Social Capital in Online Temporary Organizations: Addressing Critical, Complex Tasks through Deliberation

Abstract

Temporary organizations—small, task-focused, time-bound, agile groups—exist in mass collaborations to address tasks outside of existing procedures. Given that mass collaborations are informal and voluntary, this study explores the impact of social network attributes (cohesion and diversity) in temporary organizations on task completion. We suggest that participants’ prior shared experience and demonstrated knowledge of the larger organization in online temporary organizations, traits of cohesion, and working less often with the same people, evidence of diversity, lead to greater likelihood of successful task completion. Contrary to predictions, however, the less consistent the participant contributions, the lower the likelihood of successful task completion.