The Role of Imaginaries in the Governance of Online Communities of Creation: A Netnographic Study

Online communities (OCs) of creation are powerful innovation sources that that are highly valued by private sector organizations and have prompted the adoption of various governance models. However, OCs lacking corporate sponsorship also arise spontaneously on social media to address pressing societal problems. These independently forming, evolving, and self-organizing entities are capable of engendering innovative solutions to such problems. Our study empirically investigates the interplay between governance and innovation in such online communities of creation by employing an immersive netnography, focussed on a long-standing urban planning controversy, the so-called ‘Big Worm’ in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Our findings show how imaginaries related to this controversy played a crucial role in the spontaneous formation of online communities of creation, fostering solution development, and helping to guide self-organized interactions based on community creativity. Our study underscores the role of imaginaries in self-organization, contrasting this with firm-sponsored governance models. We conclude that imaginaries enable unsponsored communities of creation to demonstrate the ability to self-organize and generate innovative solutions, contributing to both the private sector and civil society outcomes.