From collaboration to competition: Knowledge sharing in the online cake community

This study shows how an online community became the pivot of an entire new market category in the Netherlands, from which an ever-growing industry emerged. The community developed through three distinct phases, running roughly from 2004-2008, 2008-2011, and 2011-present, which were characterized by changing norms of sociality. The study advances the literature on online communities and knowledge sharing in two ways. First, this historical study traces the development of a market category that has its roots in a small online community. Based on data collected during almost a decade, it paints a rich picture of the knowledge sharing practices that form the basis for the continued development of this online community. As such, the study provides an empirical illustration of the stability-fluidity paradox (Faraj et al., 2011). Second, the study contributes to the literature on new organizational forms (Faraj et al., 2016) by explaining online community stability over time. Online knowledge sharing has over time been complemented by offline knowledge sharing and other emerging practices