Discussion

Abstract

The study presented in this part was motivated by important limitations in the academic literature on social capital and innovation communities. The model presented builds upon findings derived out of multiple case studies presented in part III as well as theoretical arguments of extant literature on social capital and innovation communities. More specifically, while social capital theorists have advocated for the importance of personality as an antecedent of social capital (Klein et al., 2004), there is, to the best of my knowledge, no study that tests the relationship between personality and the interrelated dimensions of social capital in innovation communities on a quantitative basis. Furthermore, as community members operate on a voluntary basis, there is consensus that both intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivations are important facets in innovation communities (Janzik, 2010). As qualitative analysis in part III revealed, the extent to which members build social networks within innovation communities is contingent upon these motivational aspects.