Economics of Virtual Communities - A Financial Analysis of a Case Study at the Berlin Stock Exchange

New web based technologies such as social software enables users to interact and collaborate over the internet. Virtual communities are set up by companies in order to bridge the gap between customers and companies and thus serve as a customer relationship management tool. As a result of a continuous dialogue with customers or with companies' employees innovations and improvements of products and processes can be generated. Despite intensive discussions about the technical aspects of virtual communities and their value proposition, hardly any research explicitly addresses a financial perspective. Thus, the objective of this paper is therefore to develop a measurement system for the financial performance of a virtual community platform reflecting specific economic conditions relevant in a certain situation. As a proof of concept, the theoretical model is then applied to a case study conducted at the Berlin stock exchange.