Evaluating the effect of rewards on the level of participation in communities of practice at UNDP

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of rewards on the participation and how rewards affect the networking behavior in communities of practice (CoP) in a working environment, in order to explore if rewards can help to foster the growth of CoPs. Four communities of practice, of which one was administered rewards to, were compared from November 2010 to January 2012. The timeframe consisted of a five month reward period. At the end of the period rewards were given to the members contributing most to the community. A comparative analysis was performed as well as a social network analysis for the community rewards were given to. The result showed that the rewards had no significant effect on the participation in the community, neither in contributing more content nor in the networking behavior of the members. The study empirically verified that rewards do not necessarily have to have an effect on communities of practice and demonstrates that when providing rewards, the choice of the reward has to be appropriate and valuable to the community, and the rewards have to be made visible enough for the community to respond.