Celebrity Leadership in Open Collaboration Movement

As Coleman observes (2011), open collaboration communities can rely on two diametrically different leadership philosophies: with a charismatic, celebrity leader (WikiLeaks, Wikipedia, to some extent Linux) or with no clear leader at all, or leadership passed from person to person (the Anonymous, Debian).

 I would like to present the results of a long-term, participative, ethnographic study of Wikipedia community, and the role of Jimbo Wales in organizational culture development. I want to show how “benevolent dictatorship” (Raymond, 1998, 1999/2004) model on one hand contradicts the a-, or anti-hierarchical ethos of Wikipedia. Through a case study of development of Jimmy Wales role in Wikimedia community, I am going to show that in principle, “F/LOS communities only tolerate an individual’s exercise of authority over her areas of expertise” (Mateos-Garcia & Steinmueller, 2008, p. 342), with a possible exception to recognizing also organizing skills (Yoo & Alavi, 2004; Carte, Chidambaram, & Becker, 2006). I am also going to show that leaders in open collaboration movements have to carefully and sparingly accumulate merit and charisma (Reagle, 2010), and that they can lose it overnight, after one careless blunder. I am going to seek conclusions for the pros and cons of celebrity leadership, and describe the current role of Jimmy Wales, who gained real momentum and increased his influence only after he resigned from performing most of active duties on Wikipedia.

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