An empirical study of the motivations for content contribution and community participation in Wikipedia

• We differentiate two types of participation behavior in Wikipedia, which are content contribution and community participation.
• We investigate differential effects of motivations on the two types of behavior.
• Content contribution is more driven by extrinsically oriented motivations.
• Community participation is more driven by intrinsically oriented motivations.

Internet users’ participation and contributions are critical to the growth of Wikipedia. Based on self-determination theory, this study investigates the impacts of several motivational factors on two different types of user behaviors: content contribution and community participation. The research findings show that content contribution is more often driven by extrinsically oriented motivations, including reciprocity and the need for self-development, while community participation is more often driven by intrinsically oriented motivations, including altruism and a sense of belonging to the community. This paper contributes empirically to the research on Wikipedia, and it has practical implications for open content system development and management.