Sarah Van Oerle

Coordinating online health communities for cognitive and affective value creation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework investigating patterns of online health communities. In particular, the study draws on coordination theory to identify four community configurations. Their distinct features determine communities’ capacity to internalize and externalize knowledge, which ultimately determines their value creation in a service context. Design/methodology/approach – The authors apply qualitative and quantitative techniques to detect similarities and differences in a sample of 50 online health communities. A categorical principal component analysis combined with cluster analysis reveals four distinct community configurations. Findings – The analysis reveals differences in the degrees of cognitive and affective value creation, the types of community activities, the involved patients, professionals, and other stakeholders; and the levels of data disclosure by community members. Four community configurations emerge: basic information provider, advanced patient knowled...