COM Research Seminar: Institutions and Collective Action in an Information Commons: The Case of China's Baidu Baike by Prof Kwan Nok CHAN
04 Nov 2024 (Mon)
On November 4, 2024, Associate Professor Kwan Nok Chan from the Department of Politics and Public Administration at The University of Hong Kong delivered a compelling seminar titled "Institutions and Collective Action in an Information Commons: The Case of China's Baidu Baike."
In this seminar, Prof. Chan explored the complex rule systems that govern the production and maintenance of shared resources, specifically through the lens of Baidu Baike, China’s largest online encyclopedia. Managed by volunteer user groups who collaboratively compose and edit content, this platform serves as a rich case study for examining the impact of institutional rules on collaborative efforts in information commons. Prof. Chan’s research utilizes a unique dataset to test hypotheses about how different rule types and their configurations affect the efficiency and effectiveness of these collaborative groups. His findings indicate that integrating new rule types can significantly enhance group performance, in terms of both the quantity and quality of articles produced. However, the expansion of existing rule types shows mixed results: information and choice rules benefit the collaborative output, while aggregation and payoff rules potentially undermine it. The analysis also suggests that groups with diverse rule sets tend to outperform those with less variety, and that frequent rule changes do not necessarily hinder group performance. The seminar attracted around 20 PhD students and faculty members who engaged actively with the material and contributed to a thought-provoking discussion.
