community in developing and maintaining a community electronic network , 2003, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[16]  Shirley Lindenbaum.  Fore Narratives Through Time , 2002, Current Anthropology.

[17]  Michael D. Myers,et al.  Investigating Information Systems with Ethnographic Research , 1999, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[18]  Annette B. Weiner.  Women of Value, Men of Renown: New Perspectives in Trobriand Exchange , 1979 .

[19]  R. Dentan,et al.  The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya , 1968 .

[20]  B. Doolin,et al.  Towards Critical Interpretivism in IS Research , 2005 .

[21]  E. Leach.  Culture and communication: the logic by which symbols are connected , 1977 .

[22]  Napoleon A. Chagnon,et al.  Yanomamo: The Fierce People , 1968 .

[23]  Eric Kline Silverman.  From Totemic Space to Cyberspace:: Transformations in Sepik River and Aboriginal Australian Myth, Knowledge, and Art , 2000 .

[24]  Julian Dibbell,et al.  My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World , 1998 .

[25]  Xin Li,et al.  Predicting user trust in information systems: a comparison of competing trust models , 2004, 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the.

[26]  Paul Bernard Roscoe,et al.  The Enigma of the Gift , 2001 .

[27]  M. Meggitt,et al.  Gods Ghosts and Men in Melanesia , 1985 .

[28]  S. G. Cohen,et al.  What Makes Teams Work: Group Effectiveness Research from the Shop Floor to the Executive Suite , 1997 .

[29]  M. D. Myers,et al.  Critical ethnography in information systems , 1997 .

[30]  Michael W. Young,et al.  The ethnography of Malinowski: The Trobriand Islands 1915-18 , 1979 .

[31]  N. L. Chervany,et al.  Initial Trust Formation in New Organizational Relationships , 1998 .

[32]  George M. Foster,et al.  Peasant Society and the Image of Limited Good , 1965 .

[33]  Pamela J. Hinds,et al.  Out of Sight, Out of Sync: Understanding Conflict in Distributed Teams , 2003, Organ. Sci..

[34]  J. H. Davis,et al.  An Integrative Model Of Organizational Trust , 1995 .

[35]  John Barker,et al.  Big Men and Great Men: Personifications of Power in Melanesia , 2008 .

[36]  Andrew Strathern,et al.  Feasting on My Enemy: Images of Violence and Change in the New Guinea Highlands , 1999, Ethnohistory.

[37]  Michael D. Myers,et al.  Hidden agendas, power and managerial assumptions in information systems development: An ethnographic study , 1997, Inf. Technol. People.

[38]  Katherine J. Stewart,et al.  Transference as a means of building trust in World Wide Web sites , 1999, ICIS.

[39]  C. Handy.  Trust and the virtual organization , 1999 .

[40]  Daniel J. McAllister.  Affect- and Cognition-Based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal Cooperation in Organizations , 1995 .

[41]  Morton H. Fried,et al.  The notion of tribe , 1975 .

[42]  Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama,et al.  Communication Richness in Electronic Mail: Critical Social Theory and the Contextuality of Meaning , 1997, MIS Q..

[43]  Pamela J. Hinds,et al.  Understanding Conflict in Geographically Distributed Teams: The Moderating Effects of Shared Identity, Shared Context, and Spontaneous Communication , 2005 .

[44]  Anne P. Massey,et al.  Getting It Together: Temporal Coordination and Conflict Management in Global Virtual Teams , 2001 .

[45]  J. Beattie,et al.  Other Cultures: Aims, Methods and Achievements in Social Anthropology , 1966 .

[46]  R. Morrow,et al.  Communications and Power in Organizations: Discourse, Ideology and Domination , 1990 .

[47]  F. Bartlett.  Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande , 1937, Nature.

[48]  George Cybenko,et al.  Cognitive Hacking: A Battle for the Mind , 2002, Computer.

[49]  Bernd Carsten Stahl,et al.  The moral and business value of information technology: what to do in case of a conflict? , 2003 .

[50]  Paul Radin,et al.  The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology , 1957 .

[51]  John Campbell,et al.  Fight club: culture, conflict and everyday life amongst an online 'community' , 2006, Int. J. Web Based Communities.

[52]  Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa,et al.  Is Anybody Out There? Antecedents of Trust in Global Virtual Teams , 1998, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[53]  J. Steenkamp,et al.  Generalizations about trust in marketing channel relationships using meta-analysis , 1998 .

[54]  Raymond Firth.  Human types : an introduction to social anthropology , 1958 .

[55]  Ruth Benedict,et al.  Patterns of Culture , 2019, Nature.

[56]  M. Lynne Markus,et al.  The experienced "sense" of a virtual community: characteristics and processes , 2004, DATB.

[57]  John A. Campbell,et al.  In and out, scream and shout: an Internet conversation about stock price manipulation , 2001, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[58]  Alan Smart,et al.  Gifts, Bribes, and Guanxi: A Reconsideration of Bourdieu's Social Capital , 1993 .

[59]  Christopher Grey,et al.  Trust, Control and Post-Bureaucracy , 2001 .

[60]  Anne P. Massey,et al.  Getting It Together: Temporal Coordination and Conflict Management in Global Virtual Teams , 2001 .

[61]  Arthur. Grimble,et al.  Pattern of Islands , 1952 .