Look at Me - Using Signaling Theory to Design Profile Functionalities for Virtual Ideas Communities

In existing virtual ideas communities (VICs) there are no functionalities that allow members to signal directly their skills and competences. While through submitted ideas, users of VICs can signal their competencies indirectly, a possibility to communicate explicitly their skills and competencies is missing. Drawing from existing literature within the field of VICs we assume that users that have the possibility to signal their skills will be more active. Hence, to satisfy members' self-marketing needs, community members have to be provided with possibilities or, more specifically, functionalities which enable them to signalize their proficiencies. Against this backdrop, we designed profile functionalities based on the signaling theory. In addition to systematically designing these IT artefacts, our research in progress also contains a first evaluation.