Grasping the business value of online communities

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the definitions, dimensions, and classifications of online communities together with their potential to produce value for business. Those value options are then discussed in the context of empirical vignettes showing examples of business models focussed on one of the two potential benefits coming from online communities – clear financial gains and intangible long-run returns.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses systematic literature review method. In total, 67 academic paper in the area of business and management were chosen for the analysis.

Findings: The literature review shows multitude of online communities definitions and classifications, but hardly any comprehensive attempt to map the phenomena in full. This paper is looking into recognising potential revenue streams from online businesses and other non-financial benefits that can be combined to create strong and sustainable value proposition.

Originality/value: Drawing on the literature reviewed a novel categorisation of the commercial opportunities offered by the online communities is presented. These opportunities are discussed in a context of business model design.