Adhocratic Governance in the Internet Age: A Case of Wikipedia

In recent years, a new realm has appeared for the study of political and sociological phenomena: the Internet. This article will analyze the decision-making processes of one of the largest online communities, Wikipedia. Founded in 2001, Wikipedia—now among the top-10 most popular sites on the Internet—has succeeded in attracting and organizing millions of volunteers and creating the world's largest encyclopedia. To date, however, little study has been done of Wikipedia's governance. There is substantial confusion about its decision-making structure. The organization's governance has been compared to many decision-making and political systems—from democracy to dictatorship, from bureaucracy to anarchy. It is the purpose of this article to go beyond the earlier simplistic descriptions of Wikipedia's governance in order to advance the study of online governance, and of organizations more generally. As the evidence will show, while Wikipedia's governance shows elements common to many traditional governance models, it appears to be closest to the organizational structure known as adhocracy.