When Online Communities Collide: Boundary Identity Construction and Spanning

Online brand communities reflect a shared interest among participants that sustains community identity around and through brand consumption. While exchanges within such a community are typically supportive, conflict can exist between different, and sometimes competing, brand communities. The phenomena of communities in conflict introduces an element of ‘other’ that allows each community to delineate its values more succinctly by affording a comparative point of reference. The aim of this research is to understand online inter-community conflict using a boundary object theory lens to examine the how online brand communities construct and span boundaries. Using the example of two online brand communities comprising the followers of the authors J.K. Rowling and Terry Pratchett, preliminary results illuminate how discrete communities assert their individual boundary identity construction and spanning.

[1]  A. Muñiz,et al.  How Brand Community Practices Create Value , 2009 .

[2]  Nicholas Marshall,et al.  Identity and Difference in Complex Projects: Why Boundaries Still Matter in the “Boundaryless” Organization , 2003 .

[3]  J. Creswell.  Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches, 2nd ed. , 2007 .

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

[5]  Nicholas M. Allix.  Book Review: Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 2000 .

[6]  C. Hine.  Virtual Ethnography: Modes, Varieties, Affordances , 2008 .

[7]  JoAnne Yates,et al.  Reconfiguring Boundary Relations: Robotic Innovations in Pharmacy Work , 2012, Organ. Sci..

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

[9]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  Transferring, Translating and Transforming: An Integrative Framework , 2002 .

[10]  Noriko Hara,et al.  Frameworks for understanding knowledge sharing in open online communities: Boundaries and boundary crossing , 2013 .

[11]  Liisa von Hellens,et al.  Illuminating the underground: the reality of unauthorised file sharing , 2015, Inf. Syst. J..

[12]  Karen Jones,et al.  Flashpoints: Studies in Public Disorder , 1989 .

[13]  Thomas C. O'Guinn,et al.  brand community , 2022, The Fairchild Books Dictionary of Fashion.

[14]  Amalya L. Oliver,et al.  A Fresh Look at How Professions Take Shape: Dual-directed Networking Dynamics and Social Boundaries , 2007 .

[15]  A. Bakker,et al.  Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects , 2011 .

[16]  A. Strauss,et al.  The Discovery of Grounded Theory , 1967 .

[17]  Andrew Abbott,et al.  Things of Boundaries , 1995 .

[18]  Bertrand Moingeon,et al.  Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries: A Learning Mix Perspective , 2009 .

[19]  Albert M. Muñiz,et al.  Us Versus Them: Oppositional Brand Loyalty and the Cola Wars , 2001 .

[20]  Edward J. Lawler,et al.  Interaction, Emotion, and Collective Identities , 2003 .

[21]  Timothy S. Clark,et al.  Between Innovation and Legitimation— Boundaries and Knowledge Flow in Management Consultancy , 2009 .

[22]  Sarah Bulloch.  The SAGE handbook of online research methods , 2010 .

[23]  P. Curșeu,et al.  Task and relationship conflict in short-term and long-term groups The critical role of emotion regulation , 2012 .

[24]  James Curran,et al.  Power without responsibility: press, broadcasting and the internet in Britain (7th edition) , 2018 .

[25]  Emmanuelle Vaast,et al.  The Emergence of Boundary Spanning Competence in Practice: Implications for Implementation and Use of Information Systems , 2005, MIS Q..

[26]  Brian S. Butler,et al.  Handling flammable materials: Wikipedia biographies of living persons as contentious objects , 2011, iConference.

[27]  Chris Kimble,et al.  Innovation and knowledge sharing across professional boundaries: Political interplay between boundary objects and brokers , 2010, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[28]  Jeroen Jansz,et al.  Emotional Dissonance , 2002 .

[29]  M. Luedicke,et al.  Consumer Identity Work as Moral Protagonism: How Myth and Ideology Animate a Brand-Mediated Moral Conflict , 2010 .

[30]  K. Plummer.  Documents of life : an introduction to the problems and literature of a humanistic method , 1984 .

[31]  Donald E. Polkinghorne,et al.  Phenomenological research methods. , 1989 .

[32]  M. Lamont,et al.  The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences , 2002 .

[33]  J. Vakkayil.  Boundaries and organizations: a few considerations for research , 2012 .

[34]  Charlotte P. Lee,et al.  Boundary Negotiating Artifacts: Unbinding the Routine of Boundary Objects and Embracing Chaos in Collaborative Work , 2007, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[35]  G. Simmel.  The sociology of Georg Simmel , 1950 .

[36]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries , 2004, Organ. Sci..

[37]  Tor Hernes,et al.  Studying Composite Boundaries: A Framework of Analysis , 2004 .

[38]  VaastEmmanuelle,et al.  The emergence of boundary spanning competence in practice , 2005 .

[39]  Susan E. Chase,et al.  Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices. , 2005 .

[40]  John Campbell,et al.  Conflict and identity shape shifting in an online financial community , 2009, Inf. Syst. J..

[41]  Noriko Yagi,et al.  Boundary work: An interpretive ethnographic perspective on negotiating and leveraging cross-cultural identity , 2011 .