Virtual internet communities and commercial success: individual and community-level theory grounded in the atypical case of TimeZone.com
以手表爱好者社区TimeZone.com为案例，研究虚拟社区中成员行为（如线下交流、体验、对管理的感知等）如何影响其在线交易，并探讨社区特征（规模、可扩展性、管理水平）与商业成功的关系。
One potentially powerful way of organizing in the new Internet world is through the medium of the virtual Internet community. An effectively managed virtual community provides economic gains to the community organizer and to its members. We attempt to build theory grounded in the study of TimeZone.com, a virtual Internet community devoted to wristwatch hobbyists and enthusiasts. We argue that a member’s off-site communication, experience, perceived value of site management, content, and collectively held knowledge are positively associated with a member’s e-based economic transactions within this virtual community. Building on our theorizing attempts at the individual level, we develop propositions at the organizational level that relate characteristics of virtual Internet communities (membership size, scalability, and level of site management) to commercial success.