Applying conflict management process to wiki communities

Abstract

Conflicts are disagreements among members and imply incompatible goals, whishes and interests. Unhandled conflicts can negatively impact group performance and members' satisfaction. In virtual communities, members discuss when performing collaboratively online tasks so that conflicts can arise. Wiki communities are popular virtual communities that involve an expressive number of members for the online production of articles. Conflicts in wiki context are then critical, being responsible for damaging articles' quality and even wiki credibility. We propose a management process that includes activities for identification, analysis, response, and monitoring and control of conflicts for wiki communities. In order to explain the activities and evaluate the process, we use Wikipedia. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.